Design Matters: Let your fingers do the walking

Yellow Pages, in our opinion, tried to draw the gap between the 2 media, print design and web design, to be much closer. Though we cannot confirm this, from TILT’s perspective, “Let your fingers do the walking” was the tagline which Yellow Pages developed to bridge the gap.

Some may argue that of course, the tagline itself is very apt as they are encouraging the end users to browse the hardcopy Yellow Pages. We argue that they try to bridge this gap simply because of the fundamental difference between print design and web design and we say that Yellow Pages understands that!

Print design is about letting your eyes walk over the information, selectively looking at key messages and using spatial justaposition of every element on that page / product to enhance and further explain themselves. Just remember, the very last time a brochure / poster caught your attention, was it a case where your eyes had “walked” to the information? Or was it your hands?

Web design functions by letting the hands walk to the information. This can be achieved either through scrolling or clicking. This relationship of information release is part of the interaction with the human body. Do you remember the details of a webpage? More often than not, you will find yourself bookmarking a webpage so that you can “walk” back to that page one day when you need the information.

If you understand this key difference, you will understand why TILT has an alternative view to “Let your fingers do the walking!”