Flow in Design

What makes design great?

Je ne sais quoi

Sometimes you look at a piece of work and you can’t help but think it’s great. Something about it just catches your eye or even your mind. There is something in your head that tells you it’s special, but you just can’t put your finger to it. There is some appealing quality that you can’t describe or express. The French call it je ne sais quoi, or literally, “I don’t know what”.

Here at Media Lede, we wanted to understand what makes great design great, and so we went on a journey to turn an ‘I don’t know what’ into a ‘now I know what’.

A Data Lake

We started out looking at a (metaphorical) lake of technical knowledge and creativity. With the internet and libraries, it is easy to find many inspiring occurrences of great design. The pool of human works is deep and there are just too many references for us to go through. Even if we dove in, we could not reach the bottom of it anytime soon.

So rather than exploring every single style, house or philosophy of design, we wanted to see if there was something in common between all these different manifestations of great design. We wanted to take a bird’s eye view of the landscape so that we could deliver great design for our clients, every time, regardless of style.

A Human’s Eye View

If you have been on the internet long enough, you would have seen pictures like these.

It might feel like sorcery at first, but these are just examples of designing for the human eye. Big bright things in the centre attract attention, and it is natural for humans to read downwards. Only when the bottom text is exhausted, do our eyes dart upwards. What you have just experienced is the natural flow of the eyes. Understanding how the eye sees and moves is the first step of understanding great design, which is ultimately, a visual art.

Using typography, colour and composition, we learnt that we could direct the human eye to see things in the order we choose. As long as we understood the rules, we would deliver a smooth reading experience to readers of our works. These rules, rather being constraints, were revelations to us. Not that they were new, but it gave us a lens to see design: flow.

Before, when we stood at the edge of the vast lake of creativity, we were overwhelmed. There was so much to know, so much possibility, and so much energy. But now, understanding how to control the human’s eye view also taught us a second lesson: flow is the way the human mind brings order to masses of chaos out in the world.

Finding Meaning in the Flow

Now knowing that good design requires flow, where else can we hope to put in structures to guide such a flow such that the result is impactful and meaningful? Visual arts can capture the eye for a few moments, but what we really want is to capture minds. We don’t just want to entertain the eye, but engage the minds of our audiences.

Funny enough, the answer did not come from design but from another art: writing. Writing is not just putting pen on paper, or fingers on keyboards. It is the art of turning thoughts into something concrete, in order to convey an idea. In the art of writing, we see how flow works through logic. One argument builds on another until an idea is conveyed.

It is easy to see how this might work in a writing product, since writing is directly involved, but how does it apply to design? Logic is not something that requires words. Logic can be conveyed through progression, images and composition. Think of comics, the writing can be minimal, but there is still a logical flow through the work.

This logical flow, or the flow of the mind, helps create meaning. Between the river banks of logic, meaning flows towards the reader. Without the constraining limits of logic, there can be no flow of meaning, and there can be no new understanding. Humans are logical beings, and so for us to have impact, we must have a logical flow in our works.

Now let us take a look at how flow of the eye can combine with flow of the mind for more impact. Let us use a familiar example:

Looks the same as the previous example we shared right? Yes, but there is just one thing different, and it makes so much sense. The smallest yellow line reads, “That’s why you hire a professional”. Out of all the examples of similar things on Google, this is the most striking because it carries a message. Every other example stops at demonstrating the principle, but this one goes one step further, and uses the principle as an argument, as evidence to show their worth. By changing just one sentence, the whole meaning of the picture changes. It invites the viewer to wonder, “what else am I missing out on?”, and makes them curious about the ability of the creator. Here, the flow of the eyes has combined with the flow of the mind.

But I feel something is still lacking

Yes, visual arts and logic make it easy to catch attention and convey information, but we still felt that there was something missing. That je ne sais quoi that we were looking for since the start still eluded us. Design with good visual and logical flow could be good, but there was just something that inspired that made certain pieces of work just better than others. Something inspired. Something that readers could feel but not name.

Having visual and logical flow only brought us to the doorstep of this mysterious quality, but we were still searching for it. Beyond the physical and mental realms there was one thing last realm to explore: the emotional.

Have you ever read a book so good that when you put it down, you could not help but think, “Ah yes. Life is just like that.” That emotional connection is made on a deeper level than superficial looks or logic can ever reach. That is what we have been looking for. That feeling of je ne sais quoi is an emotional reaction. Visual beauty and logical elegance are but foundations to set up this emotional bridge, straight from the page and into hearts.

What is this emotional bridge then? We are sure there are many ways of building it, but the way we know how is through story.

The Flow of Story

All of life’s truths can be found in stories. Stories are the way humans connect and communicate, be it auditory, visual or written. All of the arts exist to tell stories, because that is the way into the core of our being. Our mind latches onto stories, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not. Stories allow us to relate experiences outside of ourselves to ourselves. It is the way of internalising the external.

You might be thinking to yourself, “That sounds far-fetched. How can everything tell a story?” But think about this, even a flat, static movie poster can tell a story.

Look at this poster for Avengers: Endgame.

Everyone is glaring up at the big bad Thanos in the background. This poster is telling us a story of a band of heroes gathering to fight off a villain. In a single image, a story can be told. Need I remind you that a picture says a thousand words? A thousand words is more than enough to tell a compelling short story.

But what exactly is Story and how can it flow through design? It can flow in the words, it can flow in pictures, it can flow in the graphics and it can flow through everything. The most impressive works, the ones that have that je ne sais quoi are works that convey their core ideas with a singularity of being.

When the visual arts, logic and Story all come together, it creates a powerful burst of understanding that goes beyond the eyes and mind, and into the heart.

From “Yes” to “Ah Yes”

Here at Media Lede, we are here to turn information into experience. We don’t just want our audience to say, “Ok, yes”, but we want them to internalise the knowledge we give them and inspire them to say, “Ah! Yes!” and then act on what they have just learnt.

Our long journey from the lake of creativity has led us to carving rivers of logic and flow, leading us all the way to that one glorious moment of revelation. We want to give you that je ne sais quoi, that one indescribable feeling of awe that makes you feel that a new day has dawned.