Is WordPress Killing Web Design?
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- kalkal0
I love the days before the popular CMS systems.
Geocities... scrolling marquees.... animated gifs... flashing text.
Those were the days.
- lukus_W0
It's not true .. these CMSs provide a framework - if a designer's / developer's ideas are stagnant it's not the tools that are at fault.
It seems that most of us have been brought up with a slightly puritanical work ethic, which has the effect of telling us that unless a great deal of work has been expunged from our souls at all stages of the process, we don't deserve credit.
I don't believe this is entirely fair.
Web development is becoming exponentially more complex, rich and the possibilities are growing pretty much every day. There is no merit in reinventing the wheel - and there is much to be said for pooling resources with others. Open-source CMSs tackle both of these ideas head on.
I strongly believe that the biggest challenge to innovation is us - and our own blinkered minds .. and that maybe this is discussion is basically an extension of the idiom involving 'workmen blaming tools'.
Most CMSs can do practically _anything_ if you learn how to use them properly.
I don't think it's surprising that people are regurgitating very similar sites - think about any other medium and you'll be able to track how similar patterns developed and crystallised in other industries. TV, film and print all involve established conventions - and the last majority of practitioners following close to the rules.
The difference with the web is that the conventions are evolving far faster - and the exciting part to this, is that those conventions can be influenced by regular designers and developers.
We are the problem .. if we start to think more laterally about the problems we face when publishing on the web, we might be able to be the solution too.
- plash0
i think the problem is the "one button click" trend. not that i'm not guilty of using short cuts but it would seem that the technology is simplifying the process that now simple people utilizes it.
CMS simplified the process of websites so much that now you can create all the back-end/front-end in near minutes. mind you often times it is an overkill. why create static pages when i can use wordpress to create my source code. why create custom themes when i can hack and slash a pre existing one. I have worked with way too many small web companies that take the approve that every solution should use a cms.
i see it in happening everywhere.
- iamaracinghorse0
I've never understood how people can complain that WordPress (or really, any CMS or library where you have unfettered access to the source code) limits their creativity. I mean, you can make it do anything you want, within the limits of the programming language.
- BattleAxe0
legos
- sherm0
view this
http://www.alvinmilton.com/clien…I still have a ways to go with regard to image optimization here.
the client has multiple images collated into one image so it loads slowly but if you viewed.. its wordpress.Each "category" is actually a separate page.
I wrote some js that just full bleeds each image.That said wp doesn't limit creativity, granted this site isn't anything fancy or even finished but it shows you can do what you want with wp.
I used wp so the client can edit pics when ever the f she wants without buggin me about it.
- ernexbcn0
Wordpress killed my cat, true story
- Have you seen that video of wordpress putting a cat in a bin?georgesIII
- but will it blendBattleAxe
- ?BattleAxe
- at least WordPress doesn't throw puppies into a lakevaxorcist
- ukit0
Technology has always been a push and pull between creativity and standardization. We all understand instantly how creativity is good but standardization is actually just as important in terms of pushing things forward. When the printing press was invented I'm sure the people who made books whined and said it would kill book design, that idea would now seem stupid. Society doesn't value the process of making books, it values reading them.
Obviously Wordpress isn't an exact analogue of the printing press, and its not as big of a leap forward, but it's the latest tool that puts web publishing in the hands of the masses (and makes life easier for some designers who know how to use it without churning out lookalike sites). The big numbers of crappy theme websites are kind of beside the point. The important trend is web publishing being democratized and if there's one thing you can bet on it's that Wordpress 5 years from now, or the thing that kills Wordpress, will offer more flexibility and customization and be even more of a threat to our traditional way of doing things.
What that says to me is that if you think you can sit around churning out the same static HTML websites the rest of your career and think you'll get paid the same amount, you are being pretty foolish. Yes, the popularity of Wordpress and similar tools will devalue that but its just an inevitable part of progress.
- dMullins0
Why are we having this conversation again?
- ukit0
I don't think this was actually discussed before...
- Pupsipu0
Every tool has this effect. It's a subtle influence for each individual, but when applied to large groups, it builds up into something horribly obvious.
Flash is the same way. It makes animations easy and people animate because they can't think of anything else to do despite murdering load time, performance and usability. The path of least resistance in a tool is what its users will choose overall.
If you want to solve the problems of wordpress, make a new tool, have a larger variety of example templates, make it easier to customize, etc.. Then you'll see more "creativity."
Tools are the most important part, the biggest inspiration for what can be done, the largest influence on what you do. Saying it's a "lack of imagination" while true, won't help. Most of your imagination is in the tools.
- inteliboy0
They seem to be pointing towards designers and people from print being the problem...
Personally I've found it's the "web development" companies that are spitting out bad wordpress/joomla/etc websites - basically a bunch of programmer and business development types pretending to be web design agencies.
Anyway, I dunno - good discussion - but there has always been bad web design, and always will be, but I'd say things are getting better and better.
- onekid0
We designed the entire Stussy.com site on wordpress and Magento. Hacked a bit to pull into flash but honestly, anything is possible. Over all, we are using word press more and more to put out projects. We recently launched a site for clothing company called www.rebel8.com in html.
I am a fan of the power of wordpress and a huge design nerd but in the end, it is just an easy CMS to build on that has many features built in.
- herzo0
Most inconclusive video ever.
- vaxorcist0
well.... one idea... WP and similar make it hard to justify writing a CMS backend from scratch these days, so the client expects the backend to "already work" vs in the past it was often 40-400 hours ....
and the old-school AD agency method of showing screenshots to client, then having designer cut them into css, then handing to developer to make a custom CMS was never quite that great anyway when the client suddenly decided they wanted something else... these days we can simply say "that's not a function in this CMS" and it helps to stop the random ideas sometimes....
- spraycanII0
WP is not good for your neurons.
- mnmlst0
Dumb argument.
CMS systems don't make bad designs, people make bad designs. If you're too lazy to bend a system too your will, that's your fault.
The discussion should be, "do CMS systems make some designers lazy?" Yes. But not the good ones. This whole discussion seems useless and fabricated to make controversy where there is none.
- auxillary0
+10 with the above!
- raf0
Wordpress has quite limited configurability out of the box and when you customize it heavily it usually becomes a maze for the client when he wants to update something via wp admin panel.
Then the client, afraid to break something, asks you to do his updates for which you bill him accordingly. It is some strategy, isn't it?