...posted on Medium.

Posted. On. Medium.

We start companies just to flip them

Who’s “we”? Certainly not me. Certainly not the designers I know.

It’s time to fight back.

Fight what now? Who are we fighting? Why? Are we fighting people flipping companies?

I’m so confused.

Oh well.

• goes back to work •

Is it just me, or there's more whiny stuff everyday?

Maybe rather than standing offended, we can quit complaining about someone whining and dig deeper at the issues he's trying to convey by having a conversation to test and discuss these issues.

He wouldn't have written the article in the first place if he wasn't truly concerned or upset about something he's seeing, particularly in the context of Designer News.

Let's have some respect, even for opinions that differ to yours.

I'll just leave this here, and wait for a barrage of nasty comments for those who ignored my point.

Why is it that everytime I read something like this, it's never from someone who actually is a world-class designer?

I really do appreciate that he himself has REALLY tried to solve some meaningful problems with his design skills and only then started telling everyone else what's wrong with them.

Like that atrocious mail.app icon, millions of people will be absolutely thrilled by this: https://dribbble.com/shots/1292626-Mail-icon?list=users&offset=23

Or this new safari icon. I feel like the world hunger issue isn't even a problem anymore now that we have this: https://dribbble.com/shots/1293863-Safari-icon?list=users&offset=20

Or that horrible vim logo that makes us all depressed: https://dribbble.com/shots/1559479-Vim-replacement-icon?list=users&offset=0

As your little portfolio on dribbble demonstrates (I wasn't able to find any of your other 'design' works, so that's the only stuff I could reference), you yourself don't seem to be putting in too much effort in making this part of the design community the place you want it to be. You might be doing really meaningful work in the real world, but your public image on the web - where you decided to publish this article - doesn't reflect that, and that seems to be why you're getting a lot of shit here.

Apparently designers are no longer allowed to have fun while doing what they do. We may no longer experiment or explore options during our off-time, everything we do must be meaningful.

No, designers are not storytellers, designers are designers. That doesn't mean that we can't use storytelling as a means of design.

Provocative title has nothing to do with text, which does raise a couple interesting points but gets lost in its own anger. Chill out, yo.

In the end this is less an actual appeal or argument towards other designers but rather a public display of your self-righteousness.

You would do great at BuzzFeed though.

I’m going to ignore the dismissive personal attacks/judgements that make up the bulk of this comment thread (though I will say they made me smile), and just quickly address a couple things:

1. Rolando: Thanks for sharing the article.

2. There’s nothing in this text that suggests that for-fun projects are something that should be off the table, as can be noted explicitly in this paragraph:

The First Things First 2014 manifesto, which I lead the production of, claims that it is not the signatories’ desire to take the fun out of life, and as a signatory I hold to that assertion. But this isn’t about scoffing at a bit of fun, or attempting to maintain a professional curriculum of grave, high-stakes, high-impact work — there should always be room for light-heartedness and experimentation in our work, but not at the expense of failing to create something greater than ourselves.

3. As several people have been kind enough to enquire as to what I do for a living, or what my own work consists of:

3a. My day job is as a senior designer at a patient-centric medical startup. We work as a medium between the pharmaceutical industry and patients who have found little to no hope through existing medicine. Specifically, we work with clinical researchers and drug companies’ clinical trials, and transform them into patient-friendly platforms (these are texts normally extremely inhibitive to understanding by non-scientists) so that patients can make an informed decision about pursuing treatment that is still in development. In doing this, we not only help bring potentially life-saving new drugs to market, we also help patients educate themselves and potentially have their health and even lives saved.

3b. Previous to this position, I worked at an app agency where I produced little to nothing of humanitarian value but helped some big banks feel better about themselves. That was interesting.

3c. Previous to that role, however, my main project was as a co-founder of an independent design practice, where we created a comprehensive website for a non-profit educational group. This can be found at http://winnipegarchitecture.ca

3d. Another ongoing project is the First Things First 2014 manifesto, which advocates for people-centric, not profit-centric, ethical design.

3e. I’m also currently working on several other projects in the non-profit space, to do with press freedom and digital security, which I can’t speak further about publicly for the time being.

3f. Sometimes I post things to Dribbble, as has been pointed out already. I suppose this cancels out all of the above.

