I am working on a passion project of mine that is actually a venture into the fashion/modeling industry and thanks to being able to code I got there! However, here is one thing I am struggling with and what I decided to do about it.
I am sacrificing UX for UI. That’s what high fashion does anyway. A design that is ugly to you may not be ugly to fashion designers. The gaudy tacky stuff that Moschino makes? Iconic to me. Maybe ugly as HECK to you. Art is subjective and CODING IS AN ART!!! Which is why some parts of coding like design is subjective!!! We will not collectively like the same things and that’s GREAT ACTUALLY because we are supposed to have different tastes.
Design is cultural. Compare fashion magazines from eastern cultures to fashion magazines in western cultures . WOW THEY ARE SO DIFFERENT!!! WHY??? Because design is SUBJECTIVE!!!
I got feedback from family members telling me “hey slow that animation down a bit…” but to be honest the point was to have it “fast like flash” because that’s the EXACT VIBE I wanted to convey. So maybe my work is “uncomfortable” to look at. But I am trying to make something “experimental” anyway. Sorry if this post was weird but I just want to say sometimes it really is subjective and while you should always listen to feedback- it honestly depends because if you were genuinely going for something wack…THEN LET IT BE WACK!!! Even if 100000 people hate your art there will always be ONE person who probably likes it!
You can have both. I’m not trying to advocate for the extreme but one thing I learned from designs from my favorite indie magazines is that it’s okay to make some people uncomfortable. Obviously it’s best to have both but I think it’s okay to be a bit “too much” too.
maybe, maybe not, that’s why many websites go through lots of A/B testing to figure out what users like most, so you don’t guess, you base it on the data.
What you are describing is the conflict web developers face with product designers, UI designers, UX designers, marketing, business owners, clients, customers, and others.
Here is some advice I gave you earlier:
You cannot make everyone happy at the same time. Sometimes you’ll need to make compromises. As @ILM suggested this is where feedback and A/B testing can help make meaningful decisions.
But first you need to present a canvas, for example an ironic canvas for “Moschino”. This Italian luxury fashion house was founded in the 1980s and is still around. Let the client take care of strategy, focus on delivering a small window into their world.
Yes I understand for clients it’s about them and making them comfortable. I was mostly talking about my own personal project. True, but Moschino started out being hated on and called tacky (still are called tacky today). It was ironic use in “the nanny.” Like Fran Fine was supposed to be the weirdo fashion wise but now it’s considered luxury.
If people are paying me of course I will do whatever they want! But yeah I just meant for my personal project I am trying to make it different. Thanks for the replies and feedback Teller and ILM : )
For your personal project here are some areas to consider:
performance: Does the page load fast?
accessibility: Many developer portfolio sites focus on aesthetics, but do not balance that with functionality. Doing so will help you stand out.
niche focus: What problem does your personal project solve?
Fran’s wardrobe was supposed to contrast with the formal and reserved look of the rest of the Sheffield household. I think the show won an award for the costumes.
Also, research the target audience for your personal project. See what insights you can incorporate into your design.
Performance…yes so far it’s going good and I can improve it even further and I’ll actually be trying to switch over to Astro and yes I do try my best to cut out things that cause clunkiness or chunkiness.
accessibility…yeah…I do try to make it easy to navigate because I know how painful it is as a person that loves indie mags and looking over personal sites from big figures but seeing it being hard for me to navigate has annoyed me personally. So yeah I understand this is super super important. One thing that I thought was weird was this certain high profile agency had a ticker BLOCKING EVERYTHING MAKING IT HARD TO READ!!! I understand stylistic choice but this was annoying!!! So yeah functionality is so important!!! Why have something so cool looking but not easy to use
Yeah it’s very niche unfortunately I am scared it is too niche but we will see and I will update though I don’t want to spill the beans on what it is since it’s a new idea…
Yeah that’s true about Fran. I didn’t know you would know about that and stuff about fashion!