Why I Don’t Design


Despite being primarily an IT guy, I also serve as our staff’s web developer which landed me on the “creative team.” I work with Blake, a guy who (to my limited awareness) mastered After Effects in a year and works magic with Photoshop. No, seriously, it’s magic. I think I saw him turn into a gnome earlier this year around Easter (or maybe he just grew some facial hair).

The point is this… I see code as art. There is a major creative element to it. It’s not what most people would consider creativity, though. And probably, only other coders can recognize and appreciate the artful elegance of another’s code. Anyway, I’ve been asked what I mean when I say that I work on websites, but I don’t design them. I’m not creative in that element, and this is Exhibit A.

ChrisSigler 2010 Icon

This purple-and-black monstrosity took me two hours, and it is probably some of my best design work. Yet I can almost guarantee that Blake could reproduce this in two minutes and drastically improve it in another two. Or he could just replace with something better in one minute flat.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don’t design.