Web designers should start companies, not freelance
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Web designers should start companies, not freelance
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Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#2>a rockstar designer should take more stake in a company than a >rockstar developer.
That made me laugh. I imagine the post was written by a designer.
I understand how important design is, it's as important as the backend. But somehow the OP believes that it's only the design that made some apps successful. He also undermines the countless sleepless nights the "engineers" at Apple spent trying to make things work to fit the design. Without fair share of both, it's impossible to make a product successful.
>A web site can be as clunky as it can be in terms of back-end >but if the front-end kicks ass,
The OP also makes the mistake of thinking, that design is only buttons and borders. Front is a fairly delicate balance of UX, UI. Without an appropriately "designed" backend which is equally responsive, all falls apart.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#3If you are going into the real estate business, you partner with building engineers, not interior decorators. Designers are interior decorators. Although they create an immense amount of value, once their work is done, they are not so much needed afterwards.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#4"A web site can be as clunky as it can be in terms of back-end but if the front-end kicks ass, people can easily overlook the back-end. But the same is not so true in reverse, which is to say, no one gives a crap about the “back-end”, as long as it works."
weakest argument ever, and the whole post stands on it.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#5I don't know if web designers should start companies or freelance, but this article didn't do anything to cement my opinion on the matter.
He starts out with a message to startup founders about how design will singlehandedly bring your site to prominence. He doesn't present any evidence for this.
He posits that designers don't get involved in startups because they believe their services aren't all that valuable. I think this is a rather unrealistic view of the situation. If anything, designers are prone to exaggerate their contribution to a project in my experience. I would suggest the reason designers don't get involved in startups is because they've dealt with enough nutty entrepreneurs to treat the field with skepticism. This is a realistic view — most startups simply aren't profitable ventures.
He then concludes that designers should get involved with startups because they're simply more satisfying than freelancing. This seems like such a subjective point that it's not even worth mentioning.
He never does directly address the claim in the headline, that designers should start startups.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#6>a rockstar designer should take more stake in a company than a >rockstar developer. That made me laugh. I imagine the post was written by a designer. I understand how important design is, it's as important as the backend. But somehow the OP believes that it's only the design that made some apps successful. He also undermines the countless sleepless nights the "engineers" at Apple spent trying to make things work to…
oh, i am a developer, btw.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#7>a rockstar designer should take more stake in a company than a >rockstar developer. That made me laugh. I imagine the post was written by a designer. I understand how important design is, it's as important as the backend. But somehow the OP believes that it's only the design that made some apps successful. He also undermines the countless sleepless nights the "engineers" at Apple spent trying to make things work to…
oh, i am a developer, btw.
That was a very weird argument in that case. 'Cos i'm a dev, and truly understand the value of designers(since i don't have the talent or haven't spent as much time on it).
Also a reason most people don't take on designers on board is that design is fairly broad in iterations. Quite a lot of successful startups probably hire a designer to finish a design(plus a couple of iterations on it). But the involvement of the dev side is more granular, and continuous till the end. Ofcourse most companies when they take off, do bring a full time designer on board.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#8" A web site can be as clunky as it can be in terms of back-end but if the front-end kicks ass, people can easily overlook the back-end. But the same is not so true in reverse, which is to say, no one gives a crap about the “back-end”, as long as it works. " weakest argument ever, and the whole post stands on it.
In other fields, that's called a marketing gimmick (some would go far by calling it a scam).
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#9As a designer who's launching his own business (http://folyo.me), I can certainly identify with this.
But I also know that it's easy to be blinded by the new entrepreneur's enthusiasm and see the world through rose-colored glasses. Whether you're a designer or developer, starting your own company or project is not for everybody and has numerous downsides.
For example since launching Folyo, I've spent almost no time on actual design. Instead, I'm spending most of my time either coding (I've learnt Rails) or writing on the blog (http://blog.folyo.me) to try and drive some traffic to the site.
I also didn't take on any new client projects, which means I've missed a couple nice opportunities, and also made much less money in the past couple months than I usually would.
If you're a designer and you want to stop freelancing while staying independent, I would instead advise that you sell Wordpress themes, sell icon packs, or maybe write an ebook.
Starting a company is definitely not the easy way out, and is not for everybody.
Re: Web designers should start companies, not freelance
#10I totally agree. I'm a designer/developer (better at design) and I have a company, I don't freelance. I make that distinction very clear. Sure, the company has me as its only employee but that's temporary. Now, the article's title seems a bit misleading. It sounds more like the author is advocating that designers stop freelancing and join a startup full time, not to stop freelancing and start a company.
I wish the post had touched on topics like the fact that considering or calling yourself a freelancer is short sighted and that starting a design company can be better for your bottom line in some markets.
That said, I also feel a bit bad for many of the people who will read this. At least the ones who are designers. These days there are about as many people who think they can call themselves designers as those who think they have the next big app idea. I include myself in this. Anyone nowadays can read some NetTuts, get a book on HTML and think they're a designer. It sucks and it hurts the good ones out there.
While I cringe lately at posts like this that give hope to people who have no business in the areas of design/development/entrepreneurship, I'm also glad they show up here on HN as I myself needed them about a year ago to get where I am today. I'm not an iota as skilled as a lot folks here on HN but I'm glad that the few who do have "it" (as in, "what it takes") get to read this and hopefully it fuels them to do things the rest of us only wish we could do.