Going through the Drawar Gallery, a majority of the sites are portfolios for design studios and freelancers. When I come across these sites I like to look at the other work done by the designer to see if there are other sites I can draw inspiration from and include in the gallery. Rarely do I find any. This can’t just be a case of clients ruining the work of a designer, this seems more like a case of one hit wonders.
Then it hit me. What if the majority of designers out on the web, aren’t really designers at all?
Design Observer does a wonderful job of taking a very low level approach to design. You have to know your stuff to really gain an appreciation for what the authors of the site talk about. How many of you out there read everything that comes from them? There was a discussion on QBN not too long ago that included one of my articles and one of the points brought up is that the print design and web design communities are separated because web designers aren’t really designers at all. That struck me as pretty strange because immediately I started calling out names in my head of web designers that I knew with print backgrounds and ones that could definitely go toe-to-toe with the great print designers. Beyond that you have an over-abundance of people selling services as a designer, when they know almost nothing of design.
Call them armchair designers if you want. Call them people that see a trend on the web and make sure to follow it on their next design no matter what the requirements are. Call them people who hit the galleries for inspiration and leave with a little too much inspiration if you catch my drift.
When Khoi Vinh and Mark Boulton talk about designing with a grid it is a wonderful thing, but does anyone else find it shocking that so many people treat the grid as if it were something new? For example, here is a comment I found while reading another designer’s blog.
Can you go into detail on “the grid”? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a designer mention that before… and now I’m interested. How can I use it to my benefit my designs? I’ve always made my designs by color and just what I feel looks right… never with a grid system.
I find it hard to believe that someone in this profession doesn’t know what a grid is or how to use it. I didn’t go to school for design, but when I thought I might get paid for some design work I made sure to dive head deep into the many great books on design out there. I became a student of design. How many designers know about kerning and the psychology behind colors? How many designers understand the principles of typography and white space? You ever wonder why articles on these subjects are so popular? It’s because 90% of the web design community don’t know about these subjects.
Back in 2007, Greg Storey, wrote a cry for help asking for more qualified designers. There are plenty of people who can chop up a design in XHTML/CSS. Hell you can outsource that for a couple hundred dollars. There are plenty of people who can AJAX-ify your interface to increase the user experience. There are plenty of people who can create a design that looks nice.
The problem is, how many people can design solutions to fix the problems a site has? How many people can take the ideas of their client and translate them properly to the screen? How many designers can look past their own style and design a site that fits the current project?
There aren’t many. There aren’t many people that treat design as an art and passion that must constantly be improved. There aren’t many people that understand design is a craft that should be studied and poured over until you get tired of it and then you get up and do it again. There aren’t many people that understand what design is and yet wish to call themselves designers.
I am by no means a designer. If someone were to come up to me and I knew they needed a graphically rich website with vibrant colors, there is no way I could produce that for them. I do my own sites because I only have one style and work with limited colors and keep myself constrained to the graphical properties of CSS. I am no designer. To be honest, most of the people out there are no better than me and yet they want the big bucks. They want the glory. They want to know why their site didn’t make it into the gallery (do galleries even reject sites anymore?).
No, you are not a designer. You are someone that can piece together some stuff in Photoshop or add the right pieces of code in XHTML/CSS. You aren’t the person that creates experiences. You aren’t the translator of ideas that people never thought could be produced visually. You aren’t the person that can toss their own style to the curb and come up with something even greater because of it.
But you could be. Maybe. Just take the time to study like the greats before you. Push your limits. Test your boundaries. Designers like to work within their comfort zone because they know what they will like. Make something ugly to help you come up with some ideas on how to make something beautiful. When you need inspiration create your own.
A great point was made by Tyme White in the forums.
Ever walk into an art museum and you see the pretty paintings, then you come across one that looks like a kid threw a wet paintbrush at the canvas? You stand there wondering why that painting is there…you could have done it. Then some art enthusiast walks by and mentions how the painting is actually millions of dots made to look like splashed paint. You might wonder why someone would create a piece of art like that but you understand WHY the painting is there.
Look at the designs that inspire you and even the ones that don’t and try to understand what part of them appeals to you. To simply say you like the colors doesn’t help you as a designer. Question why that particular color combination works for that design. Figure out if the fonts used were the best choice. Even when you know design, you are always learning design.
