Design has never been about using Photoshop. This isn't a "2010 thing". Design is no more about Photoshop than it is pen, paper, or pixel. If you believe any different, you're deluding yourself.
I know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator, but would not consider myself a designer. The tools don't make the designer.
Design is about communication. That's all it's ever been and all it ever will be about (a user interface is a communication to the user how to interact with your product/idea).
Exactly. Some of the best designers I've ever met were absolutely terrible at interpersonal communication and were completely dependent on the project manager to talk to the client and figure out the communication problem.
There's a lot of iteration and specialization going on, and a lot of times I did a complete UX overhaul of what the graphic designer made while keeping his visual styling entirely, working almost exclusively with the art director and PM.
Slightly off topic; As a designer, I find it fairly interesting to see things from the other point of view on this board. It's this kind of boy/girl mutual insecurity where everybody thinks the other side is completely cool and self-assured, and I'm hiding here thinking "you guys want us too?". Believe me, for every startup that needs a designer, there's about six designers who need somebody technical to develop the designs.
Agreed... the previous comment goes to far. he might not have meant it to come across that way though. "Communication" is probably too general.
Design might be about communicating the experience to the user, but it is still about designing that experience in the first place. When you are at your computer mocking up your amazing designs, are you "communicating"
> Design is about communication. That's all it's ever been and all it ever will be about (a user interface is a communication to the user how to interact with your product/idea).
Yes, design is about communication. But communication and interaction don't happen in a vacuum. They are always conducted via some medium. On the web, that "medium" is generally visual graphics, copy, and interactive behavior.
But it's not enough for a designer to be proficient with just the "communication" aspect of design. A design (or more likely, a design team) must possess actual, specific competencies in those areas.
That is: Someone needs to be a good copywriter. Someone needs to be a good front-end developer. Someone needs to be good at rendering things visually (e.g. choosing colors, laying out elements, creating iconography).
The truth is there are very, very few people who are skilled in all of these areas. As a result, I think there is a need for visual designers who are extremely skilled with the tools of the web design trade (for now, that's Photoshop and Illustrator) AND who possess very strong abilities in visual design, but who do not necessarily have the responsibility for conceptualizing the interactive or other aspects of the application.
So while I do agree that there are a large number of projects that have suffered because someone just took an idea, dumped it into a graphic designer's lap and said "here, make me something like this that looks pretty" -- I think it is equally wrong to expect people with those very specific graphic design skills to be able to step up and take real responsibility for the conceptual design of the project.
I have a friend who is doing interaction design, and I see this as a more auspicious trend in the design profession. An interaction designer is someone who understands all of the disciplines that go into an application -- even if they are not proficient in them individually. The interaction designer then works with people who are skilled in their disciplines and orchestrates them into what is hopefully a better user experience.
Anyhow, hopefully this discombobulated rant makes some degree of sense.
This is true. If anyone is curious about why there is something specifically called "communications design", then (as opposed to "industrial design"): the simple difference is that something that is industrially-designed, although it communicates, is communicating information about itself—e.g., the shape of a car gives affordance to do something with the car. Meanwhile, communications design communicates a message about something external to itself (propaganda poster -> message about politics.)
I like — and by "like" I mean "am vaguely unhappy" — that this post and most posts like it are written by a person or people whose idea of web design is slapping a light color on another light color, adding padding, and then @font-facing in something that looks vaguely elegant. Is this design, meeting priorities in the simplest and most boring way imaginable? Is design simply matching proper lineheight to a fontsize, declaring it readable, and calling it a day? Is design making a vaguely pretty blog without also applying serious thought to what the contents of that blog will be?
When was the last time you saw Jon Hicks or Elliot Jay Stocks or Jeff Zeldman or Shaun Inman write vapid entries like this about the definition of designer? When do the designers at Twitter or Tumblr write entries about how they define the word "design"? They don't, because they know that talking about words and positions and statuses like they mean something is silly. Words are what we make of them. They're especially dolled up by people who don't have any toys to play with but words.
Designers can be anything and do anything. Same thing with "advertisers" and "artists" and "engineers" and "rockstars" and whatever other terms people decide to throw about themselves. Designers can write. Engineers can build web sites.
EDIT: I see that the guy who wrote this post is on HN responding. Fred, I hope you can forgive my irritability and frustration — I really don't mean this as a jab at you. But I'm bothered that you try and define design in the basest terms — "a designer does X, Y, and Z" — and refuse to discuss the goals that design can achieve. You're talking about design like the whole point is to make a company a quick buck. I know a fuck of a lot of designers who'd really hate their jobs if that was all they were doing.
