Today’s post brought to you by the letter C.
What goes around comes around, but what if it never came around to begin with? I realize my blog has a bit of a negative spin to it. I guess I just feel more empassioned to vent rather than praise. However, I’ve never offered criticism where criticism wasn’t due. One might say that’s subjective, but I do have criteria. I only critique a site if either the owner solicits criticism, or if I have a problem with something I personally am trying to use, and feel other people may also experience this problem. Translation: I don’t go around the internet looking for people to pick on. I try to always be constructive, particularly so where it concerns individual people.
Why is it that when something doesn’t work, it really bothers us, but when something does work, we hardly notice? I guess that’s one of the elements of good design, (at least where usability is concerned) if it’s good, people are going to be so busy doing what they need to do with it, they don’t even have to think twice. That said, I’m going to start a Good Design weekly feature to contrast/complement my Poor Design feature. You can’t really have one without the other. If you have any sites in mind, drop me a comment, or send me an email at beth@resistmedia.net.
I guess what spurned this post was a response to some people picking on someone else. In short, some rude people on a design forum started a thread to criticize the site of a small web consulting firm. I felt their criticism was unfounded. (Not much beyond “I don’t like the look of this site” and “Who do these guys think they are to charge so much?”) I think it’s kind of pointless to complain about someone else’s work when they didn’t ask you, and your work certainly isn’t better. However, one thing sure to send me into a seething rage faster than most, is people complaining about current rates for web design, specifically, designers (or sometimes “designers”) who think everyone else’s prices are outrageous and they should charge 1/5 the going rate.
There are a lot of reasons this is bad business. I strongly feel you get what you pay for. If you pay $200 for a website, you’re going to get a $200 website. Just because your brother’s friend’s dog’s sister’s aunt learned how to use Frontpage, and will give you a website in exchange for her weight in Pez, doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. Now, I understand that small businesses are on a budget, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I am a small business. I can work with someone’s budget, but I’m not going to give anyone a $3,000 website at a loss to myself. Charging ridiculously below industry standards does all your fellow designers a disservice, and it goes against Graphic Artists Guild practices. People have to eat. The web is already polluted with bad design, it doesn’t need to further litter from with cheap, template pages. If you’re too lazy to challenge yourself, perhaps you should consider another career. I’m not Paul Rand, but I do seek improvement in every venture.
Lastly, if you don’t have anything nice to say, keep your damn mouth shut. If you don’t like someone’s prices, don’t do business with them. If you don’t care for someone’s design, don’t do business with them. But (in some cases anonymously) flaming them on a message board doesn’t help anyone, especially if they never asked for your input. And calling someone the delightful C word because you disagree with their equally unsolicited dismissal of your own talents as 1997 bevel and emboss culture is just plain classless. I’d rather help build and contribute to a community than run around slitting throats. Whatever happened to a sense of professionalism?
