Is it possible that some people just cant design?

[wouter999]

Yes, exactly. A good lie is exponentially more fun than the hard truth.

[Ask The Geezer]

Hey, I'm all for lowering the bar. You know, so I can sit on the floor and still reach my drink. But if someone has been taking years of study on a subject, and they still don't do it well, then it's time to go on to something else. Basketweaving, fingerpainting, staring at womens chests, whatever.

[wouter999]

I'm going to make a fortune when I start a college teaching people how to fail. The college fee will be staggering, and of course the best students will never graduate so the flow of money is endless and abundant. I am brilliant!

[Ask The Geezer]

Did you learn that in college?

[wouter999]

No, I never went to college. I hope to go in a year or so, though. All the colleges I want to go to want such posh things as a "high-school diploma" and all that hoo-ha.

[Ask The Geezer]

LOL, I've worked construction all my life, right beside college grads, and once, an MD. Asked him why he was doing this, he said cause it was more money.

[Frets]

One can develop skill regardless if one is born with talent or not.. It's easier to develop skill if one cultivates interest in a field.

As for the ear model I don't know if I can agree. I have a good relative ear. It's been developed thru years of training. I can write music I can read music but I don't have perfect pitch. I've met two individuals with perfect pitch and it is a gift regardless of what someone may be trying to sell you. He didn't always have a strong technique to back up thier ears. Nor did he have a great deal of creative ability. Whilst I do sing to suppliment my playing, I've never considered myself a singer. And though I think of my guitar playing abilities as far superior to my singing abilities it's always the singing that the crowd credits me most for.

If you are truely talented you can work from your own muse. As a person who is in the field of graphical design generally they don't operate from thier own muse but from an anaylitical idea passed on to them from the client and/or the educational background they have. I think someone can be good with technical prowess I don't think they will be great. Is everyone great? No,
Generally speaking raw talent whithers if it isn't nurtured.

On rare occassion I've seen technical prowess and raw talent combine so that the individual can have the best of both worlds. This is the small exceotion not the rule.

[luvenny]

Erm, I'm interested in design, but I just can't do it.

So is that a sign of not enough interest?

[Frets]

If your interested in design to design (as opposed to just admire) the first thing is create. Create some more even if you don't think it's good. Then look around at what others are doing. analyze why somethings work and why others don't. Create some more again. Don't worry if it's good or bad just get into the process of developing content and learning from others you don't have to try to recreate what they have created.

Each day try to think of a different product, example sport drinks. Make a name build an identity for the product. search for adjectives that describe it. build a persona around it. Is it meaty is it sleek? How do you infuse the idea of energy electric, movement. Is it about competitive or cooperative? young or old? a picture is worth a thousand words because it conveys meanings without words using symbolism instead.

[Ask The Geezer]

There is also the real world, when the time comes that you realize you just don't have it. Sometimes it's just makes more sense to turn to something you can do better. Of course, an idealist is going to call that quitting, where a realist is going to see it as stop whipping a dead horse.

[asmallmonkeyman]

Old topic, but I dont care! !! Im bored!

I have had a chat with my course leader about the fact i just didnt turn up for any of the lectures involving art because i find it embarasing to sit and cut paper up and things like that, its not a skill to me, its something i did when i was 4 years old with my glue stick and my recyled paper.

I find it embaressing that you post topics about how you cant design and say you arent even getting the teaching that is offered to you because you think you did it when you were 4. I am 25 and just went to college and had to do worksheets which required sticking stuff down and all sorts. Its more immature to think like you have actually rather than actually doing it.

I think every tom dick and harry tries to make websites these days I think I also everyone thinks they can take great photos. But they cant at all. Some people are coding geeks and cant do good art, others can do art. Saying you can be taught is true, but only to a certain level otherwise everyone would be super professional. Is everyone a great footballer because they get taught? No.

The truth is many people have natural talent with art and if you dont have any you wont ever reach a high standard. This is true of anything in life as you must be aware of.

One thing I dont understand is why you even post this when you have no love of art and seem to think its for children. Take a look around you, almost everything you see is art and was designed by someone.

I also have met coders who cannot do art. The bigger question is, why expect them to? If you are a code junkie why would you be expected to be a super artist? Sure there are some, but most are coders not artists. Website artists have to learn code as well. For an artist you can get away with copying, alterning and pasting code, but for a coder what does he/she do?

You dont even want to design, so you never will be able to, even if you had no skills, but had some passion that would produce something. Just stick to doing what you are doing.

Also I think coders who think art is easy and anyone can do it are narrow minded idiots and artists who think coding is easy are also idiots. Both are highly skilled fields. If you are good at either then its good for you.

LOL as if he will even read this post so much later. Still blah

[asmallmonkeyman]

Id also like to say it took me until 23 years old to know I was so good at art. Even then I was the worst drawer in the class. There are many fields in art and you dont have to be an amazing drawer (although in fine art I guess you do) I joined college from doing website designs and game levels whilst unemployed. I scraped on the course because of my photos (which I just took to get on the course) I was 23 and finally found something I was good at: taking photos. I then started the course and to my total surprise I was the best in the class (dont wish to sound arrogant but I was and everyone told me I was including the teachers). I was totally crap at art at school because it was rubbish at my school, drawing pears and apples it was. Digital art is what I do, all sorts of animations and multimedia stuff.

I finished the course this year with a college record of distinctions ( I got all distinctions bar 1 drawing development merit! damn!) So that was pretty amazing for me to go from unemployed bum who didnt even know his art talent, to obtaining a diploma with a record amount of marks and being told when I finish UNI I Should go for the top jobs.

