Is Modern Web Design Too Formulaic?

When you get a bit older you'll realize that design is to a great extent like fashion, full of the same ebbs and flows and trends with an underlying current of timeless utility that expresses itself in different ways depending where you look.

If there's a new quality to web design that makes it appear even more formulaic than usual I would say it's the presence of frameworks like Bootstrap that let you make something look halfway decent looking with very basic skills and a tiny amount of work. It's certainly never been as easy to get your feet wet in design.

But has innovation stopped? No, it only seems that way if you're under 25 and your brain is still developing so you don't actually have any perspective longer than the last year or two.

Dieter Rams's Ten Principles of "Good Design"

Good Design Is Innovative— The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good Design Makes a Product Useful—A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good Design Is Aesthetic—The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good Design Makes A Product Understandable—It clarifies the product's structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good Design Is Unobtrusive— Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user's self-expression.

Good Design Is Honest— It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept

Good Design Is Long-lasting— It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today's throwaway society.

Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail—Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly— Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible—Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/about/press/press_exhibitions/releases... San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Are books formulaic? Cover, Title, Author, Chapters, Writing, A beginning, a middle, an end?

formulaic allows us, the users, to easily begin using something new without a learning curve. Personally, I don't want every website to be innovative, requiring me to re-learn or figure out how to do something.