

Web designers should start companies, not freelance - Faerris
http://jaequery.tumblr.com/post/12480331305/web-designers-should-start-companies-not-freelance

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sidmitra
>a rockstar designer should take more stake in a company than a >rockstar
developer.

That made me laugh. I imagine the post was written by a designer.

I understand how important design is, it's _as_ important as the backend. But
somehow the OP believes that it's only the design that made some apps
successful. He also undermines the countless sleepless nights the "engineers"
at Apple spent trying to make things work to fit the design. Without fair
share of both, it's impossible to make a product successful.

>A web site can be as clunky as it can be in terms of back-end >but if the
front-end kicks ass,

The OP also makes the mistake of thinking, that design is only buttons and
borders. Front is a fairly delicate balance of UX, UI. Without an
appropriately "designed" backend which is equally responsive, all falls apart.

~~~
viscanti
Design can be split-tested by someone with average skills and end up with
above average results. The same is not true of development. Throwing together
a bunch of things and trying them in production leads to unmaintainable code
and many hard to track down bugs. One requires time and persistence, the other
requires knowledge, planning and problem solving.

~~~
sidmitra
>Design can be split-tested by someone with average skills and end up with
above average results.

I do think split testing is not the answer in every case. Firstly you have to
know what to split test. A product like Dropbox cannot be designed just by
split testing for example. See MS Windows file copy as an example, i still
think it's broken.

With dropbox, somebody noticed a problem and wanted the product to be so easy
to use, even to the extent of being invisible. I would imagine split testing
would lead to dozen tabs of configuration of file sync rules.

------
dustingetz
" _A web site can be as clunky as it can be in terms of back-end but if the
front-end kicks ass, people can easily overlook the back-end. But the same is
not so true in reverse, which is to say, no one gives a crap about the “back-
end”, as long as it works._ "

weakest argument ever, and the whole post stands on it.

~~~
hello_moto
In other fields, that's called a marketing gimmick (some would go far by
calling it a scam).

------
sgdesign
As a designer who's launching his own business (<http://folyo.me>), I can
certainly identify with this.

But I also know that it's easy to be blinded by the new entrepreneur's
enthusiasm and see the world through rose-colored glasses. Whether you're a
designer or developer, starting your own company or project is not for
everybody and has numerous downsides.

For example since launching Folyo, I've spent almost no time on actual design.
Instead, I'm spending most of my time either coding (I've learnt Rails) or
writing on the blog (<http://blog.folyo.me>) to try and drive some traffic to
the site.

I also didn't take on any new client projects, which means I've missed a
couple nice opportunities, and also made much less money in the past couple
months than I usually would.

If you're a designer and you want to stop freelancing while staying
independent, I would instead advise that you sell Wordpress themes, sell icon
packs, or maybe write an ebook.

Starting a company is definitely not the easy way out, and is not for
everybody.

~~~
minikomi
I wonder if there's a market for a kind of paid mentorship, for developers
looking to improve their design.. A few emails a week and one or two face to
face meetings / Skype sessions ...

"wow.. You really need to work on typography.. Let's look at these examples ..
I'll send you some homework. Now let's talk about the color theory you went
through this week.."

------
chc
I don't know if web designers should start companies or freelance, but this
article didn't do anything to cement my opinion on the matter.

He starts out with a message to startup founders about how design will
singlehandedly bring your site to prominence. He doesn't present any evidence
for this.

He posits that designers don't get involved in startups because they believe
their services aren't all that valuable. I think this is a rather unrealistic
view of the situation. If anything, designers are prone to exaggerate their
contribution to a project in my experience. I would suggest the reason
designers don't get involved in startups is because they've dealt with enough
nutty entrepreneurs to treat the field with skepticism. This is a realistic
view — most startups simply aren't profitable ventures.

He then concludes that designers should get involved with startups because
they're simply more satisfying than freelancing. This seems like such a
subjective point that it's not even worth mentioning.

He never does directly address the claim in the headline, that designers
should start startups.

------
ofca
Allthough I give this guy a credit for praising often neglected designers, he
is in no way entitled to bash on engineers and say that they are less
valuable. A good design might attract the user on the first, but if the
backend sucks; adios muchacos.

I have a feeling that he doesn't understand that to be a truly great designer,
one has to have a great knowledge of the backend programming as well. Design
borders dont end at the front. They strech deeply into all the lines of code.
And for a product to work nad become great, designers must become engineers
and vice versa so that they both get best of both worlds.

