Do Design Galleries hurt the Industry?

For ages, designers have been debating the negative influences of design awards on projects. Arguments about the work being less about the client and more about winning awards have been staples of design discussion. Lately this argument has been applied to web design by the rapidly growing number of design awards galleries that are popping up all over the web. This is not to say that all sites are bad, however I have noticed a couple of trends with these sites that is most likely affecting the industry negatively.

These sites award aesthetics, not effective communication. Being that these sites simply showcase sites that they feel are beautiful, well constructed, or otherwise “cool” selections are not based on how effective the project was in meeting a client’s needs or communicating their brand effectively. Also they perpetuate the creation of sites that are little more than eye candy, developed so the designer can reach the self gratifying rank of “award winner.”

The sites help perpetuate bad design. A large number of the sites are run by people who are too quick to accept submissions. They award “winning” status to those who have a large number of design flaws, simply because the site was created completely in CSS without any tables. This is a huge problem, because numerous up-and-coming designers look at these designs and repeat the mistakes of the winners before them.

A large percent are nothing more than made for adsense sites. Every day we see a site go inactive because the owner had no other motive other than to generate adsense money from the reciprocal traffic they were offering. I am a firm believer in adsense and other PPC methods, so long as this is not the only reason for the site. Luckily though, these sites that offer almost no real value weed themselves out when the sites owner realizes that they are not going to get rich from their awards gallery.

This however is not the case with all of the sites. Some of them offer a great way to archive the trends of the web over time and critique the current micro-trends. I frequently visit sites such as the American Design Awards, the FWA, and Design Meltdown. These sites hold a high standard within their selections of picking the most respected and fully developed designs on the internet.

So go ahead and submit your site to all the awards galleries on the web, there is really nothing wrong with it (even I do it). Just think hard the next time you start your design as to what your motives are and what you really hope to accomplish with your work. As long as you seek to meet the needs of your clients you are doing no wrong.