/Culture/ The world’s top 20 web designers
28/08/2009 | Filed under Discover > Culture
What makes a world-class designer? It’s a simple question and yet once we started compiling this list we realised it’s not at all simple to answer. Is it about pushing boundaries or holding fast to traditional principles? Should the body of work be judged on aesthetics or usability? Is fame or notoriety important, or just a distraction? Ultimately, we’ve tried to balance all these considerations and more, and picked 20 figures who we all feel act as a beacon of inspiration to web builders everywhere. We hope you agree…
It’s the same old story: you’re on a reality TV programme, you start a blog, you fall in love with WordPress and before long you’re creative director with AgencyNet, picking up awards for your anti-smoking site OwnYourC.com (which, thanks to a recent and dramatic revamp, should mean more gongs). Larissa Meek’s story isn’t quite that simple, however: she was a 3D animator long before anyone pointed a TV camera at her, and moving to Flash and CSS was a natural progression.
.net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
LM: I find inspiration in many places, such as my co-workers, my peers and illustration art. I love playing with new visuals but the most important aspect of inspiration is having an organising thought. An organising thought helps me focus my designs so that they have meaning and purpose. We’re really big on this at AgencyNet. It’s a simple statement that you use as a benchmark for your creative decisions. It’s more than just designing for design’s sake.
.net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
LM: I’ve had the most fun working on pitches with crazy tight deadlines with my co-workers. There’s nothing more inspiring than seeing everyone come together with such passion and vigour for a common goal.
.net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
LM: I have to admit I can’t pick just one. I am however, addicted to http://www.behance.net. I visit daily for new bits of inspiration. I love the gamut of creative fields it covers. It shows you can find beauty in everything.
.net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
LM: Have a purpose. Give your designs meaning and thought. Don’t be afraid to stand out. Take risks. Just be sure you put good reasoning behind your design choices. It’s also important to be diverse. Explore a variety of styles and you will go really far.
The word genius is bandied about all too frequently in design circles, but we think Roxik, aka Masayuki Kido, deserves the title. His Eco Zoo was the deserved winner of the .net Awards Interactive Site of the Year, and his 3D engine demos appear to have been beamed in from another planet.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
MK: This is a really difficult question indeed. I often say I take inspiration from films and books that spark my imagination, but to be honest I do not know whether that is really the case. Vincent Van Gogh probably didn’t know why he painted his sunflower pictures. I assume everyone shares the sense of wonder and opens the drawers in their mind one by one when they try to create something.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
MK: That would be the Eco Zoo, a project that used a pop-up book as a motif. It was one of the few projects where both my clients and I feel that we’ve achieved something.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
MK: He’s not exactly a designer but I have a huge respect for Hokusai, the Japanese painter more than 200 years ago. He managed to capture and trap fleeting moments in his pictures. I would feel so proud if anyone, even just one person, lays their eyes on my work.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
MK: This is the second hardest question, because I myself still have a lot to learn. If anything, do not feel rushed. You don’t have to make your ideas take shape right now but, however many years it takes, it’s much better if you can turn them into something you feel happy with. Then everyone will appreciate your work and I probably will have a chance to see it too. If you can really touch and move people even once in your life, you’re lucky.
Andy is chief design strategist of Unit Interactive in Texas. When not working, biking, or banging on the piano, he’s usually found ranting about design or professionalism on his personal site, Design View.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
AR: Well, with the caveat that inspiration, while beneficial, accounts for about 1% of design success, I never know where I’ll find it. I’m inspired by anything and everything – just not every time. A game, a conversation, a book, packaging on a product at the grocery store, the layout of a restaurant; I never know what might inspire me why inspiration strikes. But I tend to not rely on inspiration as a necessary component to good work. The work is supposed to always be good, yet inspiration is not always there. If this poses a problem in the result, the fault does not lie with inspiration.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
AR: The Woot.com project is one that comes to mind quickly as a very successful project. And I mean successful in many ways. We (my agency) were able to quickly win Woot’s confidence in our work and yet the project initially had the potential to be a huge disaster – launching a complete surprise redesign of a site with more than two million opinionated users on whom Woot relies to make daily purchases (no pressure!). It’s become an ongoing project with many moving parts and additional components added regularly. Every one of my staff have and are working with Woot designers and developers every week, so this is very much a team effort.
