Thanks, that's how you develop a bookmark
NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
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Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#32Alternatively, just work with a designer. There are thousands of them out there who want to build tech stuff but don't have the skills. They want developers to collaborate with. Reach out to some on social media and you might be surprised how receptive they are. You don't have to do everything on your own, and you definitely shouldn't compromise on design if you want your project to succeed.
Good advice, and I wholly agree: design is important and deserves an expert. > Reach out to some on social media Any tips on how, or where? My experience with fiverr is very much "hit or miss" and getting designers interested for a startup in very early phase is hard in my experience.
> My experience with fiverr is very much "hit or miss" and getting designers interested for a startup in very early phase is hard in my experience.
How are you paying them? Fiverr is a low-price marketplace and not where I'd try to find the best talent. Getting good Fiverr designs requires a lot of work and some understanding of design. The latter seems to run counter to this thread. Ultimately, you won't get great design on the cheap.
My personal experience is the lowest cost option for really great design is having a couple of thousand dollars on retainer with a contract designer, or small design agency. Go through your working prototype and see how they can uplift the existing design within your budget. If you can come inside budget then get the same designers back later for more bits and pieces. This is how you build up a relationship and they might cut you some slack, such as doing an updated email template, or some other one-offs.
Using bootstrap, or another standard framework is a potential win. They may be able to provide customizations for you directly. If you have a completely custom frontend, or something that's highly engineered, then it's harder and more expensive for developers to work with you.
It goes without saying that you need to own the copyrights on the assets they create for you. The other part is that you need things in the right formats. If they created illustrations, then get the original AI files, not only the exported image files. If you have the source files, then you can make your own tweaks later. So many people forget to think about this. I've had to make tweaks 100% of the time. Copyright issues will come up much later and hinder you when you are successful, but it's easy to deal with those initially.
If you don't have a couple of thousand to budget toward design then you should stick to generic templates because designers don't work for free. They generally don't win from startup success because of the bias towards engineers, so don't expect them to keen to work based on some promise of success and payment later.
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#33Alternatively, just work with a designer. There are thousands of them out there who want to build tech stuff but don't have the skills. They want developers to collaborate with. Reach out to some on social media and you might be surprised how receptive they are. You don't have to do everything on your own, and you definitely shouldn't compromise on design if you want your project to succeed.
>Alternatively, just work with a designer.
How can a person with minimal design skills (ie. me) tell if a designer is any good? I know when I like something, but I can't trust my own taste.
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#34Alternatively, just work with a designer. There are thousands of them out there who want to build tech stuff but don't have the skills. They want developers to collaborate with. Reach out to some on social media and you might be surprised how receptive they are. You don't have to do everything on your own, and you definitely shouldn't compromise on design if you want your project to succeed.
- you may not have the budget for that (small company, student, open source project, side project...)
- you may not be able to find the talent where you are (good designers are not uniformly distributed, and remote may not be possible for you. Source: lived in Africa)
- you may want/need to know the basics to evaluate the work of a designer, hire one or just communicate efficiently with one
- you may just be curious, and want to learn that for you. Or transition to be, you know, a designer :)
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless it is an open source project I feel it would be rude to ask someone to work for free on it. I said work with a designer, as in a collaboration. As in bring them onboard as a co-founder, give them equity, have an agreement to share profits. Pay them if you can. Share skills by getting them to do design work on your side project in return for coding their side project. There are lots of ways to work with people.…
Are designers usually co-founders?
Any reason they shouldn't be? Steve Jobs...
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless it is an open source project I feel it would be rude to ask someone to work for free on it. I said work with a designer, as in a collaboration. As in bring them onboard as a co-founder, give them equity, have an agreement to share profits. Pay them if you can. Share skills by getting them to do design work on your side project in return for coding their side project. There are lots of ways to work with people.…
Are designers usually co-founders?
Two of YouTube's founders, Chad Hurley and Christina Brodbeck, were designers. Charles Adler who started KickStarter is a designer. It does happen.
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless it is an open source project I feel it would be rude to ask someone to work for free on it. I said work with a designer, as in a collaboration. As in bring them onboard as a co-founder, give them equity, have an agreement to share profits. Pay them if you can. Share skills by getting them to do design work on your side project in return for coding their side project. There are lots of ways to work with people.…
Are designers usually co-founders?
Perhaps not typically, as tech startup founders tend to skew on the engineering side (outside of your traditionally MBA-founded startups).
But I believe a UX designer would make a great co-founder if they focus on user research, information architecture, and interaction design.
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#38Alternatively, just work with a designer. There are thousands of them out there who want to build tech stuff but don't have the skills. They want developers to collaborate with. Reach out to some on social media and you might be surprised how receptive they are. You don't have to do everything on your own, and you definitely shouldn't compromise on design if you want your project to succeed.
> Alternatively, just work with a designer. How can a person with minimal design skills (ie. me) tell if a designer is any good? I know when I like something, but I can't trust my own taste.
Check out the designer's portfolio first. If you like what you see, hire them to work with you on a small piece of the project (if possible) and negotiate how you want to handle any modifications to their designs. If it doesn't work out, you can stop working with them.
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what font to choose, what color palette to pick etc. I don't think anyone but you will be able to give an exact response to this. After all, it depends on your product and how you want it to look. Remember, when it comes to design there are no universal right answers.
Are you aware of colour theory, and how to effectively use the colour wheel?
The color wheel is great, but there are enough counter-examples that the original point stands -- design is inherently personal.
Re: NoDesign.dev – Tools and resources for non-artistic developers
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you aware of colour theory, and how to effectively use the colour wheel?
The color wheel is great, but there are enough counter-examples that the original point stands -- design is inherently personal.
So is what programming language or framework to choose. Just because people have preference doesn't mean you can't learn the basics