The state of the design community
On Overreactions and Arrogance
As a community, we are an amazing group of people. We create things that literally billions of people see and hopefully admire. We have such a profound effect upon the world around us. Externally, our profession is flourishing, but internally we are crumbling under the pressure of arrogance and infighting.
“The indignation of designers is unbecoming.”
Take a look at Designer News. Every time someone posts anything to do with flat/long shadow design, a flame war ensues. Adult professionals reduced to bickering little kids posting pictures of “You mad bro” memes. Whatever happened to constructive criticism?
Now before I go any further, it isn’t everyone in the community who is the problem. It isn’t even close to a majority. It is a small, vocal group who creates “beating a dead horse” and “long shadow poop” icons for use on a website which, as far as I know, was created to help designers, not ridicule them. It’s the same group who, when another designers creation resembles theirs, writes a long rant on medium about it. I, as well as others, believe that this sort of mockery has to stop.
Why should people that are proud of their work be belittled and mocked just for following a certain style? Surely part of being a decent human being is letting people do the work they want without fear of unconstructive scrutiny from a community of pompous fucking idiots?
The point is, we’re all fellow human beings here, let’s just try to be nice to each other, it’ll make the community a better place and create room for us to grow creatively.
Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.
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