I was doing some research recently and came across John Maeda’s site lawsofsimplicity.com.  I had read the book a while back, and unfortunately it looks like the project has fallen off a bit since he took over at RISD.  Regardless, John Maeda is one of the more interesting designers I’ve come across and I love his perspective on things.

He made a statement in an interview about a year ago which has really stuck with me.   It actually is an idea of Roger Martin’s related to Opposable Minds, but that will really get me off on a tangent…  To paraphrase, Maeda was saying that he uses the creative side of the brain to develop an idea, and then uses the logical side of the brain when he needs to make what he is doing understandable... “Brain Surfing” of a sort between the left and right sides of the brain. 

That idea can be interpreted in all kinds of ways, across all kinds of fields (when you really think about it),  depending on the accepted ideas of logic and creativity within a field.  Historically, my situations lend to coming up with a "creative" way to do something, and then trying to put my ideas into a logical, understandable, format so that others can do the same thing, consistently, and easily.  These days, the statement comes to mind as I work on creating functional websites.

It is a given that a website needs to look good.  It’s only logical right?  I think the idea of creativity is often incorrectly reduced to the idea of aesthetics.  People think that the creative’s only job is to make the site look good.  That really isn’t the case anymore.  Most people think of the web design process as coming up with a site that looks good, and then adding functionality (calls to action, user access, support information, etc.).  At the end of the day, your web site needs to do something (get people to call you, provide a service, etc.), and that is where the design process should start.

My point is that the creative process of designing a web sites includes figuring out exactly what a site should do, and how to fit it into a site (a site, not a page) so that it looks good.  Then the logical process is figuring out how to get your ideas to make sense to others… To get them to understand what you want them to do.  You should be bouncing back and forth, saying to yourself, this looks great, but how will it be interpreted?  Does it get my point across?  Will the visitor know what I’m trying to get them to do or am I confusing them?  The definition of creativity within the web design field is changing as online marketing strategies and social media outlets grow and change.  As the definitions and fields change, don’t forget to use your brain… both sides of it… ;-)