

Fall of the Designer, Part 4: Credible Threats - striking
http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/28/fall-of-the-designer-part-iv-credible-threats

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tsunamifury
If font and color choice with a few vectors was all this designer ever did,
then he was in trouble with our without this tool set.

The visual elements of design are only the most superficial elements.
Identifying a user problem, creating an interaction journey to solve it, and
mapping that to a programmable interface are the valauble parts of design
because they are HARD and often not very fun.

Almost anyone can follow color theory and the grid system.

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serve_yay
> If font and color choice with a few vectors was all this designer ever did,
> then he was in trouble with our without this tool set.

I would say it's more like, for many businesses, a few icons and color choices
is all they want in the first place. The bare minimum to have your
site/app/whatever not be ugly or unprofessional. And now there are a lot of
ways to do that without needing a designer.

I don't think this is a good way to make software, without someone whose job
is to think about the person on the other side of the screen, but it is a way.

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tomelders
This is a great series of articles, although I may be biased because I agree
with almost everything I've read so far.

On the flip side though, I think one could argue that this is the rise of the
designer/developer, rare as they might be. The flatness trend has created a
world in which truly outstanding design can shine against a back drop of
blandness. Designer/developers have way more of an edge than ever before.

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Animats
The article points out that the Windows 10 icons really suck. They don't even
look like they belong to the same family. They suck so badly that Iconfactory,
which designed some previous Windows icons, issued a public denial that they
had anything to do with the Windows 10 icons.

Maybe the next trend will be to get rid of icons and go back to words.
Expecting people to learn a new pictographic language for each new product is
not working. See the article linked here, and look at the icons in row 1,
column 3, row 2, column 1, and row 2, column 3. Any idea what those mean? On
touch devices, mousing over an icon to get a popup that tells you what it
means no longer works. The user has to know.

There's an SF book by William Gibson, "Idoru", where one of the lead
characters carries an icon dictionary around with her.

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Moto7451
For what it's worth, I don't think the presence of, essentially, online paint
programs with click art support is the end of the designer. Before I worked in
tech almost every place I worked had a logo designed by one of the principles.
Usually they used Word, Paint, or an image editor. Squarespace might lower the
barrier to entry but they're not exactly infusing artistic skill into those
that lacked it before.

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tomelders
I think a big point in each of the articles is that design is being devalued
by lots of conspiring factors. These sorts of tools are positioned as suitable
replacements for a real designer. Square space did issue and update stating
they don't think that's the case, but still, it's a sleek presentation and
people could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

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mrxd
Logo designers are safe from automation until someone invents an algorithm
that can understand design trends happening out in the world and create
something that stands out.

