banners were what really got me into design. Somewhere between 5th and 7th grade, I discovered internet forums. the older brothers of the girl i carpooled with to school had put me on to a video game called Fire Emblem, and eventually i got to join them on these forums to chat video games. besides runescape, InvisionFree forums (wow what a blast from the past!!) were what put me onto internet culture and — more specifically — design on the internet.
and so banners were these 400px by 100 px rectangular posters that people would include in their signatures (the bottom half of their posts). it was graphic design heaven because people would make these banners usually with their favorite anime characters, add some sort of 3D render in the background for cool effects, and all of it was done on some pirated version of Adobe Photoshop.
i spent countless hours making these banners, submitting them to contests, receiving brutal feedback from some 21-year old with no job, and then rinse repeat. what sucked was there were no tutorials on something like a youtube or a tiktok. so what you’d hope for was that your favorite artist would post some sort of step by step breakdown in some gigantic infographic, but the best artists didn’t always equal the best teachers.
so naturally, a lot of this “design” world felt like a fugazi to me. id receive feedback like “this banner lacks a consistent flow to it” or “there is very little color theory at play here” or the occasional “yo this shit is ass.” the last one i understood very clearly, but the first two had a young Haroon scratching his head.
i’m not sure that my skillset improved very much over the years because i abandoned graphic design for several years. i didn’t think much of it, but i suppose those years i did spend desgining on the internet helped me develop a sort of eye for design that became useful years later. makes sense. after a while of getting thrown around like a rag-doll on the internet, you get a sense for the type of design you appreciate and the kind that you don’t.
but like overtime, somewhere between practice, skill, and time you begin to understand why something works. design isn’t a complete mystery, although at times it kinda feels like it could be. there’s quite a few principles at play. a good example of someone who expresses these design principles well is Dan Liu. i’m not sure if i could, at this moment in time, write out all the ways of how design isn’t necessarily a mystery. but i can run you past a example. recently i broke down the why an album cover worked the way it did.
at first glance, you look at this and you can tell that this is well designed. but how?
the above screenshot is the rough summary of it. but id also like to point to this:
just by leveraging the symmetry provided by a grid allows the designer to make things POP without having to add much fun fare. i think that’s why those little floating hands and faces become apparent, because they take up just enough room.
“ok haroon, so what? u can now tell us how some design works. i could have told you this was cool in far less words”
ya good point, maybe i was flexin’ there a bit. but mainly what i want to point to is what an evolution in aesthetics looks like. there was a time i had no idea what the hell was going on, but eventually things catch up. and that’s really important because visual language is key in how we engage with the world around us before we even say a word. for what its worth, if there was no emphasis on the visual language, Chai and Vibes would not be where it is at today. from day 1, whether it looked great or not, there was this commitment to visual language because we understood we needed to make you feel something before we said anything. the best phrasing around thoughts on this subject came from someone who inspired me:
understanding and using visual language is, in my opinion, one of the highest forms of care that you could show because — ultimately — it is reflective of you. what shows up on your “banner” is indicative, much like in the 2000’s on the likes of forums and tumblr, what matters to you. and when you’re building a brand, i personally think one of the biggest “fuck you’s” is trying to utilize stock templates to try to talk to your audience. tell me in less words or no words at all that you don’t care for me.
anyways, this ends this meditation on aesthetics. i really want to have more care to my writing over the next few weeks. i need to get in the habit of writing, rewriting, and testing out a few drafts. none of which i currently do in lieu of just, you know, publishing. i hope you walk away with something from reading this, friend.
best,
Haroon