Eye-Candy: Sweethearts or Sour Patch Kids?

The concept of how much is too much, or when minimal design simply becomes no design, is one of those questions that the designer of today must face. In the days of web 2.0, users were happily content with the excitement of rainbow strobe gifs, kitten pictures, web-safe fuchsia backgrounds and lime green marquee text. Now, in a more sophisticate age of the web, the user expects a certain air of quality and care in their design; an amount of precision and sophistication, substance rather than a pile of fancy bells.

The designer of today needs to revise their notions of eye-candy. A term that used to mean the colors and forms of little girl's dreams has a new model in the information age: one more subtle, but just as captivating. When a designer re-envisions eye-catching colors from neon to schemed; when they see that the placement of images creates as much of a picture as the images themselves; when they realize the layout of the content and the access is just as important as the bells and whistles the content contains; when they embrace a subtle balance of soft edges and hard lines; these design theories create the "newly renovated" definition of eye candy.

The keys to design now are a certain kind of serenity. In the past, information popped droves of colors, shapes, and movement in an attempt to catch the eye of the user. As always, a bit of attention-grabbing is a necessary component to gain an audience. Designers today though, see that the key to maintaining that audience is serenity. Much of the design needs to lie in the background, enhancing the user's experience but not distracting them from it. Creating a certain kind of relaxing quality that invites the audience to explore more of the page.

Some of the best designs today are the designs that you can barely feel yourself interacting with. When the design flows effortlessly but encourages maximum use; that is a design that will captivate and maintain an audience. The simplicity of these is not in a lack of design (though some may like to say so), but rather in an understanding of the necessary components and placement with more emphasis on the balance of form and function. Some of the "simplest" designs of today are actually the most well thought out, and it is this well-disguised simplicity that can help make an amazing, captivating design.