The List
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With One Wish
This is the story of a guy and his brain. While sitting in bed one early Sunday morning, a geeky thought strikes him. He wonders what properties or attributes designers would pick if they could have one implemented from HTML5 or CSS3 today. The comments should be where all the action happens, hopefully.
If you’ve read (and hopefully got a giggle out of) my browser manifesto, you would have seen that I truly consider this to be a great time to be a designer. And after seeing the awesome commentary of the last entry, I wanted to pose a question that i hope spawns some more discussion.
If you could have one HTML5/CSS3 property or attribute added into every modern browser today, what would it be?
Usually at this point I’d make an excuse to post two things, but I’ll play it clean and only state one. The first one that comes to mind is text-shadow.
When I talked about Distortion’s design process a few weeks ago, I believe I mentioned that the shadow whoring you see before you was the result of adding a drop shadow to mock copy in the fifth prototype. Albeit a bit more subtle than some of the other design elements that make up this version (am I allowed to use the word subtle and “this version” in the same sentence?), it is one of my favorite parts. I’ll look at Safari versus Firefox and frown like a sad panda because Firefox doesn’t support text-shadow. All the bitmap elements have drop shadows, why shouldn’t the text? (It also sort of bothers me that you can’t add a shadow to the bullets of an unordered list, but that’s just getting picky.)
So with that, what’s your wish? :)
Pixel Prostitution
This is the story of a guy who saw a good friend of his post about clients on Twitter. The messages hit a chord with him, but didn’t think his answer (or subsequent “advice”) would fit within 140 characters. We now commence with the ranting.
My good friend Croftie posted this this morning (links to individual tweets are in the footnotes):
Ever had a client take your design, “rework it” and send it back to you so you can do the rest of the site their way? How did you handle it?1 I don’t want to be someone’s pixel prostitute. If they want to push my pixels around, they can do it themselves, after I’m done.2 My job is to give them the best possible solution I can come up with. They don’t have to use it if they don’t want to.3 It’s work for hire. They hire us, we do our best, we give it to them. PERIOD. If they want to redesign it AFTER that, fine.4
To answer the question simply. Yes. I have experienced that. We could leave the entry at that, but that wouldn’t be me. ;)
Oh look, there’s blood. :O
To be honest, I was naive little bastard who didn’t know how to say stop. I took beatings from clients more often than the nearest high school’s stereotypical wimp. Granted, Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some awesome clients, but as they always say, it’s the little things that get to you. So I can empathize with Jeff. I have his back even because I know what this feels like. What I have learned through all of this, is that this business requires a backbone. I’ve learned that the hard way, obviously, but I had people tell me that this wasn’t the way to do things.
I’ve had clients that have taken my designs, opened up their copy of Photoshop, “tweaked” said designs and send them back to me. Was I offended? Yeah, I was. Did I do anything about it? No. It didn’t feel right to yell at a client for opening up Photoshop. It didn’t feel right to yell at the person paying me. I had no backbone, I didn’t take any recourse, and I was beating myself over the head with a mythological hammer created by both.
Oh, and then there’s Flock. Matt and I still mourn that loss.
I know I’ve said this before somewhere—maybe here—but just because you are paid to do your job, it does not mean you are a slave to, or in Jeff’s case, a pixel prostitute for the client.
But wait, who are you to give any advice on the matter?
But what’s this? Advice coming from a guy who can’t even make ends meet some months? Yes, laugh, get it out. But this guy is looking out for yours and his own sanity. I would rather take one client a year and have awesome relationship with them where I can have free reign over the creative, then suffer financially; instead of taking clients and subsequently risk getting abused just to make ends meet. (If you see “the man” as a client, that’s pretty much the reason Facebook and Automattic failed for me—restriction.)
That’s not the way I roll and I’m happier for it. I get the phone calls and the letters. This is my life. Jen and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So here’s the moral of the story.
What Jeff wrote today really struck a chord with me, and I didn’t feel my answer could be a simple “yes,” nor would it fit in 140 characters. But here’s the moral of the story, and I’ll prefix with “if you’re comfortable with it.”
A client comes to you, looking for your expertise. They pay you for that expertise. Whether or not you stand up to them is your prerogative, but you are the expert. Remember that.
In a perfect world, we’d all spew our collective creative genius on the web and consequently the web would be a much more beautiful place. It isn’t, but it shouldn’t mean that we can’t fight for it.
If you’re comfortable doing so, when you see the red flags go off, do something about it. Pull the client aside and give them the what for and if that doesn’t work, fire them. Do not put your own sanity and self-confidence at risk if you don’t have to. Give your expertise to the clients who respect you, the clients who deserve your knowledge and experience.
Or… you could just spend your days making your own stuff. :)
Edit: Oh, one more thing.
I’m going to amend this post and say frankly that this is the opinion of one guy who isn’t fit to be part of an agency, design firm or anything of the sort. This post is the very reason I closed Revyver off to design requests and is something I’ll detail later when I finally get to writing the “State of Revyver” post in the next few days. I just don’t have the personality nor the patience, so I’m out of the game altogether.
If you’re looking for some good information on what you should do if you’re not going in my direction, Jeff Croft’s (#001), Keith Robinson’s (#013) and Sean Madden’s (#014) comments below are perfect examples of what should be done.
- http://twitter.com/jcroft/statuses/791226440
- http://twitter.com/jcroft/statuses/791226674
- http://twitter.com/jcroft/statuses/791226674
- http://twitter.com/jcroft/statuses/791233058
Obsessive OS Rearranging
This is the story of a guy and an operating system. Said guy loves to reformat his computer and reinstall said operating system, but whenever he does it, he seems to change his routine around. He asks the audience to validate his claims, hoping that he’s not the only one with this “problem.”
While I attempt to write one or two more update posts (one on the recent Revyver release, Django Plugables, and one on the state of Revyver), I thought I’d pose a question that has been in the back of my mind for quite a while.
When you reformat or reinstall your operating system, does the way you use it change?
What I mean by that is quite simple, but I think I can best explain it by answering it. It seems like every time I reinstall OS X, it’s never for a concrete reason that would say, hold up in a geek talk. It’s usually something along the lines of,
Well, I probably have too much crap in my Library folder left by all those MacHeist apps I was “conned” into buying.
But recently, I’ve liked the excuse to start anew. I could have sworn that Spaces would have become a necessary part of my workflow ever since I first saw Chris Messina using Virtue Desktops at the first SuperHappyDevHouse (have there really been like 20 since then?). My foray into Virtue didn’t work so well and, as it seems like during this last refresh, Spaces didn’t quite stick for me either.
I also seem to have an obsession with not wanting to use 3rd-party programs unless they are required beyond a reasonable doubt. Like, I won’t install Quicksilver because I’m perfectly happy with Spotlight’s application launching functionality. A lot of it also has to do with the way applications look. Forget how useful they are, if that logo sucks, I won’t use it. Tell me to get the stick out of my ass, but it’s stuck. But I’ll save that little bit for another post.
So now it’s your turn? Am I the only one who seems to have this obsessive compulsive disorder? Or are there others in the same boat? I hope so, since it feels a bit lonely in here. :(