Making Content Design Beautiful

I have always held the question, “how do I make my work in this field a work of art?”

Designers are often thinking about their craft in terms of beauty and artistry. It’s a simpler bridge to cross, since designers are dealing with something visual (typically). The jump from UX design to art is actually pretty seamless, maybe even inevitable.

But, the jump from UX writing to art isn’t as straightforward.

I try to look at my work through this lens: how do I help make the internet a better place? Because that’s my job. To design experiences and write experiences that are not only enjoyable, but help make the time we spend on the internet a little bit more fulfilling, a little more beautiful.

There’s always a risk of skewing towards utility, which can sap experiences of all the things that make them great. But there is a place in the middle where utility and beauty meet. That’s where I think the best content design is done.

Consider this haiku from Basho:

“A wild ocean and stretching over Sado Island the Milky Way”

In just eleven words, Basho paints an image that you can see. Somehow, almost impossibly, you are there at Sado Island. Even if you’ve never been, or even heard of it. And that’s the power of words. That is language as art. To be able to transport someone directly.

Kerouac says, “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

There is an implication here that finding simple words is a journey. It’s actually not a simple or straightforward act at all. It’s challenging, difficult, and something even the greatest writers strive for and work their whole careers to attain. Because by simplicity, Kerouac doesn’t mean rudimentary or obvious, he means Art.

We can, and should, bring beauty to our crafts. That doesn’t mean filling your experiences with unnecessary jargon or trying to make beauty happen. It means finding the right words, it means making your experiences special, it means breaking the rules when you have to because if you don’t, the entire product loses its soul.

While many might think this isn’t a worthwhile topic to pursue, to me it has an incredible effect.

Take Meta, a massive organization with an enormous wealth of talent in their organization. Why does Facebook feel so cold and barren when you enter it? Where is the beauty of connecting with friends that they champion so strongly in their advertising? It’s not there. There is no beauty in Facebook anymore. It’s a machine. Cold, calculated, predictable. It’s the wrong side of simplicity. A simplicity that has exorcised all of the Art that once made it a special, unique place to be on the internet.

I really believe that as Content Designers, UX Writers, or whatever you consider yourself, we are in the business of making beautiful, unique experiences. That can only really be achieved if you consider what you do as a Designer an artistic practice.

I’d like to challenge everyone to try to bring a bit more beauty into their work. And to quote Allen Ginsberg, I’d like to also challenge everyone to “follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.