5 ms·

"because [visual design is] so easy to pick up by cruising Dribbble for inspiration" It is?

rglover 15y ago
I think what's being said here is that it's easy to pick up the ideas of visual design, not the actual skill (I hope). As a budding designer, Dribbble is definitely helpful in allowing you to see "the bar" and improve how you approach certain projects. However, it is most definitely NOT easy to "pick up [visual design] by cruising Dribbble."
- dylanrw 15y ago
  You are both referring to style.
  - alabut 15y ago
    Yeah, and?
    - dylanrw 15y ago
      Design is a solution to a problem. It doesn't matter what the medium is. Sometimes you see these solutions on Dribbble but more often than not what you see are examples of style. They are two separate things.
      - alabut 15y ago
        Your definition of design includes style, since style can (and often is) a solution to a problem as well. Not everything is wireframes and usability, and this is coming from someone who's first book on the job was Jakob Nielsen's. Ever read Blink? Or those studies about how people make an unconscious decision about a website in less than a second? Style and polish expresses a level of quality (at the very least) and can also communicate the type of site. Is this a kid-friendly Disney site? Is it a serious financial tool? Is it a mysterious stealth mode startup?
        dylanrw 15y ago
        I'll concede as much. I was drawn by the fact that the discussion was about design, and you two went off into style land. It'd be about the same as us starting a talk on Rock and Roll and we really just dive into guitar solos while swearing it's rock we are on about. Make sense?
        dylanrw 15y ago
        “Not everything is design, but design is about everything.” - Michael Bierut I think that sums us both up nicely ;)
        alabut 15y ago
        Haha, quoting my own about page against me, love it :) Yeah, design includes style but isn't just style, that's what we're both saying I think.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- alabut 15y ago
  "I think what's being said here is that it's easy to pick up the ideas of visual design, not the actual skill (I hope). " No, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm a bit more seasoned as a designer (my public folio is super outdated so you'll have to trust me) but I leveled up in visual design by zooming in to a design I liked and recreating it pixel by pixel in Fireworks. Eventually you'll find that certain things become second nature (using gradients, textures and shadows to distinguish content areas) and the types of things you're trying to recreate get harder and more complex. That's cool, it's called progress. Zooming in and recreating as a way to learn is the single most helpful tip I got from a creative director about halfway through my career, right in the middle of a shift from developer to designer, and it served me well. And if you're interested in how to do it without being a ripoff artist and completely copying someone else's layout (which is not what I'm advocating), the trick is to only copy elements of a several different designs and layer them into a seamless whole, as first advocated back in 2004 by Cameron Moll: http://cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html http://cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html
alabut 15y ago
Yeah, it is. See my response to rglover below and feel free to ping me offline if you need more tips.

I think what's being said here is that it's easy to pick up the ideas of visual design, not the actual skill (I hope). As a budding designer, Dribbble is definitely helpful in allowing you to see "the bar" and improve how you approach certain projects. However, it is most definitely NOT easy to "pick up [visual design] by cruising Dribbble."

dylanrw 15y ago
You are both referring to style.
- alabut 15y ago
  Yeah, and?
  - dylanrw 15y ago
    Design is a solution to a problem. It doesn't matter what the medium is. Sometimes you see these solutions on Dribbble but more often than not what you see are examples of style. They are two separate things.
    - alabut 15y ago
      Your definition of design includes style, since style can (and often is) a solution to a problem as well. Not everything is wireframes and usability, and this is coming from someone who's first book on the job was Jakob Nielsen's. Ever read Blink? Or those studies about how people make an unconscious decision about a website in less than a second? Style and polish expresses a level of quality (at the very least) and can also communicate the type of site. Is this a kid-friendly Disney site? Is it a serious financial tool? Is it a mysterious stealth mode startup?
      - dylanrw 15y ago
        I'll concede as much. I was drawn by the fact that the discussion was about design, and you two went off into style land. It'd be about the same as us starting a talk on Rock and Roll and we really just dive into guitar solos while swearing it's rock we are on about. Make sense?
      - dylanrw 15y ago
        “Not everything is design, but design is about everything.” - Michael Bierut I think that sums us both up nicely ;)
        alabut 15y ago
        Haha, quoting my own about page against me, love it :) Yeah, design includes style but isn't just style, that's what we're both saying I think.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
alabut 15y ago
"I think what's being said here is that it's easy to pick up the ideas of visual design, not the actual skill (I hope). " No, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm a bit more seasoned as a designer (my public folio is super outdated so you'll have to trust me) but I leveled up in visual design by zooming in to a design I liked and recreating it pixel by pixel in Fireworks. Eventually you'll find that certain things become second nature (using gradients, textures and shadows to distinguish content areas) and the types of things you're trying to recreate get harder and more complex. That's cool, it's called progress. Zooming in and recreating as a way to learn is the single most helpful tip I got from a creative director about halfway through my career, right in the middle of a shift from developer to designer, and it served me well. And if you're interested in how to do it without being a ripoff artist and completely copying someone else's layout (which is not what I'm advocating), the trick is to only copy elements of a several different designs and layer them into a seamless whole, as first advocated back in 2004 by Cameron Moll: http://cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html http://cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html

alabut 15y ago

Yeah, it is. See my response to rglover below and feel free to ping me offline if you need more tips.