We’ve been able to establish, maintain, and improve our relationship with them and Woot have enjoyed continued success for both their business and their brand. It could have been a $165million mistake for Woot, but we’ve managed to keep all the balls in the air. It’s an all-round team success in my book.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
AR: Wow, how much room do you have here? This is a hard one, as my jaw drops quite frequently due to the design efforts of all sorts of people. And like most designers, I’m influenced or inspired by nearly everything I see. But in the full measure of time since I started paying attention to designers, I believe that Doug Bowman has been pretty darned consistent in producing jaw-dropping work. Also important is that his work spans quite the breadth of context and application. That’s nearly impossible to do impossibly well, and yet he’s been doing it for quite a while.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
AR: Being a design professional means behaving professionally. The design profession has no room for talented and skilled people who are untrustworthy and who lack integrity and backbone. The buck stops with you; prepare for that fact and make it your unbreakable rule before you start asking for professional compensation from clients (or an employer).
The founder of 2Advanced, one of the most respected agencies on the planet, designs cutting-edge Flash for clients such as Adobe and Ford. A progressive designer/animator with a background in graphic design, interactive media, and motion graphics, Eric has overseen over 680 projects for numerous Fortune 500 companies since 1999.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
EJ: I’ve always been quite obsessed with science, cosmology, philosophy... particularly the stuff that centres around where we come from, the nature of the universe, string theory, etc. I think most of my inspiration comes from these sort of big-picture concepts. I am a huge reader (does anyone do that any more?) and like letting my mind wander. Sometimes I will be reading and I’ll notice that I have to re-read the same paragraph four times over. My mind will get inevitably get hung up on large concepts and I will catch myself trying to visualise whatever has caught my attention. This happens to me whenever authors are trying to describe the fabric of the space time continuum: I end up daydreaming about how I could pull off something like that in a site or in a video. My wife has to literally pry me away from the Discovery Channel whenever there’s some show about galaxies or black holes. Big ideas, infinite expanses, theories about how the universe might work: these are the things that have always interested me the most.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
EJ: To be honest, one of my favourite projects is a very old one: the 2Advanced Version 3 website, entitled “Expansions”. It was one of those projects that just didn’t need a lot of revisions or over-thinking or storyboarding. It just kind of happened and it worked really well. It was pure inspiration poured out onto the screen. It was created at a time when Flash was still relatively new and so you could feel this electricity in the air. It all just came together like magic. “Expansions” ended up winning the most Adobe & FWA’s most Influential Site of the Decade” award in 2006.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
EJ: The one designer who I find fascinating at the moment is Peter Jaworowski of Ars Thanea. He is more on the graphics end of the spectrum, but his design is just so vibrant and intricate. It’s full of detail and love. A lot of the work he does contains so much microscopic detail that most people will pass right over it, but if you appreciate design you can pick up on the minor bits of beauty he sneaks into every corner of his work.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
EJ: Distinguish yourself from everyone else as best as possible. There are MANY designers all clamouring for the same studios and clients. If you don’t set yourself apart and you simply jump into the Web 2.0 glossy-button bandwagon, you will get lost in all the noise. I think too many people have experienced an overexposure to the reactor core of the design zeitgeist and their work is becoming oversimplified and excruciatingly minimalised due to the emergence of the Apple-design mentality that’s been sweeping the industry. Do you what you do best, and do not be apologetic – when all is said and done you will be recognized for how unique your work is.
A graphic and web designer from Brazil, Fabio is co-founder of design studio, 3YZ and can also be found at www.abduzeedo.com, a blog recording his ventures through the design world.
Abduzeedo is one of the most inspiring design sites on the internet, with stacks of hands-on tutorials from Sasso himself. If we were feeling trite we’d say it’s proof that every cloud has a silver lining, as Sasso started the site “after I had lost all my stuff when my office was robbed”. But we aren’t, so we won’t.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
FS: Inspiration is everywhere. I believe the most important thing is understanding the context of the work you have to get the inspiration for. Otherwise it might be quite difficult now with the overflow of information like sites, books, magazines, videos and so on. The first thing for me is to understand is what I have to do and for whom I’ll be designing for, the target audience. Then I will limit my possibilities and that will make the process of finding inspiration more efficient in books, sites and pretty much everywhere.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
FS: Each project is very unique and I’m proud of them in particular ways. However, my personal project is my blog, Abduzeedo, because it started after I had lost all my stuff when my office was robbed and it has become my favourite web project. I have learned a lot from it.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
FS: There are quite a few designers for sure. As far as influence goes, I have to mention Paul Rand, Carlos Segura and David Carson for their importance in design history. Now, as for the web, I really admire Vitor Lourenço, one of the designers behind Twitter. I love the simplicity of his work and how efficient it is. There are more guys such as Collis Ta’eed from Envato, Jason Santa Maria, Jeffrey Zeldman, well a whole bunch of others: I could go on and on. Also there are the graphic designers, guys like James White, Joshua Davis, Eduardo Recife, Scott Hansen and many others.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
FS: Well, my advice would be to keep learning and practising, there’s always room for improvement. Also it’s really important to try and do things instead of wonder too much if it will work or not. That happened with me with Abduzeedo. I didn’t have time to wonder and I learned from that.
