Smallblog

Big Spaceship’s Jamie Kosoy on the Beautiful Default:

To borrow from our friend Branden Hall, this is an abuse of the Beautiful Default. The Beautiful Default is a visual trap – it’s something that looks “good enough” to be deployed as is without modifying it’s out-of-the-box look. One the one hand the Beautiful Default allows you to create beautiful things quickly and easily, which is awesome! On the other hand it also makes the thing you’re making look generic. It’s vanilla. It’s the same thing everybody else is making and doing. Think about that, and then think about the majority of iOS apps you’ve seen. Think about all the websites you’ve seen that use Lightbox or Isotope. There’s a sameness to them that’s comforting and easy to use, but there are also opportunities to be expressive and interesting that are lost. There are too many developers and designers giving up on craftsmanship to build “good enough” sites and apps.