Saw this in SITE CHECK!!

[Olli_Budworth]

Originally posted by FI
Dont call your self a designer just becasue you can open flash.exe or photoshop.exe, as many of you do, your spamming our industry with crap!

Oh my god!

How pretentious are you? Why do you have the right to tell people what they can and can't be? You don't, so get off your high horse and stope preching to the masses. Yes, FI is renowned as being one of, if not the best web design company out there, and fair play to you and your team for doing so, but don't come on here all high and mighty just because of that.

If someone who can use photoshop and flash wants to call themselves a designer let them - are you that much of an insecure person that you're scared of competition from a mere individual? Quite sad really!

As for the "your spamming our industry with crap"

It's not your industry, it's anyone's industry who chooses to work in it, again, who are you to dictate what is good and what isn't? Think that's down to public opinion, not one dictated by some 'geezer' who draws pretty animations a.k.a. you.

It's called 'thinking before you speak'

[Olli_Budworth]

Originally posted by FI
Flash Kit, others, are 99% amateurs, hobbiests, and 1% professionals.
David and everyone at FI, 2A and anyone else that is behind this. [/B]

OK, SUBSTANTIATE THE ABOVE FACTS WITH EVIDENCE PLEASE

[Sybersnake]

anyone can call themself a designer, but ultimately it is their OWN work, that will either place them in a spotlight or in the corner. A true designer lives and breathes their work. they wake up everyday, sit down at their computer and expresses themselves in ways that most people cannot understand.

it is the fact there is alot of crap in this field. due to the large amounts of people who want to get rich quick. That is it.. many probably feel that there is money to be made, so they become 'inspired' and resale someone else's idea in a cute different colored box. All for the idea, that it will make them money. It is those people, if uncontrolled will eventually destroy this field of work.

We have strict copyright laws about movies, music, art, video, posters, logos, why not web/interactive design? Where have the everyone's morals gone?

[FI]

Originally posted by Olli_Budworth
Oh my god!

How pretentious are you? Why do you have the right to tell people what they can and can't be? You don't, so get off your high horse and stope preching to the masses. Yes, FI is renowned as being one of, if not the best web design company out there, and fair play to you and your team for doing so, but don't come on here all high and mighty just because of that.

If someone who can use photoshop and flash wants to call themselves a designer let them - are you that much of an insecure person that you're scared of competition from a mere individual? Quite sad really!

As for the "your spamming our industry with crap"

It's not your industry, it's anyone's industry who chooses to work in it, again, who are you to dictate what is good and what isn't? Think that's down to public opinion, not one dictated by some 'geezer' who draws pretty animations a.k.a. you.

It's called 'thinking before you speak'

Just to be make it very clear for you:
I am on no high horse, i dont think I own the industry etc...I dont have the right to tell people anything. If you carefully read what I wrote bar 1 line of text you would see its my opinion, just like you have yours. I am insecure about expressing my opinion at amateur filled boards such as this one, becasue its the amatuers that have stereotyped my opinion as cocky (highhorse) just becasue im from FI.
I urge you to interact with my opinion or statements from a dignified perspective without getting personal and stereotyping me because of who I work for. I feel strongly about this discussion, but try to remain dignified in my words. Its called being professional. Your feedback on this topic is more than welcome from a constructive and mature point of view.

[dyldebus]

Agreed with FI... he didn't bash anybody. I would never call myself a designer if I blatinly stole interfaces and changed a few colors/graphics and called it my own. This is an OBVIOUS rip of 2advanced... why would he choose to rip 2advanced? I have no clue, but if you don't see it you're blind.

I can imagine how much thought, time, sweat, and blood went into the creation of 2advacnes' site.... now this guy is coming in and using it on his own free will??!! It's discusting! FI should be respected, if he didn't know what he was talking about... he wouldn't work for such a great company.

Again, just an opinion.
dyl

[gdstudios]

Originally posted by FI
I am insecure about expressing my opinion at amateur filled boards such as this one, becasue its the amatuers that have stereotyped my opinion as cocky (highhorse) just becasue im from FI.

Ouch. You certainly are harsh FI. I really don't know how to respond to this, only to hope that you aren't issuing a blanket statement about all FK'ers. There is a plethora of talent in the FK Community.

[gdstudios]

Originally posted by dyldebus
Agreed with FI... he didn't bash anybody. I would never call myself a designer if I blatinly stole interfaces and changed a few colors/graphics and called it my own. This is an OBVIOUS rip of 2advanced... why would he choose to rip 2advanced? I have no clue, but if you don't see it you're blind.

