Who is pushing the envelope anyhow?

Update UCAS to the rescue. Here are lists of graphic design courses and their ilk. Go get em.

Jeremy posted a thought provoking read that tapped into somethings I’ve been thinking about of late, and others that have been somewhere in my head for a while. In a nut shell:

Most designers have simply swapped the old technology (tables and font tags) for the new technology, without fully exploring what’s so completely new.

I’ve got to say I tend to agree with pretty much everything Jeremy said. I could pick up on liquid layouts being harder (I dont think that’s completely true once you’ve done a good number, it’s like anything new, it just takes getting your head around) but that’s just nit picking.

One thing I will comment on is some of what I see as the reasoning and, if I can think of anything, some things we can do to counter them.

One issue is that most of the designs are not done by designers in my opinion. I’m not really sure I count as a designer here, I flit between too many disciplines to be completely comfortable with the title (or most titles to be honest). The perceived technicalities of CSS (it’s plain text) can put those without that bend (ie. Photoshop users) off, and at the same time attract people who thing vim is cool. Combine this with a truly fantastic online community full of helpful tutorials and you have a recipe for technically good, but creatively stunted, websites. Throw into the mix easily replicated techniques (rounded corners and gradients anyone?) and gallery sites with a low barrier to entry and you get to where we are now.

And I dont really think all of this is bad? Anyone can put together web pages, even half decent web sites. For me that just makes it more fun/challenging to do it professionally and demonstrate real value. Everyone can paint, but how many people can say they can paint well? And I dont mean your skirting boards. Some are already sounding the death knell for gallery sites. The real gallery is and should be the web itself. If design is about communicating, unless your aim is to communicate to other web standards designers, the galleries should be the last thing on your mind.

But where are the new breed of designers? The people doing the sorts of things that Jeremy wishes were happening right now (or more likely happened last year)? Malarkey’s book will be stunning if the bits and pieces he mentioned at @media are anything to go by, but who is going to force it into the hands of the graphic design student, or the art college graduate. And beat them over the head with it until they are ready to come work with me? Or you? Or me and you if you work with me already.

I’m now vaguely miffed. I thought right, I’m going to go and get myself a list of all the uk design degrees and put it up here. People could then leave comments, ring them up and try and get in to speak to these people about web design and report back. If the mountain won’t come to mohamed and all that. Except guessing and googling didn’t turn up anything useful. The design council had lots about education (in theory) but then the search facility broke (and the fact it appears to be a table based love child of the old adobe site and BD4D). UCAS are doing maintenance and are offline until midnight. I’ll post a list when I can get by hands on one. Or if you have better luck let me know. Funky logos and pithy slogans can come later, as can a big pile of presentations and materials if anyone, inlcuding me, ever does anything about it.

So. Who’s with me? I dont care if your scared of public speaking (or just scared of speaking in general, or even scared of the public). You’ll know more than the students in any case and that makes you dangerous. And they might have the ideas, and enthusiasm, we need to pass beyond the limits of our current design problems.

I know I went off in something of a straight line here. I made a bee line for design education. I could have detoured to visual design tools or photoshop designers with a loving for print and a propensity to want a 350 page website look like their comps. Both of them. Feel free to go off on a tangent yourselves, and let me know what you think.