Lipstick on a Pig – a Web Nightmare

I love fancy, flashy design just as much as the next guy. Heck – it’s what I do. I even like Flash. It’s cool, it’s entertaining, it takes focus off the stuff that isn’t actually moving – Like text. Which is what this is all about. Text. Copy. CONTENT. Whatever you want to call it, that’s pretty much the whole purpose of the Internet. Another form of media designed for communications. Whether that be in an instant message, an email, or just a website talking about your business, family, shopping habits, whatever.

The question here is when is the design to much? Usually Flash is too much, but I’m guessing that’s why they called it Flash. I tend to prefer that Less is More. The real reason anyone is looking at a site is because they want information. Sometimes that information is photography or design education or something, that’s fine, but most of the time the information is TEXT.

Now this is what I mean by Lipstick on a Pig. You can have the fanciest, award winning site design on the Internet, but if there is no content or information, or the information is completely useless, then it doesn’t matter how much you dress the site up – nobody is going to read it. If they do – they won’t be coming back to read anything else in the future.

By now means am I saying that you shouldn’t have that fancy design – I even want you to have me design it for you – but what I’m trying to get across here is that unless the actual information on the page is useful and relevant, then you probably just paid me a ton of money to make your pig pretty. And a pretty pig is still just a pig.