Design Myths

Pepsi’s rebranding, having heavily bombarded the US streets has also stirred some waves in the adverting industry with it’s controversial pitch.

Most critics fulminate against alleged reverse engineering of a design and justifying the ‘North of a Million’ price tag in a pseudo scientific manner. While most posts critique the presentation as a whole, I want to touch on two specific points that many designers work into presentation.

In the presentation the golden ratio is mentioned several times: “The Golden Ratio establishes a proportion of one part (a) relative to another (b). Playing by these rules produces an aestheticism that is universally accepted to be in balance and harmony.” Also shown is an image of the Parthenon captioned: “Height and width of the Parthenon is proportioned to yield a Golden Rectangle.”

Whether the golden ratio supports the Pepsi pitch or not, most designers accept that the golden ratio yields more pleasing proportions, that it is known for ages – after all, in was used in planning the pyramids, right? Well, the answer is, as Ringo Starr stated when asked in the 70s if the Beatles will ever get together again; “probably not with a slight possibility of maybe”.

In his book The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number, Mario Livio lovingly debunks these and many other myths surrounding the golden ratio. Seems like it is a relatively recent concept, first appearing in the renaissance days. Also seems that when thoroughly examined, claims that people prefer these proportions over others have not been scientifically proven.

So why do so many designers and authors, e.g. Robert Lawlor in Sacred Geometry, accept these claims as truths without second guessing them? Because it sounds right. It is an appealing theory that proportions that appear in nature would be more appealing and withhold universal value. Hence people went back and found those proportions in Ancient Egyptian and Greek architecture – if you look in the right places and ignore some facts that don’t fit your theory here and there – you’re bound to find matches. Not only does it sound right, it also sells well – we now have ‘scientific’ justification for our designs.

Another virtue praised in Pepsi’s presentation that designers seldom dispute is simplicity. Simpler is often considered better, more communicative, usable and memorable in design – but is it?

Modernist certainly thought so. Jan Tschichold, in his book The New Typography preaches with religious like zeal for the use of sans-serif typeface which he claims are more legible because they are simpler. Later studies have shown that serifs play a part in providing horizontal tips when reading and increasing legibility be causing letters to be more distinguishable from each other (in print applications). To Jan Tschichold’s credit, he retracted many of his claims later and designed the serif typeface ‘Sabon’.

Studies of human perception and the way our memory works show that more ‘hints’ that at first may seem to be complicating things actually help us identify and remember things. One example is the way people with ‘super’ memory memorize a random sequence of names or cards – they add more layers and create a ‘story’ from the sequence, intentionally complicating things to make them more meaningful and therefore memorable.

Even following proven design principals is not always communicating better, as David Carson eloquently put it: “legibility is not communication”.

These design myths we as designers create for ourselves or have others create for us (e.g. Flash= 99% Bad – Jakob Nielsen) become ‘truths’ used by anyone from designers to project managers to clients. We often rely on them instead of thinking and daring to experiment and innovate. Part of a design’s effectiveness is it’s uniqueness – something that cannot be achieved if everybody follows the exact same formula.

And while working within the confinements of Modernist style (and, yes, it is a style when the theories remain unproven), or following any other philosophy can produce beautiful, communicative and sellable pieces – we, as designers, should acknowledge that most design is not an exact science and that is part of what’s so great about being a designer. If this was not the case, computers could have done it. We should also respect our clients and ourselves by being honest about the way we approach and achieve a design. It may be a harder sell, but the client will feel they have been working with a professional, not a peddler selling them a magic potion.