99% of Design is crap

My son Leon is two and a half years old, and he shares the same passion every single kid in the world has: Peppa Pig.

Kids comes in all sizes and shapes and they have different personalities. Some talk a lot, others are more physical, some sleep others (like my son Leon) don’t, but they all agree in one thing, Peppa Pig is the best.

What visual magic is behind a rudimentary drawn phallic shape pink pig goes way beyond my comprehension.

I am sure that the bright colors, the high pitch of the voices, the simple music and animations and a bit of luck have a lot to do with its success. To me it all comes down to George.

George is Peppas little brother, he love dinosaurs and he is a cool guy. I’d hang out with George any day.

99% of Cartoons are crap

Sturgeon’s Law says that 99% of everything is crap.

There are about 1.5 billon children in this world, that many little people can’t be wrong.

Creating something as successful as Peppa doesn’t happen by accident, it takes a lot of time, research, resources, talent and skill.

The same happens in design.

99% of Design is crap

A guy on the internet said:

It’s easier and cheaper to create bad designs. Because of that, bad designs will be more plentiful in any free market than good design.

I think that it goes beyond good vs bad. We work in an industry where good is not enough. Only the exceptional succeed. Bing is a very good search engine, Google is excellent. Google Plus is a good social network, Facebook is excellent. There is no room for just good.

On his Incomplete Manifiesto for Growth, Bruce Mau motivate us to push the limits:

Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

Excellency doesn’t come easy. To get the finest quality we should go outside our comfort zone and studying as much as we practice.

Cue Peppa song: Tu turu tu tum tu turu tu tu tum

Excellent design is honest. There is no cheating, no shortcuts. It requires an attention to detail that is really hard to achieve.

That craftsmanship goes to build any excellent thing. There is elegant coding, excellent music and even great accounting.

Sometimes we, the adults, can also agree that some things are superlative.

Meanwhile I’ll join Leon and all the children in the world and surrender to the excellent Peppa Pig.