Valid points - although I certainly didn't expect my words to be taken at face value and judged by the layout of the site itself, which I decided should be as simple as it could. My work is not this blog, I am not a writer, so when I write, I keep things simple (much like I like them when I read). Also, sometimes I'm just lazy when working for myself :-)
I appreciate that you named a few people I'm friends with and whose work I respect. I also know they're not writing pieces like this - which I see as a problem. I do think awareness to the shifting role of the designer is necessary at this point. I've been in this industry for over 10 years now and design and designers are still undefined. Years ago I used to joke that everyone is a designer. Now that I'm taking less of an engineering (and design) role in companies and more into investing/advisory, I feel entrepreneurs and designers SHOULD be aware of what the market needs (and will expect soon)
To answer your main point, which is that I didn't say what design should achieve. I didn't indeed - not in this post (check the previous posts for that). I am CERTAINLY (and this is where we'll disagree on the interpretation of my words) not saying design is a way to make companies a quick buck - it is a differentiating factor in the success at startups (and I've seen quite a few in my work, trust me). I would really hate my job if that was all I was doing. My other posts may be more interesting if you're looking for actionable stuff.
I also know they're not writing pieces like this - which I see as a problem. I do think awareness to the shifting role of the designer is necessary at this point.
But I still don't agree with this. If anything, I think we need more designers to step up and say "The idea of a 'designer' is dead. Stop pretending like it's possible to be a professional in this day and age; we're all amateurs of differing degrees. There's more to learn than you'll ever be able to learn, so all that matters is that you learn the things you care about learning. Stop wasting time defining things, separating them into canons and non-canons, pretending like success necessarily defines designers or adds an extra meaning to their work."
I'm primarily studying advertising right now — though it's certainly not my only or even primary interest — and one thing that attracts me to the study is that the top advertisers on the planet have been saying this for a decade. Agencies like Wieden+Kennedy and the Barbarian Group turn out some work that's so beyond the kin of what we recognize as advertising that it forces you to acknowledge that the old definitions have been thrown out the window, regardless of whether some people insist they're still there.
Design hasn't gotten there yet: It's a more conservative field than advertising. (I mean, so is everything. That's the whole idea of being in advertising.) Even the people I just named tend to be more conservative with their designs than the half-generation following them is going to be. Of all the ones I named I think only Inman and the Twitter team are really doing something new, and even they aren't off-the-walls crazy. Not that there's anything bad with that.
But certainly one of the reasons I'm not primarily a designer is that it's one of the few artistic fields whose education focuses on old tried-and-true standards rather than on the crazy things that happened last week or yesterday or earlier today. A whole lot of design feels appallingly stagnant.
(I'd love to talk this with you more in-depth, by the way — would you mind if I shot you an email?)
Your second (technically, third) paragraph won me over - you are absolutely right :-) That needs a more prominent place to live than a comment here at HN - people need to read it.
I don't mind you shooting me an email - not at all. I'm swamped with email, however, so I may take a bit to get back to you. But I definitely will.
To be fair, design usually does involve making a company a quick buck.
On one level, design is applied art -> involving artistic principles to achieve a specific purpose. Because we live in a highly commercial world, that purpose usually involves making money.
What's the difference between art and design? In my opinion; design is prstitution, art is msturbation. Why bother thinking about definitions? Because doing so provides a framework for examining related ideas and concepts.
EDIT: removed some letters from two (possibly?) inflammatory words, and reposted - as the post was listed as [dead]. Would this have been the reason?
EDIT2: Re. my comparison of art and design, I was being flippant - but I was also trying to highlight motivation without putting either on a pedestal. A designer has to do create work for someone else, for money. An artist creates work for more selfish reasons - to please themselves.
I just watched Frank Chimero's talk at Build. He mentions his search for what a designer is. It's a pretty great talk. Chimero puts out some incredible work and his thoughts on design are hardly about the "design" most people think of.
The designer you want isn’t the guy that just knows photoshop and delivers .psd files (or the html-illuminated designer that delivers html+css).
Are you suggesting that this person was ever a designer? As if the definition has shifted in the past few years? I don't think that person should have ever been considered a designer. It seems like the internet came up behind what design really is and shook it around for a while. Now the dust starts to settle.
Or maybe not. The guy who can throw together a PSD and the people who hire him aren't going anywhere until our thoughts on design spread outside of the design community. We're kind of insular, aren't we?
I'm not a designer or even a graphic artist. I see tons of tutorials on 'How to do Photoshop technique X' but I think they are teaching how to do something, not the understanding you need to be a designer. Being a carpenter is not about the tools. And, even if you are a craftsman, it is about the quality tools you employ. From my brief foray into furniture making a while ago, good woodworkers know how to adjust for mistakes - they know if you get to step 25 and you can't proceed - how to change course. It's not going to be perfect, shim stuff up.
Here is an example of what this kind of thinking leads to:
Craigslist SF: Web Designer/Front-End Guru Intern
• Demonstrable years experience creating consumer web/mobile applications
• Masterful command of the Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator
• Sophisticated knowledge of HTML, XHTML, CSS
• Experience with JavaScript, AJAX, and a JavaScript framework such as jQuery, MooTools, etc
• Knowledge of browser compatibility issues and web standards
• Embrace the practice of rapid prototyping, and working in a fast-paced environment where constant change is the norm and the bar for performance is set high.
