I could have done that

People who know me, or know my Facebook profile, are aware of my huge fondness, love and admiration for the work of Mark Rothko. Nothing, therefore, annoys me more than when people say: “Hey, I could have done this”. First of all because it’s not true, and second, hey, then why didn’t you?

Behind this misconception is the idea that because something is simple, it must therefore be simple to make. Which, as we all know when we think about it, is completely untrue, and in fact, just the reverse. It takes craftsmanship and tough choices to make something simple.

So why then am I writing about modern art and the virtue of simplicity? Because, since today, our new website is online, and simplicity was a topic in a recent discussion about the design of it …

The question was: isn’t this new design too simple? Doesn’t it look like something a bunch of college kids could have thrown together, with the help of YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and above all, WordPress? Is it, in other words, professional-looking enough?

I had and have tow answers to that.

First, babycakes, that’s what the Internet is about, these days. It’s stupid to want to invent stuff that you’re never going to be so good at as others, that everyone is already using anyway. So why spent time and money to make a picture-upload-application that is never going to be near the usability of Flickr, that people are going to prefer over your pathetic try anyhow?

But my second answer is more fundamental, and is revealing for the kind of agency we want to be (and, to my contentment, to a large extent already are).  That is, our website is not about us. It’s about its users. If we want to show what we can do, by using very complex and elaborate layouts and animations, thenthe message we’re conveying is that our showing off is more important than your comfort. Which is not a good message as a service company, but even worse as an ad agency. Because you can be sure that our advertising will also be more self-congratulatory than effective.

Reminds me of the distinction the bloggers at Zeus Jones made between advertising and design. I especially like this thought: “Things that are designed to help you do something can be beautiful and elegant but shouldn’t necessarily call attention to themselves, otherwise that interferes with their real purpose.”

Turns out we’re a design studio rather than an ad agency …