I decided to use part of my holiday break to catch up on some movies I had been wanting to see, and one of them was The Spirit. Despite the horrible reviews it got, I still looked forward to seeing this stylized version of the Will Eisner comic book classic. It was Frank Miller after all, and he’s always able to spin a good yarn.
I should have saved the money.
Visually the movie is beautiful, pulling in the hard edge black and white style of Frank Miller’s Sin City graphic novel. But that’s where the compliments end. Thirty minutes in, as I’m looking at my phone hoping it’ll end soon, it hit me. What’s wrong with this movie is what’s wrong with many websites: It’s the content, or lack thereof.
The Spirit’s focus on the visuals created a beautiful piece of cinematic eye candy. Once that wears off, though, you are left with 60 minutes of hackneyed story that feels thrown together to allow for more eye candy. Websites, sadly, are largely the same. Site owners tend to focus all their energies on the visual look and feel, paying little attention to their content. They go for what looks cool, at the expense of the content. They think: with a killer visual, who needs content? Your site does.
Stunning visuals will get you noticed. They might even give you a nice boost in traffic. However, without content there is no reason for people to stick around or come back. Without it, you’ll just have people clicking away or in the case of The Spirit, walking out.
Damnit, I was considering seeing ‘The Spirit’ too (it’s not been released here in the UK yet), sounds like one more to avoid!
Yeah, good comparison with web sites, the old ‘content is king’ statement is still very relevant isn’t it?! Got to admire sites that can do both (visuals and content) really well.
Sorry to ruin it for you mate. It’s sad that we are still having to tell site owners that they need to put resources towards content as well as design. By now I figured it would have sunk in.
I love that this is coming from the visual designer. :)
I still want to see The Spirit on the big screen — what else do you go to the theaters for if not eye candy?
I think I like you