How often have you found yourself getting angry over a clients tactless comment, or a colleagues flippant feedback? When I say angry, I don’t mean the type of anger where you roll your eyes and move on, I am referring to the anger that sticks around, makes your face a lot warmer and brighter in colour, makes your muscles tense up, and probably revisits your imagination just as you close your eyes at night, reliving all the physical effects you witnessed earlier, preventing you from slowly drifting off into slumberland.
I have always had this type of reaction to certain types of feedback, although these days I have learnt to control it and mask it with a look of interest and insight. If you don’t have this type of reaction to criticism from clients and colleagues then you might have a problem, although you will probably live longer. Designers can be a sensitive bunch, its part of being creative, but it’s not such a bad thing.
The more angry you get, the more invested you were, the more you put into it. You value your work just like it is a piece of art, because it is. That’s right, I am a web artist and my designs are hand crafted pieces that I put my heart and soul into. I invest my passion and emotion into it, I can’t help it anymore, it’s just become part of the process, I do it without even noticing it’s happening, because if I don’t, I won’t believe in the design I have created, and if I don’t believe in it, why should anyone else?
Maybe you think it is stupid to think of web design as art, but what is art? Is it framed pictures on display in famous galleries and museums around the world, because if it is, guess what will be on display a thousand years from now, sitting next to a Van Gogh or Monet, probably the first ever Google homepage, the Van Gogh’s of today are the web designers that have crafted designs that will never be forgotten and that’s what you should aim for with every design, and then explode when someone says ‘It’s good, but can you make the logo bigger?’.
You make a good point, clients can be stupid, but that is because they aren’t designers and don’t understand how we think. You can’t blame them. Interesting points though and love the new site.
Good article, love the last line ‘make the logo bigger’, you would be surprised how many times I hear that from clients. I try and put vision into my designs, not just on the web but the print collateral I produce as well and it shows. Half assed designs look rushed and untidy, design needs commitment.
If only all designers shared your view. it’s the developers that get me, they are the worst at appreciating web design, they base most of their opinions on data and logic, totally ignoring the design factor. I hope one day they read this article.