Maybe this story of my life can help other people in need of a lift. I mean look at me! If you think you cant do art, try ART, its not just trying photoshop. The best way is on paper sure or with photography I personally think. If you havent been to art school you wont know to do a lot of research, research is hugely important. Your intial ideas are usually crap, but you develop them into something good.

Anyway blah.

[asun2art]

I was in a "Graphic design program" at Arizona State and my first year was painting squares and drawing bar codes and building 3d shapes out of foam core. Needless to say after a year of that crap I dropped out of the program and went over to the College of Technology, took web design, Photoshop, Illustrator, 3dsMax, and totally geeked out, been into it ever since. It's all about finding your "vibe" and a subject matter that drives you.

Play around with some different classes and mediums, see what sticks and don't be affraid to drop and move on to something new. New technology is being created every day reinventing the industry.

[lefteyewilly]

asmallmonkeyman, i totally agree with what you just said. While there are 'formal' designers and 'formal' artists, there's a grey area which is digital manipulation. I've taken many art classes in college, while obtaining a management degree, and i was horrible at drawing and painting.

HOwever, after i discovered photoshop, flash, and illustrator, i realized that there were other options for people who have the idea in their head but don't have the ability to paint or draw it.

I've been told i have the worst handwriting and drawing skills, however, i've impressed even the most cinic boss and other 'designers' with my digital skills.

However, you really ahve to understand what a 'designer' is, and what an 'artist' is. I won't go into depth, but if you really look into both 'terms' you will see what the difference is. There's always an exception and grey area in life.

[indivision]

I don't think design or other art for that matter is all that different than other skills. If you really enjoy it, you will develop your ability. I don't think anyone just opens Photoshop and starts gradient masking away (ok, well, they probably do). But, I mean, people get excited about it from the beginning and it doesn't take long to expand on simple concepts and get better.

So, my 10 cents to Scotsman; see if you can make yourself enjoy it a little, don't discount it right off or give up early, that's what school is for, immersing yourself in new subjects. As a programmer, who ironically has done a lot with fine arts, I remember struggling with the same thoughts you express here about design. Once I got over the initial learning curve of the apps it starts coming along a lot easier (still not that I would call myself a professional level designer). And another 5 cents for making a post without reference to radical political parties or beating people up in the streets!

[Ultima Designs]

The ability to Design is something you either have or don't.

Agreed. Our CTO is one of the best progammers I have ever met, but can't design anything for his life. I've seen some things with the most horrendous backgrounds, foregrounds, font colors, spellings, styles, and more come from him. Now on, we let him do the programming, and we work on the display end.

[justice strike]

coming back to the guitar playing analogy. You can learn to be a great guitarist. Do you think jimmy hendrix just stood up, picked up a guitar and played like there was no one else like him? no it took thousands and thousands of hours of practice.

The more your involved with something the more you get a feel for it. There is no such thing as not being able to do something. Granted you might not be the best in everything you do. But you can certainly come to a more then acceptable peformance, even a very good peformance by lots of practice.

Heck if you wanted to become an olympic medallist you probably could, you would need a heck of alot of training and probably a decade of your life to get there but you could probably end up getting there.

People really tend to underestimate the power of practice...

[Frets]

Yes he learned the instrument.
Many people can learn how to play a guitar. But that's not writing.
Many People can learn songs exceptionally well and be advanced sight readers.
Once again that portion is developing skill.

Some can couple there skill playing with others and improvise Which is talent.
Some can move onto the next step and write/create which also is a talent
though it does not come direcly from learning to play which is a skill.

I've known tons of "cover artists" who can faithfully reproduce a song. which is a skill
However that doesn't make them the creators of the song which is the talent or
empower them with the ability to improvise over a piece which also takes talent.

[sk8Krog]

Heck if you wanted to become an olympic medallist you probably could, you would need a heck of alot of training and probably a decade of your life to get there but you could probably end up getting there.

I don't believe that. Not everyone is created equal. The olympians, aside from training their whole lives were born with a gift for the sport.

Frets has a great point in his last post about cover artists. The difference is creation vs. immitation.

[justice strike]

I don't believe that. Not everyone is created equal. The olympians, aside from training their whole lives were born with a gift for the sport.

i know a few olympians myself (3 people) a couple of world champions and a thriatlete. Their good without a doubt. But genetics or characteristics are really not the major features wich sets them apart from other sporters. One of the olympianseven told me that she wasn't selected in the first instance, but because she didn't have the build to be an olympian. However with alot of effort and training she got trough and was in the end selected for the olympics in athene (where she got bronze).

I don't think she's the exception. From what i see, it's the mentality of olympians wich determines how far you get. Their mentality is really about training, sacrifice and not really about talent. Hell there 1 person i know started when he was 18 (if i'm not mistaken) with training, he got silver at athene. Now you can't tell me that he's been brought up as a child to be an compete in the olympics.

Frets has a great point in his last post about cover artists. The difference is creation vs. immitation.

everyone has a bit of imagination, and even if it's little you can develop it by using it more and more. Look at great artists (picasso, rembrandt, van gogh etc..) they have developed their skill and creativity. It's something you can clearly see in their work, early on in their life and at the end of their life, it's something they honed and developed. They didn't start out making the best art they could at the start of their carrier.

The same could be said for any other person. However one thing is certain If your not trying to develop it, it won't develop that's nothing that changes that.