To be a good designer is to be in an elite class of technology professionals because few can do it, and fewer do it well. It gives no place to ego because if one is born with an ability one has no grounds for self-praise just as a fish cannot praise itself that it can swim.
A great web designer agonizes over every pixel, every shade of color, the easing of every animation, every line, curve and margin. It never occurs to them that they are working too hard or making much ado over nothing when they could be slapping anything as-is onto plain text and receiving the same praise for it.
Like many of you, I am a designer who has evolved into programming, working on websites that are technological marvels but visual travesties. I sometimes “whip up” beautiful interfaces, bleeding edge JQuery and custom menu controls and present them to supervisors who apparently think that a diamond is just another rock and a Picasso only smeared paint. It is a good thing to try to improve the appearance of business websites, and also good not to get one’s undies in a bundle when coming to grips with the fact that the industry has a libido for the ugly.
As said, I work as a programmer. I learned to do it by reading books, completing projects, and working my way up the ladder. I became a programmer because I made a decision to be one, I put forth the effort and sold myself on the market as one. And therein lies the real difference between programming and designing – one is a trade of choosing that can be learned, the other an endowment of birth that chooses you.
It’s worth noting that the best-looking websites on the internet are made either by amateurs or by professionals who ply their true talents at home after work hours have ended. A jaw-dropping gorgeous website is one made far from the committees of the work-day world, not deflowered by the clumsy hand of business nor ruined by committees, but crafted in inspiration and delivered to the web as a light shining in darkness.
These are the websites made by people who feel under-utilized because they were born with the gift. They were designed in dark hours of the night and put together at the sacrifice of leisure, gaining in return the small coin that a small organization can afford, but most of all for the true reward of making something insanely beautiful and seeing it delivered in it’s perfect, unaltered state.
So I said all that to say this: If you aren’t’ doing so already, go out and find some small, deserving organization that you believe you can help. Offer a price they can afford an in return reserve artistic direction. What you deliver will become a point of light on the ‘net, a help for that business, an inspiration for other developers, and medicine for your own soul that is made sick through creative stifling. It is a web designer’s calling and an investment of your gift.
I think you can become a good designer even if you are not born with the “gift”.
However, most excellent designer I saw were already very good at design in school.
I think most people who get into the trade have a degree of talent more than sufficient for the job. The ‘ugly’ usually happens after a beautiful mock-up has been accepted and a committee suggests changes.
I agree that it takes hard work to be a good web designer. But it takes hard work to be good at anything. I have seen good designers with very little experience, but they lack other pieces that make a good designer, such as usability, customer satisfaction, and SEO techniques.
I would caution designers to be too proud of their work. Great design is much more than good looking design, or well-written code. Web site use and construction has changed dramatically over the past year and will continue to evolve.
Ultimately, a great design is determined by how successful the web site works for the client. So sometimes a good designer knows how to cut a few corners, save the client some money, and put that big “Call our 800 number today” front and center.
I have a blog post about web site design here: http://www.metropoliscreative.com/2009/03/how-much-is-your-web-design-hurting.html
[...] be born with design talent to be a good designer, but it certainly helps. That’s why I think this article, penned by Lance22 at Position-Absolute hits it right on the head when it comes to the challenges of being a web developer in any sort of [...]
What a great post! I am this person who is up at late hours of the night working on my website just because I HAVE TO!
hmm… to be honest, I think that if good designers are only born, then so are the amazing developers.
I have worked with those who “chose” development in university (or after), and while they work hard and are good and write decent code because they are smart, they have nothing on those that have been obsessed with programming since they were 8 years old: these people write elegant, beautiful code quickly and efficiently.
And to become a good designer requires you to work at it constantly, pushing yourself. The best designers have been obsessed with it since they’ve been young too. They’re good because they’re obsessed with it.
So, I completely disagree with you actually– being a great requires years and years of practice, even if you have a bit of talent to start with. But what is talent but something that you can fully concentrate and be passionate about? Those who can draw can draw because THEY DRAW ALL THE TIME!
