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The Dribbblisation of Design

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Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#91
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author isn't conflating. That is what the words mean, and "UX" is the made up wank word. It's the "Web 2.0." of the design world. I'm pretty sure "UX" was created as a term in response to the market getting flooded with stylists (interested amateurs) calling themselves "designers". I'm interested to see what you believe to be the distinction between "visual design" and "graphic design". Traditionally, Graphic des…

From the Wikipedia page on graphic design: "Graphic design is a creative process between a client and a designer, traditionally completed in conjunction with producers of form (printers, sign makers, programmers etc.). Graphic design is created to convey a specific message (or messages) to a targeted audience. The field is also often referred to as Visual Communication or Communication Design. Graphic designers use v…

Oh well I guess your 10 minutes skimming wikipedia defeats my 6 years of university, 10 years experience and constant obsessive reading.

The point I am making is "Design" is how it works. Graphic design is the design of printed, or visual communications. Graphic from the Greek Graphos, for "writing". That is, how the written communication works. To go from that to conclude that "Oh graphic design is just how it looks then" doesn't make any sense, and demonstrates a very shallow understanding of what it actually involves.

Furthermore, with graphic design along with any design process- the most important thing you learn is the process. The process of research, iteration, prototyping, throwing out most of your ideas, starting again and again and refining, and learning- all towards the goal of solving a specific problem.

That is all design. Not just graphic design. To go from there to "Oh but this guy can do some neat looking bevels in photoshop", it really just blows my mind, how amazingly dismissive and disrespectful such a view point is.

That Human-Computer interaction is "new" is really just way to hype it up. There is absolutely nothing new about the process of achieving a good HCI design, because it's the same principles from graphic design, typography, and industrial design all over again, simply applied to this new medium. There is nothing special or unique about it, except that you can get a faster turnaround time on prototypes.

It's not surprising that designers specialise, and all contribute to how it works. But it's like a british tank. All the soldiers in the tank are trained to do each other's jobs, so they can take over if required. They are all "Designers".

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#92
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a good process. My designer was quick, responsive, fairly priced, and came up with what I think is a great logo. I'm very happy with it, and I consistently get positive feedback ('cool robot'). What do you think: http://www.predictobot.com/ ?

I'm going to use your logo as an example of what design should be and why the author is on the right track. Your logo looks good. Visually, it's fine... But what's the point of having dual colored shapes? Why is there a circle behind the antennas? What does the robot represent? Why orange? If you showed the logo to someone, would they be able to think of a word that coincides with a goal/mission of your company? Why…

I appreciate what you're trying to say. People hire someone based on something shiny they see on Dribble, and they get something shallow and shiny as a result.

However, in my case, there was actually a lot more thought about the feel I wanted to the logo to project than you give us credit for. My company is about making predictive modeling easy, for people who are non-programmers. I wanted a look that was friendly, accessible, futuristic and high tech. I did spend a long time explaining to Ty Wilkins, my designer, what my business was about, and the feel I wanted to project.

We eventually decided that's we go with a mid-century "Tomorrowland" version of futuristic, as a way of combining the friendly with futuristic. The robot came out of that line of work. Since 50's robots were intelligent, it gets at prediction.

I think if you showed it to people they would come up with words like friendly. Eventually, I changed the name of the website to be Predictobot, to have a stronger tie in with the logo.

I did try hard not to be a back seat designer, since that's why I was hiring Ty. So the overall form of the robot is entirely his. The circle behind the antennas is to echo the '50's TV antennas. The orange is a warmer, friendlier color than more typical logo blues and greens.

So maybe I'm being naive, but I do think that we went through a good process of thought, that led to a solution that fit the brief. It wasn't just "give me something that looks good".

People do seem to connect with it. I don't hand out a single business card without getting a comment on how they like my logo. It represents what I wanted to project for my one person business. And I found Ty on Dribbble ;-).

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a good process. My designer was quick, responsive, fairly priced, and came up with what I think is a great logo. I'm very happy with it, and I consistently get positive feedback ('cool robot'). What do you think: http://www.predictobot.com/ ?

IMO: Considering its place currently in overall page layout, logo might be better simplified and with less contrast. E.g., take the favicon version—it's nice too, actually. It especially concerns the application section of Predictobot: current logo will be too distracting. Compare a few pages with similar layout to yours, note they all use more schematic logos that draw less attention to header: https://www.getsentry…

Thanks for the constructive criticism. I'll try to tone it down a bit in the real site. I just did the teaser site quite quickly to collect emails, before a conference I was talking at.

