What are the laws of design?
Posted 8 July 2007, by Aaron
As my blogging life has blossomed, I have come across more and more so-called ‘memes’. When I first heard the term I confess I didn’t really know what it meant. So I looked it up in the dictionary:
meme -noun
A cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.
Which didn’t really clear things up. So when I was asked to provide five productivity tips, and then for eight random facts about me, I just did it. And it was fun.
The latest meme I’ve been tagged with is Marc Rapp’s idea on laws and rules. Marc wants tagees (I know that’s not a word, but I think the mainstream use of ‘meme’ requires it to be added to the dictionary) to supply “something with creative value… some small tidbit of information other creatives might have picked up through their professional experience”.
Now, I’ve been scratching my head with how to answer this one, because I honestly don’t know how to. I suppose I could dig around in Google and quote some model or other and pretend I know what I’m talking about. Or I could write a few paragraphs about ‘sod’s law‘ - something I do know a great deal about. But the more I think about it, the more I come to the following conclusion: there are no laws to design, and nor should there be any.
Design is not a science, so there can not and should not be any definitive rights and wrongs. People can make recommendations and best practice tips that they’ve picked up through years of experience, and these are worth learning if you’re young and inexperienced like me. But as soon as these start becoming laws and rules, limitations and constrictions are put in place, and worse still, people’s expectations are funnelled to a narrow perspective.
I suppose a fine example of my point would be the London 2012 logo. Without getting in to the debate of whether it’s any good or not, we can agree that the logo has broken every rule that was ever written about logo design. Most people are of the opinion that the logo sucks because it breaks all the rules. I personally defended the logo because it broke the rules - that’s what designers should do!
We can write a list of laws and rules, but I think this damages design. Why not mix it up and use four or five typefaces on one document? And what the hell is wrong with Comic Sans? Why is that colour combination incompatible? And why shouldn’t I use frames on a website?
I’m sure we could all quite easily answer these questions with some conviction as to why it is right to follow the established rules. It is more challenging to think about ways we could break the rules. But that is the challenge of the designer.
Now think about it, and discuss. 
Are there any laws of design?
And should we follow them?
Many thanks to Marc for including me. I realise I’ve completely turned this ‘cultural item’ on its head, but I haven’t missed the point. It’s a great meme, and one I’d like to forward on. But please try and answer Marc’s original post, rather than my slightly mutilated take on it.
Tagging:
As always, muchos gracias for the recent comments: Paul, Sera, Scot and David.
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Asgeir Hoem
9 July 2007, 12:45 am