Friday, October 14, 2005

The Craftsman Approach to Web Design

We're in the process of becoming homeowners again, this time in San Francisco.  It's a 1911 Edwardian, a style related in era to the Arts and Crafts (or Craftsman) arts and architecture movement.  Edwardians are much less ornate than Victorians, but not to the level of organic simplicity of Craftsman homes, which are all about organic simplicity.





Escrow is a stressful period, but it's also filled with anticipation of new beginnings.  To get some ideas and have fun looking at old pictures, Rebecca and I busted out our old home books the other night, including a reproduction of Gustav Stickley's 1912 More Craftsman Homes.



While reading Stickley's preface, I was struck by language that sounded like it could have been written in 2005 about web application design:


"The Craftsman type of building is largely the result not of elaboration, but of elimination.  The more I design, the more sure I am that elimination is the secret of beauty in architecture.  By this I do not mean that I want to think scantily and work meagerly.  Rather, I feel that one should plan richly and fully, and then begin to prune, to weed, to shear away everything that seems superfluous and superficial."



-Gustav Stickley, 1912

Like they say, good design never goes out of style.  That said, it's definitely easier said than done, whether in a home or on the web.



 



3 comments:

bathurst website design said...

bathurst website design

Professional web design Specialist said...

i agree. tis a good design..well done!

Helen said...

I often compare web design with home decor. That's the same personally for me. And making your home a nice and warm place to live in is very exhiting and some times challenging the same as with web design)