Today the results of the Typo theme contest came in. I must honestly admit they hit me like a slap in the face. Big time. Lush, my entry ended at a very disappointing 8th place. I've been staring at the final results for at least 15 minutes before it really got to me: My serious shot at a top 3 position was a total, utter failure. This unglorious defeat got me thinking about some things. Besides being a developer I've always liked to call myself a designer as well. But... am I really?
A small disclaimer to start with
I think it's probably a good idea to start with a little disclaimer to make sure no one will get the wrong impression from reading what's about to follow. The 'slap in the face' I mentioned in the previous paragraph doesn't mean I'm not happy for those who ended up higher than me in the competition. It doesn't mean I'm angry at the judges. Finally, it doesn't mean I'm a 'bad loser' who feels the results are 'unfair'. None of that. It's just that I completely fail to understand the results (except for the number one) which makes me want to step back and think hard about what I'm doing in the professional arena.
My love for design
I've always liked design. I just LOVE design. I love looking at design, I love criticizing design and most of all I love designing myself. However my formal 'title' is, and has always been 'developer'. I've been working in the field of website development since 1996 in which I've often worked together with people that did have the title of 'designer'. During all this time I've tried to fight the predjudice about developers not knowing anything about design. It's the human nature of 'labeling' people. "You're a developer dude, leave the design issues to us!" has often been the message I got. Despite the unwillingness of all designers I ever worked with to let me have a piece of the 'design pie' in the process I've kept trying. I've kept designing, each design getting better than the previous one. This has resulted into (among others) this very website, the template of i-marco's choice (liked by the community so much that it was ported to both WordPress and Nucleus) and finally my most elaborate design/css job yet: Lush. The general public loved it. They really did. People kept telling me they thought I really ought to win this contest, or at least end up in the top three. I had high hopes indeed. Not because of the powerbook or the ibook as one may think. No, because of the opportunity to prove to all designers I ever worked with and the rest of the whole damn world that I actually AM a designer. What a great way to show them!
Wrong focus?
It wasn't meant to be, leaving me with unanswered questions. While focusing on a pixel perfect weblog theme, working on a plethora of browsers sporting many advanced, great looking features I was blown away by several submissions including ones that weren't finished or ones that didn't work right in all mainstream browsers. Not only did I completely fail to deliver what the judges wanted (whatever that was), my 'design eye' also (partially) failed me. I really did consider Kyle Neath's excellent Hemingway theme to be a serious threat. It didn't even end up in the top 10 AT ALL. This makes me think that besides not being able to impress a design jury I don't even seem to have enough understanding of what good design consists of. Why Hemingway didn't make it into the top 5? I wish I knew. I wish I understood why. I really love the Hemingway theme.
Should I 'give it up, already' ?
The main reason I'm posting this story is in order to hopefully get some answers from my readers, especially those who are designers themselves, just like the highly esteemed jury of the Typo theme contest. I want to know what it is I'm doing wrong. Apparently I took the wrong turn somewhere on the road towards an award winning design theme. Several submissions I never expected to end up anywhere near a top 10 position beat mine. I worked on refining a theme for a ridiculously long time while I could have been done in just a couple of days, leading to exactly the same result. So here's to all designers who read this article: Have a look at the contest results and let me know where Lush went wrong. While you're at it, let me know whether I should still call myself a designer or whether I should 'wake up and smell the coffee' and realize what I really am: a developer who shouldn't bother doing any design work.
Another question I'd love to get an answer on is: What's the difference between a designer's eye and the eye of the average website visitor? It seems the average website visitor loves my work (most of the time) while designers value it at mediocre at best. Questions, questions. And no answers as of yet. Hopefully posting this will get me some answers, besides just writing some sorrow off my chest.
Am I a designer? Or am I just a wannabe?