4. Thanks for reading.

Seemed aggressive, maybe a little misguided, and kind of unclear. But hey, I get it: as important as design is (in every sense of the word), the least I can do is get up every morning and ask myself why I do what I do. How you answer that, and what you do with it is completely up to you. However, I personally believe that we might be able to find a reasonable space in between thinking "I can change the world forever with design", and "I am just one person, with simple design aspirations".

Personally, my goals are big and I try to make them people focused (as do a lot of people; I'm not special here), but I try not to romanticize my visions, nor force others to value them as I do. But hats off to the people who choose to think deeper about design and their work, and are somehow still labeled by this guy as adding to the problem. Shame.

I'm generally not for the harsh criticism of a very large, diversified industry. The points made, although heavy handed, tend to be accurate. It's important to remember why that is, though. Money is generally focused in the realm of rich-white-people-problems. This world is fueled by money. A designer needs to secure oneself before even thinking bigger than themselves. It's the way the world works. Poor designers, sadly, won't achieve much. And until the rest of the work changes priorities, this will go on.

100% on point.

A wise person once told me to be wary of people who complain about an issue without providing a solution.

That being said, I think a lot of the points this guy makes are valid. Valid points that stretch beyond the design world and into the "actual" world. People will always be obsessed with money, power, and themselves, no matter the industry.

Another wise person once told me that you'll never be able to stop a war single-handedly, but that doesn't mean you have to fight in it.

That means if you want to "fight back" and "take a stand" against the "evils" of the design world, then do the opposite of what they do. You cannot control the will of others, but you can control yourself.

Make good work. Do good things. Don't be a dick. Stop complaining so much.

A long time ago, Plato proposed a thought experiment called "The Ship of Theseus; a philosophical parable about ownership and heritage.

It's an interesting read, to say at the least...one that too often comes to mind as I read comment threads such as this one. An objective viewer may read the linked story and, without any frame of reference, disagree strongly with it. Then, upon reading this comment thread, she may feel strongly swayed towards the opposite consideration due to the heavy-handed and strongly-opinionated responses.

Designer ego is a lot like the Ship of Theseus. At this point in time and technology, it's hard to tell where it came from, and where it's represented. Sometimes, thoughtful approaches to very real issues (such as the one that this Medium article addresses) lose value because they are consumed by people like us...people driven by an ego that we can't trace the origin of or validate. It just...is...and we lash out with it like it's some kind of tool of justice. It hits like a wet noodle, and leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who experience it. I'd fathom a guess that no one is positively responding to everything in this article and comment thread.

In many ways, this response is full of shit as well. In truth, I'm most constantly amazed by the fact that holistic design still has an incredible impact, in spite of people like us.

medium is a frozen shithole.

Browsing through the comments around here, people totally missed the point of the article… Maybe I got it because I’m not a designer?

Haters gonna hate. I don't see how bad attitudes do anything to improve design culture. Anyone can criticize. A better response to dissatisfaction with the industry would be to make the thing you want to see in the world; positivity and negativity are both infectious.

Posts like these are becoming a little trite to me. My biggest takeaway is "people aren't doing the job the way I would." You're right. They aren't. Design might just be a job. Design might be your career. Design might be a hobby. Design might be the driving force in your life.

Pick any other occupation and you'll have the same thing. Good and bad doctors. Good and bad police. Good and bad musicians. That's the way of the world, dawg.

Stop raising torches and pitchforks. It's boring. Do your work, as best as you can, and hopefully make a dent in the world.

Design like any sector is complex and multi-faceted – to say we should all stop working for Valley company's just isn't a reasonable solution. Show me any demographic that solely does the good and moral over money and fame – it's just not a reality. This dynamic won't change until we realign our priorities. It's a fact of life though that good design takes time and time unfortunately equals money. There's no point getting angry about the fact that most of the time people will be required to seek a healthy wage.

One thing i'd like to see is a list of third-sector, civic or open source companies that need help. And not just with Design either – marketing, developing, product, business dev, accounting should all be involved.

I was feeling guilty about my own dribbble account after reading that article – There is, of course, stuff up there that was made for fun; messing around. I was curious to see Cole's too (https://dribbble.com/colepeters) to see what I should be doing...

This: https://colepeters.com