Working out of his home studio in Ontario, Mike is a multimedia designer with growing international client base consisting of web developers, advertising agencies, design studios and publication companies. He plays guitar in his spare time and claims he never misses a beat.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
MP: I find my greatest source of inspiration comes from being away from anything to do with computers, the web and the daily grind of design disciplines. I find that by detaching myself from what I do day-to-day, I experience new things, discover new textures, colours, and tap into the beat of the world. For example, I recently designed and built a flagstone patio out the back of my home. While not a web design project, I had the opportunity to get outdoors, experience a whole new palette of colours, textures, sizes and materials. The overall shape of the patio and the impending challenge of fitting all pieces of the rough cut flagstone together, while ensuring there was enough colour randomness (as each piece carries either a red, charcoal or grey type hue with our flagstone here in Canada), presented a great, indirect design challenge. These off-the-job events tend to refresh my perspective when going back into the studio. My on-the-job inspiration comes from peers, CSS galleries, Twitter, the occasional trip to YouTube for an informative or comedic vid.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
MP: There are a few projects I’ve worked on over the years that may be worthy of mention. One in particular, Candy Bouquet International, represented a open and flexible collaboration environment between the client and me. The end result, with a few compromises, represents one of the web dev projects I’ve produced with exceptional results.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
MP: Hats off to my colleague, Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain. I’ve known Jesse for a number of years now, and while entering the web development community after working in print, he was a mentor and major influence both on the creative side of design and [even more so] in the technicalities of design. Jesse is extremely disciplined – no fuzzy pixel edges, accurate pixel-to-pixel positioning, and strong layout skills. These disciplines have indefinitely influenced the quality of my work. Other influences include Derek Nelson and Jason Santa Maria.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
MP: Like learning to ride a bike or play an instrument, keep trying. Relentlessly pursue your goal to be a great designer. Success in this industry is the result of trial and error, tenacity, and the goal to succeed.
The standards evangelist and CEO of Duoh! has a dream: “My dream is that I have a small contribution in making the interweb a better place,” she says. If we were to describe Pieters’ work in a single word, fun would do nicely. There’s a real sense of warmth and joy to her design work, whether it’s a logo or a corporate CMS.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
VP: This might sound a bit like a weird answer to you, but I usually get inspired by looking around and observing things. I think it’s probably because of how I observe things around me that I get inspired by the simplest thing. Sometimes it subconsciously leads to inspiration. When looking at something, I will always see colours first and then the shape. Inspiration is really a mystery thing. I usually get inspired the most if I’m in a happy mood, not pressured, a bit disconnected with the real world even, music on my ears etc. For me inspiration has a lot to do with how I feel. In general if I’m happy I’m very perceptive for ideas. I often get ideas right before I fall asleep.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
VP: That would be the website design work we did for the Library of Congress (Washington DC) for four years in a row (1999 – 2003) for a project called ‘The Learning Page’. They were always very challenging, most creative and a lot of fun.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
VP: Oh yes, there are many. On top of my list are Scott Hansen of ISO50, Robert Lindströrm of Design Chapel, James White and the very talented illustrator from Spain Mónica Calvo.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
VP: First thing I always say is, stay passionate about your work. This is the most important thing. Secondly, never stop learning. Never stop believing in yourself.
Since Jason and his brother Ryan founded their own company VaryWell in 2008, it’s gone from strength to strength. One day they aim to create an application or gadget that everyone around the world will want. That might sound big-headed, but if their huge body of impressive digital projects is anything to go by, we reckon they’ve got a strong chance.
net: Where do you find your design inspiration from?
JH: We interact with a lot of digital and real-world interfaces these days. We’re saturated in them. It’s hard to pretend none of that exists, and think about how things could be without bringing in our preconceived notions or history. When some concept or technology comes along and makes that easier, it’s exciting.
