Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special

Dear Designer, You Aren't That Special(getfinch.com)

52 points by voidnothings 15 years ago | 17 comments

lotides 15 years ago |

That 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.

ndaugherty18 15 years ago | |

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.

egypturnash 15 years ago |

<i>On 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.</i>

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.

keiferski 15 years ago |

“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."

armandososa 15 years ago | |

Well David Carson wasn't really a designer (so maybe he didn't knew the rules) and most designer still hate his guts.

I like his style, but I'd say that he is more of an artist than a designer. Not that shere's something wrong with that.

SapphireSun 15 years ago |

I'm really getting tired of these articles that get their hook by taking people down a notch to inflate someone else's ego.

I'm a developer, but I've also practiced a little bit of design as I made things. I've gotten better, and I can do things that impress some people. However, a proper designer is worth their weight in gold in terms of efficiency. It takes me forever to get something that looks okay.

Can't these articles take a tone more along the lines of "we appreciate you, and we're cool too?" Check that, I also hate orgiastic love fests.

Can our articles instead be flavorless factoids educate, but not inspire?

davidmathers 15 years ago |

The most interesting thing about this post, to me: it's a reminder that religious people rarely get taken at face value. Which I think is unfortunate for communication.

I read the linked Andy Rutledge post in which a religious fundamentalist tells the sinners he knows the truth and they better learn it and change their ways or they'll go to hell. In this case the religion is Objectivism, but fundamentalists of Marxism, Christianity, and Islam all speak the language.

The thing is no one takes him seriously. He wrote a post that's explicitly all about morality, truth, and changing people's evil ways. The OP, the commenters who mention him (pro and con), they can't seem to process it. They invent their own motivations and pin them on Andy. The OP even calls him a troll.

Um, no. More like a missionary.

The book What's the Matter with Kansas is a semi-famous example of the same phenomenon. The author of the book insists that the Christians of Kansas vote against their own self interest because he doesn't take their faith seriously.

Tekahera 15 years ago |

What 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."

echion 15 years ago | |

It's a shame he wrote "I'm not about to define design here" just before.

systemtrigger 15 years ago |

I 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.

tuhin 15 years ago | |

And the underlying assumption is that designers give Photoshop files as their final output, right?

systemtrigger 15 years ago | | |

No, I am arguing the opposite. I said there are many people who consider themselves to be web designers who do not have the skills to implement their ideas. These people are common in marketing agencies and all they do is make PSDs for devs to implement. This is a problem when the dev is faster at doing it all by himself, including design which he can often do just using Firebug. I am saying that front-end devs are designers by definition and in general they should avoid working for other designers who are stuck in Photoshop.

RoyG 15 years ago |

How would people respond if the article were changed to this:

'Dear Writer, You Aren't That Special'

"In essence, writing is not a chaotic expression, it’s a measured approach to creation. We cannot create a good writing solution by shuffling elements randomly around a blog until something happens to work."

Think about it that way, and the author disproves his own point. Yes, his post is grammatical, and contains thoughts that are communicated, but not very well. The best one can say is that it is passable, and worth the price paid. This is true for design as well; most companies claim to want great design, but are secretly willing to accept the passable, as long as the price is right.

It's in vogue to desire developers who have a 'design sensibility,' as if this is the answer, but would it make as much sense to ask for a developer with 'copyrighting sensibility?' After all, design and writing have much more in common than developing and designing.

Meanwhile, here is a much more cogent post on the original topic, that counters this argument much more clearly and eloquently...because it was written by a professional writer, not just somebody who has a blog.

How Wannabe Designers Burden the Profession http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/wannabe-designers...

tuhin 15 years ago |

It is the same for any trade. Be it design, programming and anything else. None of us were born with it.

Designers had to study design, read books and then practice this thousand times before we are any good. I am sure even if I read programming books and learn how to code that is just the first step. I will have to program for atleast 10,000 hours before I am really good.

Few people are able to reduce that 10,000 hours stretch to 1000 hours but that period of intense practice will and always remain.

If a designer feels a new person cannot learn to design they are wrong. If they feel they cannot be a good designer, they are right for the next 10,000 hours.

VomisaCaasi 15 years ago | |

The author should've at least defined what kind of design was he talking about. Almost every person is a designer on daily basis, when we are cleaning our rooms, preparing a dish, or even when we are communicating with our peers. Unless we are copying everything and do everything as our friends are doing, then in fact we are in a design process. The difference comes in when a person is confident enough to write a cheque for his work that he and a client both think is a design. This distinction should've been clarified in the beginning of the article, or else we aren't even able to have a discussion about it.

alsomike 15 years ago |

"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.

khafra 15 years ago | |

I agree. I finished "The Non-Designer's Design Book," which seems to be universally regarded as the sine qua non of beginning design; then immediately applied my new skills to a redesign of my dad's 1998-frontpage-website. Long story short, after about 8 hours of work on the homepage, it still doesn't look much better.