Before the reveal...
Paige Davis interviews the web designer... *
Paige: Tell me about this web site.
Sharon: I call this design "Apple of My Eye" because of the red-delicious/Granny Smith-green color combination.
Paige: And that's the only reason you picked that name, huh?
Sharon: Naturally... What are you implying?
Paige: Oh, nothing... What inspired this design?
Sharon: Doug, of course. He's been described as having a modern design sensibility, but I find Doug likes to use both warm earthy colors — indicative of richness and antiquity — and bright modern colors and metallics, often mixing the two. I decided to do the same. On the earthy side, I chose spice colors — red, yellow, and the decorator fad-of-the-moment, brown. On the high-tech side, I chose different shades of gray, because nothing suggests post-modern techno-industrial like gray. Does that sound suitably pretentious yet?
Paige: But how does green fit into this design? Green suggests ecology, not industrial.
Sharon: The green's there to add some pop. Why are you having doubts? Trust me, I'm the designer.
Paige: Okay, Doug also likes to design theme rooms. Did you use a theme for this site?
Sharon: Well, design is an art and I suggest this by giving a hand-drawn look to parts of the site. For example, the sketch of a room on the opening page and the use of a handwriting font. Actually, since Doug has a theater background, I originally wanted to use that as a theme, but I figured people wouldn't go for draping cloth over their computer monitors to replicate curtains for that authentic theater feel. It's too bad, really. There's nothing like throwing cloth everywhere to make things look more expensive than they are. Why upgrade your computer? Just toss some rich brocade fabric over it! I'd also hide those boring beige computer cases with a nice Venetian plaster finish. And I have these comedy- and tragedy-mask magnets that would look great slapped to the side of a computer case.
Paige: Magnets? But computer components are sensitive to magnetic fields. You could corrupt someone's hard drive if you put a magnet near it!
Sharon: So? Let them buy a new hard drive.
Paige: Some people don't have the money to spend to correct your design mista—er, experiments. Shouldn't you take your users into account as part of the design process?
Sharon: I did. The colors used in the site design are all from
the web-safe palette, so the site should still work for those losers —
I mean "users" — surfing with a 15-inch, non-LCD, 256-color
monitor. Why hang on to those old monitors anyway? C'mon, people! Don't
be afraid of change. You've got to let go!