Sense of humor and a positive attitude are non-negotiable.
Brownie points for:
- Advanced Flash skills
- Illustration
- Experience with mobile application design
//
Guru Intern = ¡LOL!
This is from Formative Labs, veteran entrepreneurs, backed by blue chip angels, yet...they don't see the need to actually pay anything for the task of doing the actual design work. (it dangles the plastic carrot of 'it could easily turn into a full-time job,' presumably meaning it's a full-time job to start, but they might decide to pay...someday.)
//
Again, I don't totally disagree with the premise of tfa, but it's just to closely linked to the penurious thinking behind getting a design 'guru intern.'
I don't know the author's work, but I do know that this vision is nothing new, and it's often why a startup, or many other well-meaning businesses think all they really need is a design intern. It also points toward the old trope of 'I'm a television expert, because I watch a lot of tv.' (Mr. Olivera, I don't think you hold this position, however, it is on the same spectrum, imo)
Again, it does work, but design is relegated to being 'adequate' rather than being a potential source of innovation and differentiation. It plays to this crowd, but that doesn't mean it's right – kind of like going into a design forum and saying that your developers don't need a CS degree, because everything is about frameworks these days.
It reinforces the old trope that designers just make graphics, wireframes, flows, etc. while the programmers do the 'real work' of making it live. A company or startup can get away with a 'functional' designer as described in the post, but it removes design as a differentiator or potential source of innovation. It's true that almost anybody can mock up a landing page and mini-site, but that is a supremely limited conception of a designer.
Am I the only one who's thinking, "If he's really a designer, he's got awfully poor taste in fonts?" Its because I'm seeing this: http://imgur.com/gGrVm.jpg
That font would be fine on a page of paper but seeing it on a screen just hurts my eyes.
From my perspective, the question is more of how would you hire the right designer to turn an application from an eyesore to a polished professional look ? We are never going to meet , so how does one go about separating true designers from PSD/HTML hacks when one encounters them on Elance. What question do you ask ? what do you look for in the portfolio ? And of course --- by what formula do you divine how much to pay (this one is a big issue for all tech. bootstrapped start ups)? And is Elance the right place to find them ?
"The right place to find a designer," goes the adage, "is wherever the designer happens to be." Frustratingly, there is no official hub where every designer goes, so you have to look in a lot of places. Elance has some talented people, but it doesn't have all the people you should be looking for.
When you're looking for a designer, the rule is you try to find somebody who makes things you like looking at first. That's the most important part. Looking through their portfolio, then, you're trying to see the extent of their prowess. Do they rely on the same design tricks with every single layout they make (gradients, pretty buttons, slidy things), or are they making sure each web site does what it's supposed to do? Have they got any subtlety of understanding what a web site's needs are, or are they designing a bunch of things that look the same no matter what they're meant to be?
Then you talk to them. See if they "get" what you're talking about. Don't plan your questions in advance — conversations work better than interviews. Do they intuit your needs? If you have to clarify something that at first isn't clear, do they catch on to where you're going? You want somebody who's going to make the web site you want to make.
As for price: Offer what you can afford, and see if they'll take it. With designers, you never know. My team has taken $200 contracts because the work was simple enough and we liked the team offering. We've done freelance work because we liked the cause or liked the challenge and had an opening in our schedule.
The best way to find designers is to stick to people who've made work you like, or people you know, or people who've said interesting things, and contact them directly. Sort of like how directors stick to their favorite actors and cinematographers or, if they don't have any, they ask their friends to help out. Keep it personal. Personal does better work for you.
(If you're not speaking hypothetically, by the way, feel free to write me — we're open again for business starting Thursday. [/selfpromotion])
"He’s the guy that knows how to approach customers, figures out what they want ..., how to collect and analyze statistics, comes up with success metrics ..., design the right experience to meet business goals ..."
Perhaps a better title for this article would be "What is a internet marketing consultant".
This post screams "I'm not really a designer, but am really good at managing designers and talking about design to other non-designers".
My personal gestalt of the word "design", such as it is, is that it is the second step of the creative/problem-solving process: to come up with good solutions, you first generate novel connections between concepts (brainstorm); and then evaluate those concepts, and sort them on, how well they solve the problem, and prune the ones that sort "badly" (design.) You then connect together the ones that sort well (brainstorm again), and prune those, and so on. When someone says that a product "lacks design," it means the bad ideas have not been pruned from it. Good design is minimalist, because it has been pruned incessantly. And so on.
I did indeed - thanks for the reminder! But I also believe that not just designers but anyone who wants to succeed in this industry needs to be a great communicator. It is also a skill most people don't seem to value.
I know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator, but would not consider myself a designer. The tools don't make the designer.
Design is about communication. That's all it's ever been and all it ever will be about (a user interface is a communication to the user how to interact with your product/idea).