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Andy Rutledge : Design View

Unit Interactive is HiringJanuary 7

Unit Interactive, the agency I run with my partner Angela Conlon, is in search of America's Next Unitard. As I predicted a few weeks ago, business is booming for little agencies; at least that's the impression we're getting at ours …and thank the Lord. We would like to bring on a new team member and hope that someone reading this may fit the bill. We are looking for a Web designer/front-end developer to join our tight-knit family of Unitards (get it, “tight knit?” Har!) in our Plano, TX office. Required qualifications include…

Complex Order, Simple ChaosJanuary 5

…Now, it is not my purpose here to broadly incriminate efforts at simplification, but I put it to you that in many cases recommendations toward simplicity are the lazy/shallow man’s answer to design. Complexity is seldom problematic …in anything. But where complexity would seem to be a problem, it’s likely that order, not simplicity, should be imposed. Complexity is often inherent in or even vital to the success of a product, application, or website experience. To design-away that vital complexity is to damage the product and the user experience. And perhaps the human experience…

Gestalt Principles of Perception: 1 - Figure Ground RelationshipsDecember 9 2008

Why learn this stuff? At the risk of sounding like a late night TV commercial, Gestalt principles of perception help to take the guesswork out of design. For instance, once the page content is defined and the communicative objectives are known, Gestalt principles make clear how to distribute elements on the page, when and why to use line delineation, background shading, a gradient, or when and why to group things in an enclosure (or not). Once you understand Gestalt principles, design becomes much simpler and your creative ideas will enjoy a far more effective articulation…

Web 0.2November 10 2008

I suspect the next year or two will be the best time ever for freelance designers and developers, and even for small agencies in the US. But only the most savvy and professional freelancers will be able to survive the economy we’re entering. Small businesses have had certain advantages ever since the advent of the Web, but I believe we’re entering primetime for agile and opportunistic squirrels, as the larger beasts lumber and sputter along. I think the coming years will in many ways be a return to the early days and wide-open frontier of Web design and development business. Web 0.2. This situation favors free agents, and here’s why.…

The Design of (the wrong sort of) DissentOctober 19 2008

I often read about and hear about how designers must have the courage to speak truth to power and how political dissent is one pillar of patriotism. These are tenets I firmly believe in, by the way. But I also find laughable the way many designers think they’re speaking truth to power by creating or showcasing design examples of Leftist political dissent, in books, in magazines, and on personal websites and blogs. I’m struck by how anyone in the design community can believe it takes courage to do these things when there is zero chance of suffering any negative consequences for doing so…