Network: Open your eyes and see the future

Web Design

FORGET ABOUT 15 minutes' of fame. In the future, everyone will be a Web designer.

As the Web is cultivated and expanded, a growing number people are choosing to use this medium. Whether you are a movie buff extolling the virtues of The Third Man, or a multi-national corporation explaining why people should invest in your company, the Web is the way to get your message across.

But the Web is more than being an agent for the display of text, it is also an exceptionally visual medium which relies as much on our ability to "read" visual queues as it does on our ability to read text. It challenges our visual literacy - the ability to create and understand visual messages.

We are all inherently visually literate, yet we put little conscious effort into developing this skill. That is because traditional concepts of literacy are based on the ability to string words together in a coherent fashion and the ability to decipher the textual strings created by others.

Although it is unlikely that the need to read and write will ever be diminished, thanks to computers we are learning to communicate messages more effectively by utilising a variety of visual design skills, often without realising.

If your work involves information exchange, you have probably used a computer to write reports, send messages, outline schedules or numerous other things. In fact, it would be impossible to conceive of the modern workplace without the ubiquitous computer.

These devices allow us to be typographers, layout artists and graphic designers. We choose fonts, select column sizes and even add charts, graphs and graphics to our work - all mediated through the glowing screen. Thanks to computers, writing a good report no longer means just having straight margins. It means making the information as clear and attractive as possible.

The ability to draw, use colour and design are skills usually seen as the domain of a few talented individuals. There will always be some people who are more successful designers than others, but designing is a skill that is learned, just like reading and writing.

Andy Warhol promised that in the future everyone would have 15 minutes' of fame. What he didn't take into account was that if everybody was famous, then fame itself would become a meaningless concept.

With the Web, you can express yourself to the world - whether or not they want to listen. However, your ability to be "heard" will be based on two criteria: the quality of your message; and the quality of your visual presentation.

This brings us back to our original problem: visual literacy is rarely taken as seriously as textual literacy.

There are lots of general sources for information about Web design: books, magazines, Web sites, even newspaper columns. There are also numerous university faculties that offer advanced degrees in computer-based design. But imagine if you had to wait to go to university to learn how to read!

What we need is for people to be educated in visual literacy alongside textual literacy. Fortunately, there are organisations in Britain set up to encourage design education.

One of the most interesting is the National Society for Education in Art and Design's (http://www.nsead.org) Schoolart site (http://www. schoolart.com). This site is designed to aid educators who teach pupils from the age of three to 18 years in developing a curriculum that includes art and design units.

According to the society's Web site: "This begins the process of demystifying and democratising access to good ideas about teaching and learning through art." This site offers lessons for use by instructors wishing to develop the design and artistic skills of their pupils, as well as practical and theoretical information and discussion forums.

By the beginning of the new millennium - a scant two and a half years away - the Web will probably bear no more resemblance to its current incarnation than a telephone does to an Aldis lamp. The technologies used to create Web pages will continue to evolve, especially in the visual range.

As more people without formal design training become Web designers, their visual skills will be tested and challenged, but their ability to communicate will blossom in response.

In turn, this may lead to a radical change in the way we think.

E-mail comments or questions to Jason Cranford Teague at indy_webdesign@mindspring.com