I apologize if you thought that you were going to see Ace and Gene, but this page is devoted to the design maxim (and life lesson) Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I’m as big a fan of baroque and Byzantine art as anyone. The complex and convoluted intricacies of Celtic knots and fractal visualizations are stimulating and engrossing. However, they’re not designed to convey information or communicate with you.
KISS is one of those rules that will never fail you. If you’re not sure whether to include something, don’t. If something looks out of place, get rid of it. If there’s a straight path from A to B, you’d better have a seriously compelling rationale for going through C along the way.
Where this begins to approach the grey area is within the touchy topic of aesthetics.
You don’t have to go too far in the design world to find a cranky design curmudgeon or narrow-minded milquetoast with nothing but contempt for anything that seems artistic. However, you’ll travel an even shorter distance to find example of designers who were consumed by their creative self-image.
There is plenty of room in the middle. As a designer, you had best make peace with the idea that you’re not really supposed to be an artist. Rembrandt was an artist; you make stuff that’s supposed to work, or make something work better.
The infancy of the Internet was largely limited by memory and bandwidth limitations, forcing designers to come up with some pretty amazing solutions. The first person who decided that a clicked link should change colors was a creative designer (well, they were probably a programmer, but the two are NOT mutually exclusive).
Now that we have a palette which is much more conducive to creativity, the bigger danger is allowing our flights of fancy to overcome our sober assessment of the actual purpose of the design. When in doubt: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
And always remember that in spite of what everyone tells you, nothing is more important than a good grasp of simplicity.