You can become a true web designer if you work at it, just not many people out there really have that desire. I know you do though.
Next week I will be going over the Top 5 (gasp, a useful list) Website Designs that I found this year and when I say “going over” I mean actually looking at them and discussing why I like them. So be sure to subscribe to our feed or follow us on Twitter because you won’t want to miss it.
I wrote this entry two years ago on another site and have revised it to match my current opinions. Here are some of the comments from that original entry.
Designers do so much more than put objects on a page. A true designer solves design problems on a form v. function continuum. They create problems to be solved. They break through boundaries never even perceived before they broke through.
I am not a designer. Not yet anyway. I can put together a decent website, and I can answer to my clients needs. I can make my client’s cheezy and all together cliché ideas and turn them into something pleasing for their customers to browse, but I am not a designer. I have a long way to go before I solve any problems, before I create something truly unique, before I move the design world in any one direction.
I don’t think a title should be used unless the experience, employed position or education is there to back it up. If that isn’t the case, then I am a painter. I am an illustrator. I am a writer. I am a print specialist. I am a computer technician. I am an accountant. Really. I am a nutritionist. I am a novelist. I am a journalist. All true
Stevie
“Designer” isn’t just a word, its a concept. “Plumber” is a word that inspires confidence that the individual posesses the expertise needed to successfully install and troubleshoot the plumbing in a building or structure. This isn’t simply knowing how to lock pipes together with putty and a wrench. In this same vein, “Designer” inspires a certain confidence that the individual has spent time not just perfecting the technical aspects of web creation but additionally has the ability to envision an entire solution that addresses both aesthetic and functional concerns. This simply doesn’t happen (not as often as the webdesign awards would have us think) without some education (formal is my preference, critique is so important) of practical design elements.
Kate
On one hand you’ve got the group that can play an instrument with technical perfection, but not know anything about music other than how to read which note they need to play. In fact, there’s a lot of people that play in bands and have no idea how to even read music. These would be the people that can execute a design without creating something new (or tailored to the situation/site.)
Then there’s the other group that understands the how and the why of the music. These are the ones who can hear a piece and come up with the harmony line, or a counterpoint to the melody. They can immediately play a complimentary riff over a chord progression, or find a substitution in that progression that creates more interest. These are the true designers.
Claiming their authority as a designer but unable to back it up.
A-Listers in the community dropped the ball interacting within the community (honestly, they might be creating real solutions for their clients but that does not exempt the fact there is a void) and everyone else is copying something cool that was done.
One of the cool things about design is that one doesn't have to go to school to receive the validation of being qualified like lawyers, doctors, some technicians or even in business.
The problem is the design community doesn't have "leaders" in the sense that they see something and innovate instead of copy. Talking to many designers over the years they felt like they "had" to adopt the trends the bigger sites were doing to be recognized at all, which is sad.
Because, as in any community, you can be an A-Lister and do nothing to contribute to the health and growth of the community.
I've returned to being an amateur without any ties or strings attached, which gives me a freedom I never had before.
Yusuf Islam
Now, that means that the "design world" is going to have an issue with hacks and cheats, but so what? There shouldn't *be* an official design world.
Guess what, Rory, design doesn't exist in a vacuum.
When hacks and cheats parade around as professional designers and con these people, wasting their time and money, it ruins the industry as a whole.
It is because of these people that companies hold logo and web site design contests, but never have a plumbing contest, or a contract writing contest, or an architecture contest
Instead of having people drop in weeks after an entry is posted and leaving comments that won't get responded to, Drawar closes comments after two weeks so that the community can focus on more recent discussions. If there is a point you really want to make and feel that it can generate some great discussion, drop in the forums and start a topic.
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Colin Williams
12.09.09permalink
I'm starting to wonder if gallery sites and the Smashing Magazines of this world are a detriment to new, unschooled designers.
Seems like if you entered this profession casually in the last 4 years you could fall into the trap of following trends. You could become quite good at it and make pretty web sites so you might think you are a designer. Before these "resources" existed, we found ourselves reading books and web sites that offered the kind of value we needed.
This does not make design galleries evil. But, and no offence, in their current forms they aren't very useful for teaching design. You could say that most of them are just pretty to look at, and nothing more.