Pixel Envy

Incredibly undeniable, truly gifted talent blankets us every waking moment. From the various form factors we hold in our hands that stitch our worlds closer together, to the birth and evolution of photo communities that allow us to take more than just a photo — design moves us, shapes us and in fact tells its own incredible story. The true beauty is seen below the cosmetic surface — at the functional level, the guts that make it go. The lines, the shapes, the colors and the movement become choreographed in a way where artistry takes shape. When that choreography is mastered — users can use, and life continues better than the seconds before it. So how then, can a designer themselves, envy this?

Recently, I was conversing with some fellow pixel pushers about how a young designer took it upon himself to redesign a public interface of sorts, showing new ways of thinking, ideating and challenging the norm. A “passion project” is what I call them. Projects that allow you to release your intuition and show your thinking. The “boy is brilliant” I said. His dissection of design and approach to the design choreography was fulfilling. I can say that love at first site, truly does exist. When I showed the work — I was blown away to hear the envy. “Young designers are annoying.” Wrong. “He doesn’t work so he has time to play.” Wrong. It was hard to fathom I was in the same room — it was pixel bloodshed.

I felt defeated. I was bothered by the fact that I was surrounded by designers who didn’t embrace design thinking, but rather felt it was more important to lift their own defeated ego. It was more important to them to criticize the choreographer with assumptions and excuses, to mask their true emotion — because they didn’t create it. Excuses don’t exist in design, reasoning and initiative do. As designers, the more you kick this disastrous “pixel envy,” the more incredible and evolved your work will become.

We live in a bold world of design giants — always thinking and never stopping. There will always be someone with a little more pixel muscle than you. That’s an important detail — but it’s not the point. These giants choreograph design beauty. We, as designers ourselves, should take what we can from them and apply that thinking to our own world, our own choreography. We should embrace our own skills, learn new ones and evolve. After all, one day you could become that giant.