Mark Wunsch

One of the gems from the previously posted Design Q & A with Charles Eames is:

“Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints.”

All designers, industrial or web, must accept and work within constraints. The constraints that I had to work within to build this site are what informs its design. I wanted the design of this site to call attention to these constraints, not to understate them.

The decisions I made in designing and creating this site were largely due to my work environment. At my office whilst working with clients, I am surrounded by an abundance of computing power and no matter where I turn, I will never be able to escape an Adobe product. This is great...at my office. However, at home, I am living with my 8 year-old 533 MHz G4. It’s a delightfully rugged old machine. 8 years is a remarkable lifespan for a computer, a testament to Apple, to be sure. It is running Panther (that’s 10.3) and is getting weak in the knees. Normally, my routine to check my email is to boot up the computer, start Firefox, and then age wine in an oak cask. Usually by then I can check my email. I dare not open my copy of Photoshop 7, lest my wine turn to vinegar. My computer is slow. To put some context into it, 8 years ago this was like the coolest thing on my block. I originally wanted to get that G4 cube, but it was discontinued, oh well, just have to get the tower. It was my first Mac after a several-year-long campaign by my friend Jeff who won me over when OSX was released. Before that, I was building websites in HomeSite on my Packard Bell—it was an upgrade, to say the least. Today’s newest 3.06 GHZ iMacs are roughly 5 times faster than my G4. Envious? Yeah, a little.

So when I began creating this website I knew that I wanted to work within my computer’s limitations, and not try to push it to hard. I’m not sure how long I’ll be with ol’ G4 (I don’t name my computers, as much as I long to be like the hackers in movies), but I didn’t want this to be it’s last race. That in mind, I knew that the website I wanted to create would need to be minimalist. I wanted to keep the use of imagery to a total low. Imposing this constraint opened the door to the elastic design, and rich typography. The only imagery on the site comes in the form of the Silk Icons.

The color was also defined by my workspace limitations. At home, I’ve tried to many amateurish adjustments of my monitor, resulting in a monitor that is unusually bright. The whites really burn everything. It’s a challenge to work on. I also come from a film & broadcasting background, where vector scopes must be monitored to ensure a picture is broadcast legal. So I went with the less popular white on dark grey background, which I think plays up some of the letter forms of Trebuchet MS.

Overall, the constraints that I worked within to create this site should be very evident in its viewing. I wanted to call attention to the fact that even with an obsolete machine, CSS is an incredibly powerful design tool. Maybe, don’t be so quick to critique browser support or font limitations, and stay your hand when you’re really itching to add in that gradient. Chances are, if you accept your constraints, you will reach a solution that is not only elegant and beautiful, but also makes best use of the power of web standards.