Humans put labels on everything. There seems a deep psychological need to wrap things up in a box and put a big bow and card saying ‘thing’ on it. We file things in our mind under categories and make sense of the world through nouns. Mr Caveman probably came across a rock and stared at it in great puzzlement until he uttered ‘ugh rock’ then the world made more sense and he stopped hitting Mrs Caveman over the head which made her feel much better, a feeling she labeled ‘happy’. We label our lives, our roles, our pets, our emotions, if it moves put a label on it and if it doesn’t whack one on to be safe.
In design the labeling continues. As a designer you are labeled as this style or that style. As a web designer you’ve got web 1, web 2.0, web 3.0 and a whole host of jargon labels to drown in. As a basic human need it makes sense to label as we use language. That is, this is, over there is a … and so on. What doesn’t make sense is the level it is taken to. One of my issues is the almost fanatical smacking of labels on anything produced. When you are talking designers the labels easily fall over. Designers by their nature evolve and so do the trends and phases of design. The variants also are easy to lead to a label festival.
One particular problem with designer labels can be seen in the web 2.0 instance. This was a back into corner label that once slapped on came with such connotations that they couldn’t be deviants otherwise a big stick was waved. A single label never works in reality. Most things are in-fact grey and not black or white. Noun labels work yes – dog, cat, chair. I have said time and time again my feelings on web 2.0 – it comes down to evolution if you ask me. Putting a label on something that evolves can only mean you end up having to do a 180 and roll out another label. You soon end up with a pile of labels and having wasted a lot of string.
The real point of this is that labels are great for nouns and our environment. Without it humans would probably be still ughing and staring as our brains work in compartmentalise. Labels can be bad though and can dead end something and stop evolution. Web and design itself are not static unchanging things and putting a label on them is limiting. I am not saying don’t label a style – something is minimalist, something is retro – as that is fair enough in some respects. The thing is understanding the grey which is more common. Designers are like magpies and very rarely you can just point to one style. It’s usually a more of a over 50% means it’s this label than a maximum label compatibility. Where the problems with labeling comes is when you block the entrance and stunt the growth of something. This is when the labeling insanity starts and web 3.0, web 4.0 and web . to infinity starts. As you can see it quickly becomes silly and a waste of time. Labels on static yes, labels on still evolving this … not overly a great idea.
I think we have been seeing a lot of successful designs lately which completely defy labels. People try to classify them anyway, and even relate them to other designs, but the success of fresh design is its ability to impress and defy expectations.
I am happily thinking the same thing – just regretably waiting for someone to put a new label on that one. Fresh is always best in my book and produces much less yawning.
Tam, as always, you hit it right on the head. I’m a bit different, as I don’t see ‘web 2.0′ as a design label. More as a generation lable, as the people creating these designs are younger, and missed the dot com boom the first time around.