I can imagine how much thought, time, sweat, and blood went into the creation of 2advacnes' site.... now this guy is coming in and using it on his own free will??!! It's discusting! FI should be respected, if he didn't know what he was talking about... he wouldn't work for such a great company.

Again, just an opinion.
dyl

Can you imagine how much time and effort it took for this guy to construct his 2A rip website? Try to look at both sides of the issue. Ripping can be a tedious process you know.

[Budget Nudist]

now let's all hope this individual is happy
with his "sitecheck"!!!

interesting thread BTW!

[gdstudios]

More than interesting, this topic has unfortunately consumed the FK Community. How many nasty threads have popped up about this exact subject?

[Budget Nudist]

to be honest i think its useless to participate these kinda threads! heeee a *2a rip* .. *no its not*.. jeughhh (is that a word?)
i personly could careless anyways if you copy 2a..
waste of my time to pay attetion to it...and if you feel the urge to rip ****.. well this kinda threads is what you get..

later studs!

[Veniogenesis]

Okay. I agree with the statements. Now what I want to learn, is how one can be distinguished as a professional and not an amateur. From what I know, most professionals start their lives being amateurs. I might be wrong though.
Is it because they have degrees in art, design, and that sort of stuff, or is it because they have a real license and/or company? To put it in simpler terms, if an amateur wishes to become a professional, what does he or she need to accomplish?
Thanks,
Thomas H

[FI]

Originally posted by gdstudios
Ouch. You certainly are harsh FI. I really don't know how to respond to this, only to hope that you aren't issuing a blanket statement about all FK'ers. There is a plethora of talent in the FK Community.

I dont intend to be insulting or anything of the like, just honest.
There are over 400,000 members right...well im guessing 1% of these are talented to a professional degree based on being a visitor to FK since the day it was launched.
I hope people here see my overall point, not my personal opinion about 99% of people here of which I would consider amateur. I have full respect for amateur designers, I am an amateur too in many ways but I have design morals and my goal is to educate new designers, amatuers, hobbiests, even professionals to acknowledge and work by design morals. I have little respect and tolerance for those that break the rules. (what rules?)

[Budget Nudist]

**** non-believers..if you think your stuff rocks.. fine!!
Salvator Dali was kicked out at almost every school cause
they thought his paintings sucked well..you know the rest!
and if your clients are satisfied..cool..cause thats your main goal..
they don't know **** about 2A, FI...
remember you design sites for clients NOT for other desinger eyes..
the rest is up to you!!

[gdstudios]

Originally posted by FI
I dont intend to be insulting or anything of the like, just honest.
There are over 400,000 members right...well im guessing 1% of these are talented to a professional degree based on being a visitor to FK since the day it was launched.
I hope people here see my overall point, not my personal opinion about 99% of people here of which I would consider amateur. I have full respect for amateur designers, I am an amateur too in many ways but I have design morals and my goal is to educate new designers, amatuers, hobbiests, even professionals to acknowledge and work by design morals. I have little respect and tolerance for those that break the rules. (what rules?)

Ah, finally a bit of humility from you. I've been waiting. The fact here is that the judgement of some as amateurs and others as professionals is subjective at best. I think you'd be surprised if you knew how many of the 400,000 members are actually working fulltime in some professional capacity. One thing we can all agree on is that you and Shane are design professionals. This cannot be disputed.

[Ritchie-T]

Originally posted by Veniogenesis
Okay. I agree with the statements. Now what I want to learn, is how one can be distinguished as a professional and not an amateur. From what I know, most professionals start their lives being amateurs. I might be wrong though.
Is it because they have degrees in art, design, and that sort of stuff, or is it because they have a real license and/or company? To put it in simpler terms, if an amateur wishes to become a professional, what does he or she need to accomplish?
Thanks,
Thomas H

It’s not like having a manual to become a professional long distance runner. You have what it takes or you don’t. It's up to you to decide weather you think you have what it takes or not to become a professional. If you think you can do it then work towards it and get there. Only you know what you are capable of achieving if you work towards it.

Well that’s just the way I see it. I would like to think that I can make it somewhere in this industry, I think I can make it because I believe I have the foundation skills to expand on and get somewhere. Maybe ambitious, but I’m past the newbie stage now when I 1st had a go at this and went “oh I can do this for a living” and at the age of 20 now I’m thinking of my future and what I want to do with myself, and at this age if I wasn’t sure in myself I would get somewhere then I wouldn’t still be working at it, I would be looking into another job.