Augmented reality is one of those things. For instance, what if there were no physical signage? No billboards, no street signs, but whatever signage you wanted to see was drawn directly onto your retina, via your sunglasses or contacts. Imagine glowing arrows leading you to your destination, or pointing out your friends nearby. See something interesting? Make a gesture with your eye (up, then right?) to Google it. Write a column of numbers on paper and make an eye gesture to total them. Look at a restaurant bill and gesture to calculate a tip. Maybe a certain gesture means “point me to the nearest subway”. So many possibilities. I think we’re on the edge of the most interesting and transformative technology we’ve seen yet, and I can’t wait to build applications for it.
net: Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which are you most proud of and why?
JH: My brother and I designed and engineered and energy management system for small buildings. Instead of using thermostats to control heating and cooling, we developed some pretty intense predictive algorithms that model the space in real time and constantly improve performance. It all runs out of a little box that hangs on the wall, and has a touchscreen interface. The system (called Ektos) works extremely well, and is now installed in about 1,200 locations in the US. So far we’ve saved over $20 million in electricity, and offset about 100 thousand tons of Co2.
net: Is there any other designer whose work makes your jaw drop, or whose work has been an influence on/inspiration to you?
JH: I think I’m inspired by raw technologies more than anything else. So I guess that means engineers are the biggest influence on me. I’m very impressed by the work GE is doing with flexible, wall-sized oLEDs. There’s also a company called PQLabs that showed a large multitouch overlay at CES this year, which I’m very excited about. Ryan and I build our own multitouch panels, but we’ve been waiting for a good commercial option, and the Microsoft Surface has turned out to be a huge disappointment. What’s great about the new overlay from PQLabs is that it can sit on top of a regular LCD panel, so you don’t have to deal with the space requirements of projection.
net: If you could give up-and-coming designers a single piece of advice, what would it be?
JH: A good designer needs good problems to solve. Good problems are all around us, but they’re hard to see because we’ve grown accustomed to most of the small inefficiencies and inconveniences that are built into the things we use. Try to get in the habit of seeing everything new. Instead of just using everyday objects and interfaces, pretend you’re designing them. Really see their flaws, and think about what you would do differently. You probably have three or four good design problems within a few feet of you right now.
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Comments
Most Interesting Ideas / 30/08/2009 / 20:06 / http://www.moinid.com
Thanks for answers guys :)
Carl - web courses Bangkok / 01/09/2009 / 06:31 / http://Www.webcoursesbangkok.com
So interesting to see how even designers can be thrust into fame. Fantastic work to one and all and I am very happy to know the genious behind Eco zoo, I show that site in our course for web designers as a form of inspiration.
jord / 01/09/2009 / 19:18
Larissa Meek - this is joke ? .net magazine suck
Suleyman Gezgin / 07/09/2009 / 01:09 / http://www.suleymangezgin.com
Where is group94? Its very weird to see abduzeedoo in this list. He is only a collector/blogger. What makes him one of 20 top designer?
Johnny / 07/09/2009 / 15:49
This list is ABSOLUTELY RUBBISH! The person who wrote this should be fired from your company. Only a few people here are good like Veerle, Roxik, Fabio is creative but I highly doubt he writes his own XHTML/CSS... I bet his brother, the Developer, does it for him. And I bet the rest here made it just coz they're what.... Caucasian?!
Johnny / 07/09/2009 / 16:04
Will someone please EXPLAIN to me why JONATHAN SNOOK is everywhere?!?! And why he made it on this list and someone with the likes of MICHAEL HEALD did not? Are these the World's Top 20 Designers or the World's Noisiest Designers making noise all over the place?! Will you please put Jonathan Snook's and Michael Heald's works side by side and compare?! You gotta be blind if you don't see the difference!! Now who's next?? Elliot Jay Stocks?! UGH!
NET MAG YOU SUCK! You suck as much as this comment form doesn't validate when not answering the 4th Question but instead returns a 404 Error! You claim to be the world's best web design mag now can you please fix this pathetic form of yours?!
Karl Foxley / 08/09/2009 / 20:56 / http://www.foxleymarketingsolutions.com
It's great to see people getting recognition for their talents. Some people will argue who should be on the list and who shouldn't instead of celebrating the fact that the people on the list have done something right to deserve their time in the spot light. Well done guys!
Karl
Pasquale / 09/09/2009 / 22:57 / http://pasqualedsilva.com
Haha, Larissa Meek is <em>not</em> a real designer.
Ann / 15/09/2009 / 14:22
Veerle? You have to be kidding !!!!
