Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
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Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#2What an amazingly accurate and succinct synthesis of the nature of design. I'm writing this down somewhere: "In essence, design is not a chaotic expression, it’s a measured approach to creation."
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#3“When we’re talking primarily about good typographical rules and creating a balanced visual hierarchy, those things are not subjective. Those just are. You can guarantee that people will react a certain way to these things. And we’re not actually looking for an emotional connection where we might be with color and the more artistic layer if you will. That’s the nice thing about design. At its core level it’s not really subjective. It’s just a matter of good balanced decision making and not cluttering things, not overcrowding.” — Dan Rubin
Maybe, but that's really glossing over the entire history of design, especially people like David Carson. Google him for examples of his work - it's not clean, balanced, and clutter-free, yet he was pretty influential in the design world. Of course, he knew the rules before he meaningfully broke them, but that's nowhere near being "objective."
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#4That was very difficult to read. It was more of a rant filled with rambling generizations than a coherant argument. And what an inflamatory headline. I've read it twice and I'm still not sure what he expects to accomplish from his accusations and random thoughts. If anything, I feel like he needs to leave his bubble. The designers he described weren't anybody I've worked with or met since my college years. If anything, being in the industry for any amount of time beats these traits out of you.
In closing: Dear writer, you aren't that special.
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#5That was very difficult to read. It was more of a rant filled with rambling generizations than a coherant argument. And what an inflamatory headline. I've read it twice and I'm still not sure what he expects to accomplish from his accusations and random thoughts. If anything, I feel like he needs to leave his bubble. The designers he described weren't anybody I've worked with or met since my college years. If anythin…
There was just an article on HN a few days ago about how hackers and way too mean to each other. I don't think the author read it because this article has nothing to do with helping forward things.
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#6On one side of the creative spectrum are people like Thomas Edison who are disciplined and consistently create. Edison would simply experiment and iterate as much as necessary before coming up with an invention. On the other side of the creative spectrum are artists and musicians that are more emotional in their creativity. There is no knowledge necessary. They just have a skill like music and they use that to spontaneously create.
Evidently anatomy, the history of visual art, color theory, music theory, the history of music, and a basic knowledge of the physics of vibrations are not knowledge. And no musician or artist has ever made studies to explore the possibilities of an idea before sitting down and making their huge statement of it.
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#7"Many designers or agencies might scoff at the notion of a “non-designer” being able to learn and understand the principles to help them arrive at a design."
They would, except that most of them were once non-designers who learned the principles of design. That is how you become a designer.
Or maybe he means non-designers can learn how to design by reading a book? Yeah, I guess designers would scoff at that - reading helps, but you really have to practice to be any good.
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#8[deleted]
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#9[deleted]
Re: Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special
#10I think the author may be making a hasty generalization but I agree with the sentiment that many web designers are self congratulating blowhards. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some self described "creative" wax endlessly about color palettes, their feelings or design in general. The result is often a Photoshop file they can't implement so the file makes its way to a "coder" or if they're being generous a "developer." The tragedy for the developer, apart from being the lowest in the chain of command and first to be laid-off, is that he may be better at design than the Designer. Just because someone calls themselves a designer doesn't mean they are better at design than someone who calls themselves a developer or hacker. If you are good in Firebug's HTML tab and you care about every pixel, IMHO you are just as deserving to be called a designer as someone whose sole output is Photoshop files.