This is the difference between an artist and a technician. http://tiavamp.com
I completely disagree. I think some designers probably posses certain characteristics and traits that can help them become better designer. However, I think the claim that good designers are born is complete rubbish.
I think this idea of “natural talent” when it comes to disciplines like design, are perpetuated by individuals who feel the need to feel “special” and re-iterated by society’s complete misunderstanding of the creative process.
The truth is, good web designers get that way by a number of reasons, not the least of which is hard work, practice, opportunity (if your parents never had the internet, and you never saw a website until college, your probably missing a lot of the common patterns, not to mention the minimum technical skills to feel comfortable with the discipline).
To say web designers are born, and not made, is to minify and mystify a difficult discipline, and disregard the hard work of talented designers across the globe.
I think you can be born with a proclivity for something, but developing any skill into something marketable takes practice, and lots of it.
I’ve always had what some might call a “gift” for drawing, but I also worked really hard at developing that ability. Countless hours spent drawing on my own, painstakingly rendering things no one but me would ever see, life drawing, painting, illustration, and design classes in college, etc. And here I am, a professional designer and art director for more than 15 years, and I’m still still striving to improve, still learning ever day.
I the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell he talks about the rule of 10,000 hours. You cannot master something until you reach the magic 10,000 hour mark.
Designers/artists who were drawn to this craft early in life can have their 10,000 hours put in much earlier than those who choose to be a designer in college, for instance.
It’s less that they are born with the ability to be a designer, and more about their genes or situation allowed them to start working hard at their craft much earlier in life. The same goes for any profession/skill, including programming.
Wow. Really? And people today think that *politicians* are the most elitist bastards on the planet…right…
You make one claim here (That someone cannot choose to be a web designer) and imply another (that web designers are somehow more worthy individuals than web developers), and I whole-heartedly disagree with both.
I have done things in reverse order from you, my tunnel visioned friend. I am naturally a logical individual who focuses on how things function rather than how they look. Unfortunately, most small businesses aren’t looking to re-invent any wheels; simply to get a nice looking, affordable website started. Due to this fact I have worked, learned, and lost way too much sleep to (dare I say) MAKE MYSELF a designer.
And because of the effort I have put into this process, I have the utmost respect for anyone who can design well (as opposed to fooling myself into believing that developers are godlike entities simply because they’re genetically dispositioned to be more logica individuals).
I absolutely agree that there are traits which make people better at designing/developing. That’s no news flash. I really don’t think this Joel Ostein style, Evangelical Church of the Holy Designer article was necessary.
Another thing is,
On the web, it’s easy to see someone ability to design, you can spot a bad design fast, and there are really bad designers that should not design.
But it is less easier to spot bad programing, if it work, it work. You need to go under the hood to see bad practices. You can take pieces of javascript here and there and make something work, but you cannot do that with design.
There are designers that so blow the socks off of anything that I do, that it continually amazes me. In fact, my best design work is always a rip-off of better people’s ideas.
I’m a good enough designer to be in the trade, but the illuminaries of the craft shine like diamonds in a dunghill and despite my best efforts I’ll never be in the same boat as the masters of the craft.
If one is born with extraordinary talent, it’s worthless without the proverbial 10,000 hours that another poster has mentioned. Amen to that. And 10,000 hours will transform a colorblind novice into somebody who does some commendable work. But he won’t be a master, ever.
In this article, I give praise to those who excel in the craft, and bemoan a thing experienced by everyone in the field; that is how good designs are ruined in the latter stages of the development process. I would think this is self-evident.
Opinion pieces spark curious reactions and I’m OK with that.
What ever happened to the idea that skill is acquired through hard work and patience? Seriously, I didn’t just start coding valid XHTML and CSS because I was born with the skills. I’m as good as I am today because I work hard.
A very bold position.
Admin: Edited, irrelevant with the author
BTW – I’m the author of the article … before you flame me for arrogance, try to find any place in the article where I said that I AM elite.
I’ll say this once more … I idolize and admire the people who are really, really great designers. I am not one of them, but am an avid fan of the most beautiful sites on the ‘net.
