Out-of-the-grid design - when is it a good idea?

My longtime partner in Internet adventure, @jackpowers, posted this today:

@Jack Powers Eff usability, I love great design. RT @onextrapixel Characteristics of Less Conventional Websites w/Examples http://bit.ly/19iDHq

So I checked it out. Jack's got excellent taste, and the examples provided by Charlotte at onextrapixel.com are gorgeous, modern, compelling.

My take: I adore great design. As a fine arts major, I remember grumbling about why we had to master still life before creating abstract works, about the excruciating color-chart exercises. Eventually I understood that I needed those fundamentals before I could truly abstract.

We'd love to see a Web full of sites like those at oneextrapixel. But as a working (not theoretical) information architect, I must say that the best candidates for this sort of visual design are professional visual designers and hip development shops (there are quite a few portfolios there) and, of course, entertainment, where the non-conventional approach has always been appropriate.

Information-rich Web sites need to have gotten Web 1.0 right before moving to the unconventional Web site. This means branding, strategy, user priorities, information architecturem user interface design. All the boring stuff that creates a truly usable Web site. Then we can (if justified by mission) move on to abstraction.

Jazz musicians must master the piece before they can improvise. We look forward to working with clients that have already mastered the Web fundamentals so we can take them to the next level. Until then, our job is to get them to master the fundamentals. And to keep an eye on beautiful design, so we can lead the there when the time is right.