I suggest the author to look more into 37signals, and how theyre designers
operate. There is an excelent video on peepcode where Brian Singer shows his
design methods. Allthough you need to pay to see them (24$), they are one of
the most valuable insights in the design process.

------
mikeryan
Here's why many "rock star" designers don't like (generally) working for a
single company or brand like a startup. First you have to understand not all
designers are created equal. You tend to have "Rock Stars" (or in the agency
speak a Creative Director) and a spectrum down to "production" designers.
"Creative Directors" tend to be good at a lot of the different design
disciplines, they understand business objectives, they can help with product
and feature vision, they understand usability and they can make things pretty.
Its the entire package.

If they go to work for a brand new startup they start with a blank slate, all
the needs and challenges are large and the designer is fully engaged because
they have to draw on all their different skill sets to solve problems.

But as time progresses the needs of a startup tends to shift from where there
is less need to do full UX the product is now defined and its about making
small incremental changes. This is where they go from being a "Creative
Director" to a production designer. As a CD they get to design the web site
with a brand new look and feel, as a production designer they're doing a new
module on the home page which matches the existing design standards.

Basically the challenges keep getting smaller, and the designer is less
engaged. There's a similar arc in development, however while at first you need
to do "Big Things" (get the site up) and some of the changes become smaller,
at least those small things can be as challenging (or more so) then the "Big
Things" (optimize the load time).

Finally as a designer you live and die by your portfolio, and having a one
site portfolio gets you nowhere. Unless you're looking for a big exit you're
much better off getting more work, and more projects it both grows your
portfolio and expands your experience and abilities.

~~~
jaequery
Hi, I understand what you are saying. But I couldn't really agree on how
designer becomes less engaged as startup matures. I think that's the one big
misconception a developer (and designer) gets when they think of startups.
Because in reality, the amount of work one can do in any given startup is
unlimited. If there are no work then you create work, it's do what's best for
the company. It's a life-long cycle.

------
danso
"Why? This is the result of a designer under-valuing the importance of what
his/her work can bring to the table in a startup. IMO, a rockstar designer
should take more stake in a company than a rockstar developer. Look at Apple,
I’m not so sure if their designer(s) took much credit for what they did in
turning around that company (Unless Jobs designed the ipods/iphones/macbooks
himself, which I doubt)."

With Jobs's recent passing, the last sentence is a statement that has plenty
of evidence and testimony to argue either way. It doesn't bode well for your
overall argument for you to say "Did Apple designers get enough credit? Who
knows? Who can be sure?" and leave it at that.

------
rokhayakebe
If you are going into the real estate business, you partner with building
engineers, not interior decorators. Designers are interior decorators.
Although they create an immense amount of value, once their work is done, they
are not so much needed afterwards.

~~~
talmand
Unless its a company that generates content on a timely basis. In that case
it's possible the reverse is true. Once the platform is up and running the
programmer is not needed as much as the designer.

It's all about context.

Every company is different and the proper number of programmers to designers
will depend on the needs of the company.

If a company reaches a point that it doesn't need as many of one side, then
there's a chance it's close to not needing as many on the other. But if the
company wishes to grow then chances are they will still need both.

------
billpatrianakos
I totally agree. I'm a designer/developer (better at design) and I have a
company, I don't freelance. I make that distinction very clear. Sure, the
company has me as its only employee but that's temporary. Now, the article's
title seems a bit misleading. It sounds more like the author is advocating
that designers stop freelancing and join a startup full time, not to stop
freelancing and start a company.

I wish the post had touched on topics like the fact that considering or
calling yourself a freelancer is short sighted and that starting a design
company can be better for your bottom line in some markets.

That said, I also feel a bit bad for many of the people who will read this. At
least the ones who are designers. These days there are about as many people
who think they can call themselves designers as those who think they have the
next big app idea. I include myself in this. Anyone nowadays can read some
NetTuts, get a book on HTML and think they're a designer. It sucks and it
hurts the good ones out there.

While I cringe lately at posts like this that give hope to people who have no
business in the areas of design/development/entrepreneurship, I'm also glad
they show up here on HN as I myself needed them about a year ago to get where
I am today. I'm not an iota as skilled as a lot folks here on HN but I'm glad
that the few who do have "it" (as in, "what it takes") get to read this and
hopefully it fuels them to do things the rest of us only wish we could do.