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#94

The web is with us all the time. It’s already moving into our cars, into our clothes, into the things we own, into monitoring our health. Is he using the word 'web' instead of 'Internet'? Does anyone know of the web moving into our clothes?

No. The term 'web' encompasses the protocols and standards. Generally HTTP, HTML, JavaScript, XML, JSON etc.

I have web-enabled weighing scales, web enabled radio, web enabled security cameras. If they were to use a different protocol (e.g. FTP) it would not be 'web'.

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#95
post #24

As someone who went through a job hunt without a "Dribbblized" portfolio a couple years ago: Go with the Dribbble approach. At least if you're looking for anything resembling a design job. That final layer of polish and execution is what gets you hired. If you don't have that, you get eliminated immediately. Nobody will ask about your process or your wireframes if your resume gets tossed in the trash bin. You'll neve…

As someone who has hired designers over the years for various startups, I agree. The author seems to conflate UX with visual design or graphic design. They are not the same thing and often aren't done by the same person. I've had fantastic UX designers who, frankly, can't get perfectly laid out pixel perfect work done or do eye candy. I've had UI/graphic designers who were awful at figuring out flow. I've had people…

Nobody is saying UX and graphic design are the same. But even graphic designers have practical concerns that override aesthetics. Choice of typography must suit readability. Layout must emphasize the most important elements of a document in a visual hierarchy.

The things I see on dribble's home page are pretty, not practical. And all the circlejerking in the comments threatens to turn the site into a web designer's version of DeviantArt.

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#96

The article contains this gem: ...Redesigns of other people’s work is pure folly e.g. the new Yahoo logo, iOS7, changes to Facebook, the New New Twitter, the American Airlines rebrand. People have no context for the decision making process involved in these projects, no knowledge of the requirements, constraints, organisational politics. First, most of these redesigns are done in good fun, as a thought exercise for t…

I upvoted you but I disagree. When designers do unsolicited "spec" redesigns of big brands, I don't think they are representing the customer. You can't represent the customer without doing some real research with real customers. I can't remember ever seeing those sorts of results in a spec redesign post. Instead, I think they are using the brand as a canvas to show off their own abilities. And they always pick a big…

Andrew Kim has a great unsolicited redesign of the American Ballot system that considered users primarily and doesn't lean too heavy on using the brand as a canvas. http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/america-elect

Teensy bit bland for my tastes but it goes to show there are designer out there who do some quality redesigns.

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#97

If you want designers to stop designing for Dribbble, stop hiring designers on the basis of their Dribbble profiles. Right now, the evaluation and hiring process for designers in most companies is so shallow that cranking out eye-catching niblets is a HIGHLY rational move for designers looking to promote themselves.

[deleted]

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#98

If you want designers to stop designing for Dribbble, stop hiring designers on the basis of their Dribbble profiles. Right now, the evaluation and hiring process for designers in most companies is so shallow that cranking out eye-catching niblets is a HIGHLY rational move for designers looking to promote themselves.

In a sentence, that is the real problem.

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#99
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Wikipedia page on graphic design: "Graphic design is a creative process between a client and a designer, traditionally completed in conjunction with producers of form (printers, sign makers, programmers etc.). Graphic design is created to convey a specific message (or messages) to a targeted audience. The field is also often referred to as Visual Communication or Communication Design. Graphic designers use v…

Oh well I guess your 10 minutes skimming wikipedia defeats my 6 years of university, 10 years experience and constant obsessive reading. The point I am making is "Design" is how it works. Graphic design is the design of printed, or visual communications. Graphic from the Greek Graphos, for "writing". That is, how the written communication works . To go from that to conclude that "Oh graphic design is just how it look…

Great comment on my history of the field... Except I also studied this in university and I am a designer as well, who also reads books, articles, and academic papers as well.

If you want to argue that designers should be knowledgable about all aspects of product design, I agree. But graphic design != interaction or product design.

Re: The Dribbblisation of Design

#100
post #17

I'm a designer on Dribbble. The work I present on Dribbble and the "actual" work I do for my clients are quite different most of the time. You can think of Dribbble as the "runway" of graphic/UI design - most of the stuff there are for showing off the designers' ability and/or are conceptual. They are fun and beautiful to look at, but not always designed for practical use, just like most people won't wear runway fash…

Great comparison to the runway - love that!
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