Also, I never said that DESIGNERS make ugly sites. I said (over and over) that committees and business liaison deconstruct good designs are part of the project lifecycle. The beauty of your mock up is preserved if (1) you reserve artistic liberty away from the business people or (2) you make charity / amateur sites where there are no business people at all.
If you haven’t had a mock-up ruined by a “focus group”, then maybe you just have no clue what I am talking about in this article.
’nuff said.
Good article !
In my opinion a good designer is someone who knows how it’s done behind the scene, after his design is over.
The design should then be crafted by knowing what is right to do and what’s not so the implementation is quick and simple. No tweekings are necessary because of some picky design.
I feel the same way I just hope I’m on the born designer side of the scale and my efforts aren’t being wasted.
Christopher Scott said it better than me whose blood is bowling reading this sort of dangerous opinion. Sure you haven’t appreciated the extend of what you’re saying…!
Only positive thing, I will now make sure not to hire developer and designer with this sort of views.
PascalV: And the good designers will be happy to not get hired by you.
I understand that this article rubs a lot of people the wrong way, but those people should work on their reading skills.
Programming is as much of an “art” as designing. I can study and read to write good code (and I have done so.) The truly gifted programmers are the ones that just “get it.”
Same with design, I can read and study and practice and be a good designer. People will like my work and because they aren’t designers they will think it is fabulous. There are those that are truly gifted in this area and “see” things that the rest of us won’t regardless of how long we study.
Lol – Scott, I thought of the same thing you said AFTER I published … DOH!
I disagree with this view. Design takes a healthy mix of practice, hard work, and a very good eye– just like any creative skill. It is not something you are “born with” or “born without”. I have seen the evolution of fellow designers and artists. I have seen them go from amateur and boring design to truly inspirational over a number of years. I do not believe that any “talent” cannot be learned with the right amount of dedication, love, and perseverance.
So true! You summarized my life: a potential unrecognized
In the words of Rock Lee, “I will defeat a genius because I’m a genius, at Hard work!”
I think that most extremely good designers (be it in print or web) do have a born gift, but to say that the only good designers are those who are born with that gift is a bit obsurd. Just as a couple of other comments stated, talent is NOTHING without practice.
My sister was born with the artistic gift, but she wasn’t painting Van Gogh style portraits at the age of 5 either… Instead, she was like most other kids drawing and painting smeared works of art with water colors.
I could draw those things at that age as well… The biggest difference between the two of us is that she continued to have a passion and interest for drawing, whereas my interests were directed elsewhere.
I honestly think that ANYONE could be a great designer had they stuck with the finger painting they did as children and slowly evolved it as time went on. I chose to be a geek and learn about code. Hence, I am a developer.
As someone else mentioned, when I first started to write code, I didn’t start with clean and valid XHTML. (in fact, xhtml wasn’t even around) Instead, I was making crappy little pages that made extensive use of the tag (among others) and my code looked like a cyber tornado had whirled through it.
However, after many years of obsession with the craft, I’ve become more knowledgeable and learned how to carefully and neatly construct valid code that even a novice could look through and tell that it was done by a professional.
I’m no artist. Not by a long shot, but not because I am unable to be… Rather, because I chose at an early stage in life NOT to be!
Oops, that was supposed to say:
“that made extensive use of the <font> tag”
Awesome post……
The best way to do this is to think of the whole thing as one giant trip to the gym. ,
The idea of how a mental and a physical term might refer to the same thing is lacking, and the usual analogies with theoretical identification in other fields fail to supply it. ,
I just confused weather i was born or made
Again (ad nauseum) if you have innate talent, you can make it better by working hard. People who have innate talent can become better, faster than those who do not have an innate ability.
That’s almost an aside to what I was saying, but the fact that I said some are born with ability really pissed off a lot of people. And if you suck, of course you people too can work hard and learn to do good work.
But hey, I know how to get people REALLY mad! All I have to do is go over to an Apple Forum and ask if Mac’s get viruses, and when they deny it just post a link to websites that track Mac viruses. Major laughs … within minutes you have people threatening to kill you and your family. So this? No big deal if you get pissed off because I said some people are born with talent.