5 reasons a good designer should be like a banana

Probably every designer longs to create something in their career that will be unforgettable for ever. Their role models are people such as Rob Janoff, who designed the world-famous bitten apple, or Carolyn Davidson, who as a student created the world's most famous swoosh for a modest 35 dollars. The true role model for every designer, though, ought to be the banana. Most people appreciate its benefits for health, but only a chosen few realise its hidden qualities. In the following article we will show, with specific examples, everything a designer ought to take from the banana.

A banana's colour tells you when it is ready to eat

If you have doubts about your design, let it sit in your head. Such a design may be green, unripe and in need of time to ripen into its rich yellow form. It matters to look at things with the distance of time, because only then do we notice the mistakes we overlooked at first. This approach makes it far likelier that the client will not receive a design tasting of soap or wax, but one that is splendidly sweet.

A banana can be eaten anywhere

Every designer should ask themselves a basic question: can my design be used anywhere, on any device and under any circumstances? When any design is created it matters to consider its compatibility with display options other than the primary one. Imagine we are creating a logo. What probably matters most to the client is that the logo catch the eye. Their idea, though, may include a three-colour gradient or a realistic depiction of a dove flying over a sunset. If we stuck to that idea, we would produce an illustration unusable for the client's business purposes. It could not be scaled down or manipulated, and its uses would be very limited.

Bananas make no mess. They can be eaten without getting dirty

The basic condition of good design is clarity. The American designer Charles Eames once said, "Design is an expression of purpose first; only later (if it is good enough) may it be considered art." Art creates questions, but design provides answers. Its appearance should not come at the cost of function, because for the client, and then for the consumer, what matters is the information we are trying to convey through our design; only then does its artistic side come into play. A poster is a good example. Its aim is to inform clearly and factually about a coming event. If we focused primarily on its appearance and paid little attention to the content, the poster might no longer serve as an information medium or acquaint the consumer with the coming event.

Bananas have lines showing how to peel them

Can you say of your design that it is easy to grasp and intuitive? Proper design carries a visual hierarchy through which we can clearly define the importance and meaning of each part. Its job is to steer the client's eye to certain parts of the design, according to which part we want to draw attention to. Placing objects at random with no intent can look disorganised and unprofessional. The reader's eye may not know where to look or which piece of information to take first, and the text becomes hard to read. Our job is to create relationships between the individual elements and group them in a way that makes sense to the reader.

Eating a banana needs no experience or tools

Less is more. Everyone has probably heard that sentence in their life, several times over. So it is no surprise that it applies in our case too. Consumers, and people in general, favour things that are easy to grasp. So it matters to make sure our products are simple enough to need no prior knowledge or experience. If we created a design whose function was not obvious, it would probably raise a heap of negative questions in the consumer. Where do I click? Where do I find the information I am looking for? Such an experience could be negative enough to put the consumer off visiting again or using our product.

In the lines above we have set out every reason a designer should be like a banana. My question is: can you say of yourself that you are a banana, or rather a pineapple or a pomegranate?