CHICAGO – I recently spent an afternoon at the Art Institute of Chicago, admiring, among many other works, the museum’s famed “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” the impressionist masterpiece by Georges-Pierre Seurat.
What on Earth does this have to do with online journalism?, I hear you ask.
Plenty. For starters, Seurat’s use of pointillism might be considered the intellectual catalyst behind the pixilation that makes all broadcast imagery, including Web pages, possible. Standing in front of this work forces the viewer to consider how countless multiple parts can come together to create a coherent whole.
And isn’t that something a Web designer ought to be doing all the time?
As I look at Seurat’s work, my eyes go first toward the sunlit shoreline in the middle-left of the work. My eye follows the shoreline up and to the right, where it encounters the faces of the couple that dominates the right-hand side of the painting.
My eye tracks down their bodies, noting their lack of facial expression, their ram-rod straight posture. A boutonniere on the gentleman and a flower on the hat of the lady provide the only splashes of color on their attire. She’s holding a leash, upon which is… what is this? A monkey?
Perhaps there is more to this couple than I considered from my initial impression. A running dog, next to the monkey, grabs my attention and draws it toward the casually-dressed smoker, lying next to another couple. The bright sunlight behind them draws my attention up, and the cycle begins again.
I stared at the painting for at least 20 minutes, my eyes cycling around the image again and again, finding new details with each trip around the canvas. This is what great, coherent design should do – to provide each individual element in a way that not only rewards the reader’s attention to that element, but that also then directs the reader to another element on the page, and to do so in a way that creates an ever-continuing cycle, where the reader never feels the need to leave the page.
What do you see when you look at Seurat’s work? When was the last time you stood in front of a great work of art?
Obviously, a website isn’t a painting. We don’t publish just single images, but collections of pages, through which we want people to click, to read and sometimes, to interact by commenting, voting in a survey or creating content of their own. The design functionality of a website demands consideration of many more visual factors than in a single painting.
But great design and visual artistry, whatever the specific format, can inspire anyone charged with creating a website that attracts and retains visitors. As writers need to read great works to refresh and inspire their spirit, designers (who should consider themselves visual artists), must spend time with great art, as well.
Too often, website design begins as the creative work of an inspired individual or small team. But by the time several layers of management have “checked off” on the project, the design’s coherence is lost. The typical newspaper website provides not one, but dozens of potential points of visual entry, with no clear path for the eye, as I found in Seurat’s work.
As a result, the reader is left confused, leading to frustration and the eventual abandonment of the website. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that “pretty” websites are immune from this fate, either. I’ve seen plenty of websites (and paintings, for that matter) that appeared gorgeous at first glance, yet didn’t hold my attention for more than that first moment. Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon” works for me because it offers a visual pathway to keep me engaged with the work. Artistry isn’t the antonym of usability: Great art offers viewers a “way in” to the work. As should your website.
So what’s an online journalist to do?
Individual online journalist/publishers don’t have to face meddling bosses. But most solo publishers I know aren’t designers or artists, either. So they rely on stock templates or themes, which typically provide a more clear point of entry and visual pathway than cluttered newspaper-dot-com sites, but often fail to offer the inspired originality needed to stand out and command a reader’s undivided attention.
For solo publishers, I’ve long recommended getting to know as much as you can make yourself learn about every element of producing your website, from image creation, HTML markup, CMS scripting and server protocols. You don’t need to become an expert in all, but you shouldn’t continue your online publishing career with a rookie’s technical skills, either. Developing some expertise allows you the flexibility to express creativity in your site’s design that others without technical skills cannot express.
But never forget to find time to be inspired. Whether you work alone or in a large organization, seek out places such as art museums, where you can spend time admiring and understanding the visual works of others. If you are part of a large design group, invite those managers “up the chain,” who’ll be making decisions about your work, to join you.
Never cheapen your work by saying “it’s just a website.” Always strive for excellence in what you do, to reward your website visitors the way that “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” continues to reward viewers today. No, you probably won’t achieve that level of excellence, but your work will be better for the attempts.
Postscript: I also enjoyed this painting at the Art Institute of Chicago:
It’s “Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne” by Paul Gauguin. The background of this work is Gauguin’s copy of Cézanne’s “Still Life with Fruit Dish” (which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, according to the note at the Art Institute). Just a reminder that mash-ups are not a new phenomenon, and that artists for generations have been copying others’ efforts to create new works.
About Robert Niles
