In The Non-Designer's Design Book, Robin Williams makes the case for attractive and exciting, in advertising, as opposed to bland and boring. Obviously, effective advertising is an essential component for any successful business. I appreciate the fact that Williams wrote this book for people who need to use advertising strategies on a daily basis, but who may not know the first thing about graphic design or marketing technique (or even good taste!). I was impressed at her "nuts and bolts" approach, and her practical advice concerning the real-life application of design principles. 

I decided to do a little web-searching to find other design "tutorials" and see how they measure up. There seem to be some excellent online resources for this type of thing, but there are also some that fall short. My favorite is turnkeyflyers.com. I initially found this youtube video, in which the argument is made that creating an exciting and attractive flyer for real estate purposes should be a priority. If your flyer is bland, they say, it will have a negative affect on your business. True enough. Here's the video:

 

My initial response to this video was, "wow, this is boring and bland," but I assumed their area of expertise is in making exciting flyers, not thrilling videos. So I decided to click on the link to the actual website for TurnKeyFlyers. This is what I found:

Not only is this website boring and bland, it also violates several of the basic design principles in Williams' book. I was especially amused at the irony of their preaching versus their practice. TurnKeyFlyers might consider revamping their website, before making heady claims about "presentation."

     I think Weinberger does an excellent job of laying out the pros/cons of our traditional methods of classification. Obviously, the Dewey Decimal System is error prone and, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't make much sense. I was interested to read about the practices of most libraries in Europe, in which the stacks are closed off, and the librarians must fetch the book for you. I assume this method has been utilized in at least some American libraries in the past, because there's a scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's in which Paul Varjak takes Holly Golightly to the library and shows her how to request a book. I was always intrigued by this idea, although I'm still in two minds about it. I've always loved to wander through the stacks in the library, and if I'm there for recreational purposes, then I usually don't have a particular book in mind. As a child, I would often choose books based mainly on their appearance, and I enjoyed finding the "prettiest" books in the stacks. This is some of the charm, in my opinion, of a library. The alternative may be more efficient, but until libraries can come up with a more sophisticated search method, the stacks should probably remain open. The possibility of a more sophisticated way of searching, however, is become more and more real, as is evident from the discussion of various online classification systems in Everything is Miscellaneous. Amazon's search/classification system is, it seems, highly efficient, and also has the advantage of being visual. The "search inside this book" feature is also useful, and gives the customer the ability to really "see" the book, beyond a thumbnail view of the front cover.  

     One of my favorite websites to visit is Etsy. I like it because of its content, obviously, but also because it is easily navigable and searchable, if I'm looking for something specific. At the same time, if I feel like browsing, I can do so by a variety of methods. My favorite browsing method is the color search, which allows me to find anything on the site that comes in the particular shade I'm looking for. Etsy is reliant on a good deal of cross-categorization, and the vendors on the site are able to control how their product is presented, and where.