CollyLogic: Too Many Cooks

Short link for this post: http://colly.com/s/

18th May 2005

Too Many Cooks

Current rating: 9.8 (1,614 votes)

Added: 18th May 2005

Designer: Too Many Cooks

Submitter: Andy Clarke

Collaboration is a buzzword we can’t ignore in web design at the moment. At a time when many web agencies are little more than an amalgamation of freelancers, it’s interesting to see this collective seizing the zeitgeist and pushing the envelope so fast it bursts into flames and singes the fingers of all who view it.

Collaborations ain’t always smooth. The recent collaboration between Jeffrey Zeldman’s Happy Cog and Doug Bowman’s Stopdesign shows just how out of touch the “pros” are. Their Capgemini redesign was a terrible concoction of well-thought out structure, clean CSS and usability. Awful.

Thankfully, the refreshingly misguided Too Many Cooks shows us the worth of dueling approaches. Why on earth should we tie ourselves to the tedium of delivering a page with purpose? And usability - overrated really, isn’t it? Do we need to think our designs through any more? Is there any need for design workshops, site plans or testing? Just get all the designers you know to do two minutes work each, scrunch each contribution up into a little ball, throw it all in a hat, and serve up the results.

I’m predicting this approach, and the look and feel of Too Many Cooks will have a great influence on web design throughout the remainder of 2005. Stupid five-year-old’s drawings of big birds, beige, italics and fish will be influencing us all from this pivotal point onwards.

CSS Zen Garden? Shea, give it up. Cederholm, you failed to teach us anything with your books. Jeffrey, pull that hat over your head. Too Many Cooks throws your teachings out of the window, and brings back the child in all of us.

This is one broth that has not been spoiled by too many cooks. Pass me some crusty bread and let me dunk.

Reviewed by Simon Collison (after drinking a pint) for Stylegala.
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Simon Collison published this on 18/05/05, at 9:06 PM

Comments

Ha-ha! You’re like the Clement Greenberg of web design. Two Many Cooks are the Jacson Pollock of their era. This is heady stuff. Away everyone an unlearn what you have learned,

18/05 at 23:26 from Crystal

It will be interesting to see how fast this new method spreads across the design community. This is indeed a pivotol moment in web history.

He-he.

19/05 at 01:12 from James

This is so a copy. It uses all the same design elements as we saw in 2004. And the code isn’t clean at all! I thought this site was about standards!

19/05 at 06:50 from Jacob Rask

What can I tell you Colly..nnnnn… I think this is Andy’s finest piece to date, pure poetry and a worthy winner of a place in this month’s all stars.

I’d always known Andy was a bit special, but this collaboration shows him up for what he really is… a genius of course!

Well done to Andy and his gaggle of pan jockeys. It has inspired me to think about a redesign!

19/05 at 08:52 from John Oxton

Haha! Nice review of Too Many Cooks and well done Andy. I love this idea.

19/05 at 21:06 from Gustaf Lindqvist

CSS Zen Garden? Shea, give it up. Cederholm, you failed to teach us anything with your books. Jeffrey, pull that hat over your head. Too Many Cooks throws your teachings out of the window, and brings back the child in all of us.

Aha! Brilliant! I love it!

20/05 at 03:41 from Alex B

lol, Love it 9.7/10

20/05 at 19:12 from Dave

That’s it, I’m giving up web design. When you’re beat, you’re beat.

20/05 at 23:30 from Dave S.

I agree. Also I need to mention one thing. Why do all websites have that “xhtml” and “css” link in their footer? If you want do design a standards friendly page, Do it! Put a validation link on the site, you are not getting the big picture… Standards are for accessibility.. not a certificate that a designer has passed this minimum requirements test to become a good web designer.

21/05 at 13:15 from siggi

Well put, Siggi.

*Looks at my site....

22/05 at 02:47 from Alex B

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