Would Salvador Dali Make a Good Web Designer?

If we could bring back artists who shaped the history of design, would they make it as a great web designer today? Let’s take a look at Salvador Dali. If you don’t know who Salvador Dali was, here’s a quick history lesson: You may know him only by his flamboyant mustache, but more famously, Salvador Dali was known for his striking and bizarre art work. He was a very imaginative, unusual, and often over-the-top. Dali was a Spanish surrealist painter in the mid 1900s. Surrealism was a 1920’s cultural movement, where artists would combine conscious and unconscious elements, making dreams and fantasy found in reality.

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee, 1944

The Elephants, 1948

There’s no doubt Dali had talent. He was an amazing, imaginative and creative artist. But how would his art stack up as a web design? Lets now take a look at a few basic design principles web designers traditionally follow in this day and age.

Web Design Principles

Functionality

As any successful web designer of today would tell you, a website should have a set of objectives it is trying to achieve. Is the site designed to simply inform? Make a sale? Drive one to contact the company? It doesn’t matter the answer-what matters is if the site functions efficiently to meet its objective.

Content

A website’s content should be as thorough, yet concise, as possible. A website only has seconds to catch someone’s attention. Pair that with keeping the rules of search engine optimization in mind, and you have yourself one tough task.

Conversions

Whatever the goal is for website, it should be done so a conversion could be made. A website has to be set up properly to allow for easy conversions. Prominent calls-to-actions, easy methods of contact, fresh and original content, a professional and honest image-these all help to convert.

Aesthetics

A company’s brand and message must be clearly defined across all platforms-grids, white space, typography-all these small details go a long way. Every element in the design has a purpose.

Miscellaneous Details

Mainly, this category includes the developer side of a website, properly using social media, SEO, creating mobile, or using responsive website design, and so on-all these are important factors as well.

So, would Dali make a good web designer?

After breaking down what makes a strong web design today, I believe Salvador Dali would NOT make a “great” web designer. The principles of his style of art go against basic common principles of today’s web designers.

• Functionality. Surrealism makes one think, whereas a well-designed website should easily give the answer/information they are looking for in seconds.
• Content. Dali’s work was complex. Web design content should be concise, yet get to the point.
• Conversions. Tying in with functionality and content, easy functionality + concise content = conversions.
• Aesthetics. Aesthetically pleasing? Yes. It wouldn’t be argued that Dali would create unique and amazing design. As well, In his art, every detail had a specific purpose. However, back to web design basics-being clear is key.
• Miscellaneous. Since this argument is solely based on the element of design, we’ll just forgo this one.

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