What The Hell Do I Know About Design?
Granted, the title of the blog should give you a hint on where I think I stand, but why did I start this in the first place? I’m no trend setter, no standards evangelist, no innovator, no web development insider, I’m just trying my best to keep up with all the advancements of 2004, let alone 2008.
When it comes to writing code, I can learn anything, given enough time and resources, but with web design, the “knack” isn’t there. Unless I’m totally inspired, I’ve got nothing. I’m more mimic than originator. I’ve got the software skills to recreate anything, but the original idea? Well, that takes real vision.
I’m not “design-deaf”. I can recognize the good and bad, I’ve got a “good eye”, as it were. But starting from nothing and coming up with something totally original and new? Well, that’s special.
But then I started looking around, checking out galleries and other designers, looking at the artwork on stock image sites and reading articles about design and you know what I learned?
There’s about forty to fifty completely original designers in the world. They are the trend setters, the mac.com designers, the first to use chunky, pastel text all over their site, the first to put a shiny badge in their header and scream “Web 2.0″ , the first with that scrolling status bar text (you remember them) and the creator of the very first animated “under construction” sign. They were the innovators, the rest of us are all mimics.
But let’s not lose hope! Let’s come together in our noninnovativeness-ness and mimic the hell out of really GOOD design, and leave the bad design to Staples-software buyers.
Confession: The first web site I ever built had a pastel paisly background, used Brush Script font, had animated gifs (books turning pages) as the menu, which was located in a bottom frame, that scrolled. That was 1996.
At least I’ve given up Brush Script.
What The Hell Am I Turning This Site Into?
I really want to thank everyone that’s commented so far. I’ve included your links not as a way to fill this blog, but because I’ve found them all to be valuable resources or interesting articles. But I’m going overboard on the linking and not spending enough time on the writing.
What could I write about? I’m a full-time web developer, but most of the work I do is seat-of-the-pants type stuff. I can’t talk to you about processes or schematics or development time - those things only exist for me in a fantasy world. My typical web contract contains verbiage that’s six years out of date, deadlines that conflict with other deadlines, a client that’s been promised too much by salespeople that don’t understand what they’re selling and an open-ended agreement on “web updates.” I normally have one or two sales people in between me and the client - and only when I get direct contact with the client do I have a semi-clear direction on where we’re going with the site.
Did I mention that somehow our clients take direction on design? That’s always fun.
But working with my clients is really the best part of the job, I like trying to interpret what they’re thinking and showing them examples of sites I’ve done. I love saying “yep, we can do that for you” and even saying “that’s actually not going to be worthwhile for your vision”. With clients, being able to say no correctly is key. Saying yes is easy. If I can be part of the process “pre-contract” perhaps I can help guide the client along to a site that’s functional, visually appealing, easy to update, and a dream to work on. And make the client believe it was all his idea from the start.
So, there’s one thing - I can write about client-developer relationships. I have quite a few, all at different stages. The clients that have a good experience their first go-round, usually give me much more breathing room the second-go-round (most of my clients are people dealing with annual events) and a better site evolves.
Also, I’ve decided to chronicle my progress as I design or redesign various personal projects. I may refer to professional projects, but only in a vague and optimistic way. The first project I’ll be working on is my personal blog, but we’ll get to that later. And while I love this and all of the themes over at BlogOh!Blog, at somepoint, you’ll get to read about my struggles as I give this place an original once-over.
That should be fun.
And I can keep handing out links to places that I think are really special and worth your time. While I don’t like link sites standing in the way of content, I do like making sure I peruse what’s out there every day. And, hopefully, at the end of every month, I’ll be placing all my daily inspirations into my permanent Bookmarks page. The daily posts will still be available, but they’ll have left the front page yonks ago.
Well, there’s my road, paved with good intentions. Here’s hoping we don’t descend into Hell.
Also worth reading
Tags: design, random, Web Design
July 14th, 2008 at 6:17 am
ok, i am totally with you about that special small percentage of people who are really the creative geniuses… i have a friend who is one of these wonder-boys, and he turns out some really amazing stuff…
however, i have always thought of my designs as customizing the heck out of basic design standards. i start with something i like, and turn it into something i love. i am not the originator, but the mimic, or manipulator. i guess that means i do mimipulative design… i am the mimipulator!
(it’s a term i’ve thought of putting on my website… but i doubt people would understand without my explanation!)
anyway, thanks for the post!