“The Mob rules, absolutely.”

That statement was a powerful theme running through the SXSW Interactive festival this year. Using the Internet to learn and profit by shared knowledge isn’t a new phenomenon, but it seems to have taken on new life in the design community in recent years.

My eyes really DO hurt when I try to decipher what the pertinent information is on some peoples’ MySpace pages. The biggest offenders are music groups and bands…they are businesses and brands, and they are using a community-based tool to generate a public face for their business online. And more often than not, they get it wrong. But isn’t that their choice? What if a band or a small business needs a website, a logo, a graphic or art, and doesn’t want to pay a competitive price for the work to be done professionally?

Several sites have popped up over the past couple years that allow people and companies in this position to “crowd-source” projects and pay very minimally for design. And often, I am sure they will be getting exactly what they are (or aren’t) paying for.

I am excited by the possibilities community-based web graphic production offers, and at the same time feel conflicted because I cringe and wonder if we’re about to take some steps back to a 1996-like web world where it appeared hardly anyone had a designer on staff to make their site “pretty.” Getting logos and web layouts from these communities might be an inexpensive and easy way to get a job done, but I close my eyes and imagine an Internet designed by programmers, developers, writers, and NOT by trained designers. I worry that too many pages will hurt my eyes and begin to look like super-duper bedazzled MySpace pages.