Re: Looper development and production costs?

[Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>]

>I think one of the reasons I seem a bit curt on this subject is that 
>I work very hard every day as a visual designer.  I wouldn't THINK 
>of trying to design the guts of a piece of digital electronics, or 
>write the code that makes it go.  So, why does the opposite hold 
>true?  I find this all the time.

No insult intended, Mark, but visual design takes a lot less
background to get right than hardware or software engineering.
It's, er, easier....


Now, I work with and have great respect for many visual; designers
and when I want real design done I get a professional and
I don't tinker with it myself of course.


But I also a lot of my own web design and I constantly get
positive comments on it -- because I "design" it to be minimal
and spare with just a little ornamentation on it.  eg
http://fortNY.com a site for a little club,
which I did in an hour and change

(if I'd had time, I'd have tweaked the colour palette for
the blogger...)



The issue is simple.  If I know exactly what I want with a piece of
graphic design, it's a matter of work for me to get it -- work I can
certainly achieve.


Now, I've been a professional programmer for over 20 years and
even if I knew EXACTLY what I wanted, I couldn't implement
an EDP, Boomerang or a Repeater in a guaranteed flawless fashion.

I'd do all sorts of background work, write a lot of tests
and commentary and documentation, and it would almost certainly
work well, eventually, but in the back of my mind, until it
was finished, I'd never be quite sure that it was all going
to work (this is why I worry the details around constantly
until I'm sure I have it right).


And usually there's a team involved, even more complexity and risk.


So it's a forgivable sin for the builders of an object like
one of these lovely loopers to downplay the role of the graphic
design because it doesn't require the immense outlays of
work and study that creating the unit does.


Forgivable, but sad, because it means that some of the value
of the builder's dedicated hard work and brilliance is not realized,

because foolish people see it and don't notice it

and smart people see it and wonder if the poor decision to
have inferior design is a signal of other poor decisions
within the company.

        /t


http://whatGoes.com  ................ extreme NY calendar.
http://ax.to/fortune ......... a new fortune every minute.
http://clikTrik.com  .................. Many, many photos.