Get your emotions in check. Actually… don’t.
My hot take, everything in good design can be distilled down to one thing—emotion.
Does the design spark joy or nostalgia with bright colors and whimsical illustrations, or a decades-era design?
Does it elicit anger by shedding light on injustice, causing you to think or act differently about a certain topic or event?
Is it a video that sheds light on others less fortunate than you, garnering shame, so you feel compelled to donate or change habits?
Is it a stately blue in the design that evokes trust, making you feel compelled to entrust this company with your assets or home-building?
One of my own favorite ways this principle is applied is in environmental design. Every single interaction and touchpoint a user has with a space shapes their experience. Our design decisions can drastically affect, for better or worse, how a user perceives a brand.
The emotions we’re trying to spark in a space vary drastically from brand to brand. What I want to convey in a casual burger joint, say with fun illustrations, bright murals, expressive type on the menu, is drastically different from what I want to convey in a hospital with clear and distinct wayfinding signage, soft lighting, and a calming but not sterile interior design.
Every design decision —from the colors in the logo to the material for the sign to the color grading in the brand video —leads back to one thing: what emotion are we trying to spark with this?
Erica is Senior Art Director at FoxFuel. She loves bright colors, animals, and lifted trucks (and jeeps... and SUVs).