The reason I said all that bout myself is to answer you question, you just know when you can do something I think, and if you feel you can get there then go for it.

Also as a side note…I think a lot of people on this board have strong views about things but won’t say anything on the board because you are scared to ruin your online reputation (if I can call it that). I have to hand it to a lot of people, mainly David Martin for coming out and saying there views on this debate. I find it interesting to see people getting stuff of there chest once in a while.

Anyway, I just done a far too long post...gotta stop writing now before I over do it

Ritchie.

[dyldebus]

I don't want to be mistaken for a 2advanced whiner... I was never really AMAZED by their site to begin with. ALSO, you won't usually find me saying anything about ripping unless it's a case this bad. I think it was the reality slip thread where someone said it was a 2A rip... I thought that was funny because it was VERY good site with a totally different layout/design that 2A has... but come on... this looks like the same swf's used (especially the portfolio section) with a few tints applied. I'm not saying I don't like the site (aside from the graphic on the top) but if you're going to put this kind of time and effort into something, why not make it your own? I'm sure the guy loves all the attention he's getting, and who knows... that might have been his plan from the beginning.

[aversion]

Originally posted by Budget Nudist
**** non-believers..if you think your stuff rocks.. fine!!
Salvator Dali was kicked out at almost every school cause
they thought his paintings sucked well..you know the rest!
and if your clients are satisfied..cool..cause thats your main goal..
they don't know **** about 2A, FI...
remember you design sites for clients NOT for other desinger eyes..
the rest is up to you!!

no one is saying that a 'proper' designer designs for other designers, what the point of this seems to be to me is that there are a lot of people out there calling themselves professional designers who in fact have only a limited knowledge of the craft that is design.

a client may be happy with something a designer has produced but that doesn't make it good design, it might mean that the designer has produced something that is aesthetically pleasing to the client, but aesthetics are only one aspect of design and I think a lot of people think it's the only thing that matters.

salvador dali was an artist not a designer, and while your comparison has some validity in the world of design (look at david carson for example) designers are not artists. There is a whole world of knowledge that the professional designer can absorb to help whatever natural talents they might have. This is especially true of interactive and digital media, where interaction with a user is key, the purpose of just about every design brief on the web is to communicate something to the user. To do this the designer needs to understand more than what the user might think is attractive. User testing is not having a colleague say that something looks nice, it's not having a typical user sit down and tell you what they think of your design. You need to know that the average user will blame themselves for being too dumb rather than tell you your design has failed to provide them with an effective navigation solution. There is much to learn about the way elements of a design relate to each other, about grid systems, etc etc. All of this knowledge goes into your toolkit, and, as I said before, you might never use those tools but knowing that they are there enables you to make educated decisions about your design.

There are natural designers out there, like david carson, but for the vast majority of us there is a long road of experience and education ahead. The true designer learns to look at the world differently, you live and breath design, you might take as much inspiration from the way traffic flows as much as from other websites you see. Ironically, given the topic of this thread, one of the most interesting and constructive disciplines of a designer is knowing about design history... not just knowing about gabbocorp or ray of light but knowledge of art and design movements through history, that kind of perspective can be invaluable.

within design there are many areas of focus, with the growth of interaction design you might have a large web team that includes interaction designers, GUI designers, usability designers, etc etc.

i wouldn't say that people can't call themselves designers, but there are many levels of ability. I call myself a designer but I would never call myself a good designer, I know that it will be years before I can apply that to myself.

I would never say that you design sites for clients, you design sites for users and more often than not if you only try and please a client the user will suffer and so will the client's business.

[gdstudios]

Originally posted by Ritchie-T
Also as a side note…I think a lot of people on this board have strong views about things but won’t say anything on the board because you are scared to ruin your online reputation (if I can call it that). I have to hand it to a lot of people, mainly David Martin for coming out and saying there views on this debate. I find it interesting to see people getting stuff of there chest once in a while.

Well stated here Ritchie-T. I agree with you 100%. One thing though is that I don't think Shane and Dave have anything to lose by speaking out, whereas many of the amateurs have legitimate concerns about their reputation here. Another thing is that you should visit some of those poltical threads in the Lounge and you'll see some people with strong opinions sharing them -- myself included.

[gdstudios]

Originally posted by aversion
no one is saying that a 'proper' designer designs for other designers...

Does anyone have any links to any articles about what makes a good designer. It might provide a good framework for more debate.

[dyldebus]

Originally posted by gdstudios
Does anyone have any links to any articles about what makes a good designer. It might provide a good framework for more debate.

Here's One