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“Please welcome to the stage the very innovative Bela Fleck”
March 6, 2010Believe it or not, those are not the words I’d want to be introduced by. Every week I see a new article about the secret(s) of innovation. And then articles dissecting the word, suggesting better words, lauding innovation, deploring it. At the least, it’s fatiguing. But often I think it’s just barking up the wrong tree.
Don’t get me wrong: I find nothing categorically wrong with innovation. How could I, right? But as a designer, 90% of the time I’d rather do something really damn well than do something that’s innovative. I like much of Bela Fleck’s music, but I hope we’re not celebrating the man because he can make pitch-perfect quail calls with his banjo or because he’s sure to be the all-time best-selling heavy metal banjo crossover artist of all time. Innovative (if a bit hyperbolic), but not necessarily great.
There’s nothing innovative about any of the design I do, save for (maybe) a CSS hack developed as a means to an end now and then, but I can’t see why there needs to be. I’m in the business of communicating content visually and interactively. I respect the designers who not only push the craft forward through excellence in execution, but actually push the medium forward through innovation. Maybe the iPad (e.g.) will really enable us to better communicate content. I’m not denouncing innovation, but if no one ever calls me “innovative” I’ll be totally okay, as long as someone calls me “really good.”
This gave me a good chuckle
June 28, 2009
Some of you may know that I’ve been looking to move into a full-time role as a web interaction designer for the right company. [Potential clients: Don’t let this scare you! I’m adamant about keeping alive the possibility of freelance work alongside any full-time position I may accept, and I’ll always be honest about my ability to perform requested work in a timely manner.]
Beware Smashing Magazine
June 1, 2009I remember Andy Rutledge linking to an article from Digital Web from the “ephemera” section of his website. After linking, he said something to the effect of too bad it appears in such an “irresponsibly-run rag”. This pretty much sums up my attitude about Smashing Magazine. Sometimes there are very worthwhile articles and some of the best in the industry have written for or appeared in it, but, at the end of the day, Smashing Magazine is an irresonsibly-run rag. But this time they’ve really pissed me off…
In defense of things black and white
May 27, 2009I just saw LogoLounge’s 2009 Logo Design Trends curation. This yearly feature is the only content that gets me to LogoLounge, but I really think it’s always well done. I like that they make up their own, non-technical names for these trends, like “varidot” and “encrust.” Anyway, I’m not writing a love letter to LogoLounge. I’m slowly making my way to a point: While there are a few lovely one-color-plus-white logos in the collection, a great many rely on a polychromatic palette. I don’t mean benefit from, I mean rely.
Update: How not to do progressive enhancement
May 6, 2009Related to: How not to do progressive enhancement.
I actually heard from Paramore|Redd today—a very nice surprise! Joel Steidl from P|R pointed me to the jQuery History plug-in, which seems to make possible just the sort of functionality I was getting at. Turns out, P|R was well aware of the small issue I pointed out, and is using the plug-in to great effect on their “Peeps” section, e.g. Joel’s own page. Browse through the employees using the forward and back buttons on the page and you’ll find that, while the page never reloads, the browser’s forward and back buttons work just fine. Bravo! Thanks for the reply, Joel.