Fuck that. Good design IS modular design. If your designer isn't following best practices like modular design then they are NOT good designers. Learning to work in non-destructive modular ways was one of the most important lessons for me when I transitioned from art to design.
I agree with what you are saying, I don't think it contradicts what I intended to articulate. I was trying to get across that dropping a modular piece of code such as say a Database system(Like MySQL) into a project gives you a huge chunk of functionality which you can then build on top of. I can't think of the equivalent for Art, except for widget sets or something along those lines. Or a grid/layout template that doesn't require you to then go and have to update any existing art to mesh well with the new art.
Now to be fair: you can come up with the equivalent of the MySQL situation where say you start the project with say a widget set and just match it's style moving forward.
I could probably match all my concrete coding examples with a modular art project but I think there are two issues that in general going to come up:
1) A lot Graphic Designers are not to strong at building modular art as it requires a more rigid process. There are exceptions of course, but we are talking about in general why there aren't as many Graphic Designers contributing to Open Source projects. (Wordpress though is a good example of where there are tonnes of Themes provided by Designers).
2) Reusing a popular Design can make your project look more derivate than unique. Where as with code this is less the case. Though with popular Widget sets such as the design by Sofa for Cappuccino (http://ajaxian.com/archives/cappuccino-07-aristo-ui-theme-en...) is a good example of Great design that maybe benefits from this familiarity as it's easier to grasp what widgets do when you've used other Apps using them.
As a designer I like your counterpoint. If I could work with developers like you're describing I'd be interested. I'm nervous about offering help to a project though, because I'm getting the impression that developers are expected to navigate the community solo and I don't know if I can learn the ropes of the community while making a good design for a project.
I've been thinking that maybe a buddy-system might be appropriate for attracting designers.
I think that's a brilliant idea. ABSOLUTELY brilliant. With a buddy, developers would be able to:
A: Get some greater insight into the reasons workflow is performed like it is.
B: Get some insulation from the "Here is the Github. Go, be fruitful" nature of a lot of projects.
C: Have someone assist with VC.
The developer would get:
A: Exposure to ideas about design
B: Experience in how to effectively communicate with developers
C: Experience in HCI and usability
You, sir, have given me an EXCELLENT IDEA. TO THE INTERWEBS!
I've just heard about 37 signals this past month or two and am thinking about putting out a portfolio for them. Would they actually care about OS projects as a designer?
|Most times, when I team up with some designer they'd want to make pretty icons...
The designer should know enough to you visual symbols that have real-world equivalents to convey the meaning of the button visually. Envelopes for mail. phones for contact button. Thumbs up to like, thumbs down to dislike.
This is my first time learning about the open source project (never been on hacker news before). Can anyone provide a link to what you would call a typical open source project in need of a designer. I'm terrified of working with you guys but am starting to feel like maybe I should get over that and lend a hand.
> I'm terrified of working with you guys but am starting to feel like maybe I should get over that and lend a hand.
You shouldn't be terrified.
My advice: start with a small open source team (not small project) on a project you like. Maybe do not start with your real name (it will be easy to change aftewards). Come on one IRC channel of a project ( like #videolan on freenode) and propose your services. See how people react.
If you like them, go on, if you don't, move along.
Git and similar tools are designed to track multiple revisions of a file. Imagine the history feature (undo/redo) from your favorite editor, but for saved files, and with the ability to point to two arbitrary versions and ask, "What changed between these?"
On top of this, Git added the ability to merge changes together automatically. Imagine that one person changed a bunch of stuff in the first paragraph in a document, and someone else changed a bunch of stuff in the second paragraph, and the computer could automatically merge those changes into one document.
This would kill it for me. I've spent my whole adult life learning to use graphite and charcoal, oil paint and clay. Having my entire effort refused because I don't know what a GIT is just doesn't work for me.
Having communication barriers like this absolutely would stop me from participating. I have no problem with being asked to redesign a logo over and again. I would love to feel like I belonged to a community and that I mattered. But having a developer jack my work and screw it up because it was easier than asking me to do it would completely scare me away from open source projects.
I am trained as a designer but I actually work as a lookout observer for Alberta Forestry. I spend 6 months a year alone in the woods. Designing and illustrating fills some of that time :)
I can vouch for Reddit's community being a result of it's "poor design". Most people are turned off by giant walls of text. Reddit is actively trying to build a community out of people who are going to take the time out of their day to sort through a wall of text.
In this way, Reddit's 'poor design' serves a function of repelling undesirable people. If you want to repel people then go for a non-design. If you want to attract as many people as possible, or attract people who are turned on by something other than a wall of text, then hire a designer.
Here's an article for the interested. Often times, designers will use a grid, like http://960.gs/ offers, to help make layouts with good alignment.
Left, right centre alignment refers to the relationship of text and text frame. You can still have alignment relationships betweens photo and text frame, photo and animation, text frame & text frame, etc.
