AListForEverything

One MSDN resource I use regularly is the page about named colors.  It is helpful when I want to quickly add a color to my application without going through the RGB color picker.  This reference is good because it provides a screenshot example of each named color, along with its official predefined color name and corresponding RGB values. 

This page is part of the Silverlight 1.0 documentation.  I use this one because I haven't found a similar reference for Silverlight 2.  Besides, the 1.0 color names still work in Silverlight 2.

It would be cool if Visual Studio provided color swatches in the IntelliSense.  Here's the current IntelliSense:

Here's what it could look like:

Neither Blend nor Design support setting colors by their named values.  Of course, you can do this in XAML in Blend. 

Perhaps the lack of support for named colors is because most "real" designs will use colors defined by their RGB values.  It would still be cool to have this resource integrated into the tools rather than having to look it up from documentation. 

I recently heard about 99 designs.  It is kind of like a contractor website for graphic designers.  Their goal is to help people "buy and sell designs."  The way it works is that someone will launch a contest where they need a graphic design.  When you create a contest, you offer a cash prize for the winning submission.  You can also offer non-cash prizes to make it interesting.  Designers create and submit graphics for you.  You pick a winner and pass out the prize money. 

The business model used by 99 designs is based on the concept of crowdsourcing - outsourcing a unit of work to a large group of people.  This service is a rebranded version of the original SitePoint contests.  The person outsourcing the work pays a $39 fee to 99 designs and at least a $50 prize to the contest winner.  You can only ask for one graphic per contest.  For example, a business card and website logo would be two separate contests.

This money message at the footer caught my attention:

So far, it sounds like a good concept, right?  You can tell my bias.  I'm not a designer.  I am a developer / business person who needs to purchase graphics.  It sounds like a cheap way to choose from a bunch of custom designs, which were all custom drawn for me.  Sure, most of them will suck and some of them will be good.  Just pick from the good ones.  Great concept.

That is, until I started hearing what other designers had to say about 99 designs.  In an Open Designs forum, Sean Pollock said that most of the designers use the contests for practice.  Some designers, like Chris at Positive Space, claim that sites like this devalue the graphic design industry.  Kevin Potts at GraphicPush criticizes that designers are "doing spec work for third-world prices with no option for copyright retention." 

I thought it might be fun to play around with graphic design and enter one of their contests.  The contest I looked at already had more than 50 entries.  My chances of winning the prize are not good.  This is just like what Sean Pollock described.  I would be using the contest as a training ground to practice my skills... or as a playground just to have fun... but not as a serious money making effort.   At best, it would be a side gig. 

I disagree with the criticism that it is underpriced.  It's not dirt cheap...  Free clip art is dirt cheap.  Some people are paying $500+ for one graphic.  The cheapest you can get one graphic at 99 designs is $89.  For a hobbyist designer, the winning prize money could be a nice side gig.

For hobby endeavors, small businesses, or startups, using the "less than top quality" graphics from 99 designs will be good enough.  It can keep costs down.  Does this devalue the graphics community?  I don't think so.  I didn't see big companies like Nike, Microsoft, or Ford launching contests on this site.  Companies that have the money to hire top designers are not replacing their designers with low cost services like this. 

99 designs fits a specific niche, where people on a budget can connect with designers willing to work for cheap. 

People who can create an attractive UI (like a designer) and write code (like a software developer) are getting called various names... a lot of new names, like dev-igner, des-eloper, design-loper, designer-developer, creative developer, or integrator.  My favorite is "devigner." 

A devigner is someone who can work on both sides of the designer-developer workflow. Devigners have been described by Adam Kinney as people who design and develop, by Ryan Stewart as people who move seamlessly between their development tools and their design tools, by Heather Solomon as people who can bang out CSS and pretty graphics and turn around and fix the UI in C# code, can do up a fine front end, but actually understand the backend, and by Kevin Tate as someone how is in-between a 'designer' and a 'developer,' a design/developer hybrid.  Fernando Comet even declared the 5 Commandments of a Devigner.  

Here is my list that defines the skills needed to call yourself a well rounded devigner:

• Emphasizes the user experience (UX)
• Can create UI code
  • Uses "developer" or "designer" tools
  • Makes CSS, HTML, XAML, Flash, etc.
• Can create backend code
  • Uses "developer" tools
  • Makes UI logic, business rules, database and web service interaction, etc.
• Can create artistic graphic designs and has a good "design sense"
  • Uses "designer" tools
  • Makes bitmap graphics, vector graphics, etc.

In other words, a devigner is someone who is is skilled in UX, UI, software engineering and graphic design. 

How do you become a devigner?  Get training & experience in those four areas. 

What am I doing to become a well rounded devigner?

• I've emphasized usability for years (i.e. Don't Make Me Think)... DONE
• I've worked on UIs for years (both windows and web, now WPF and Silverlight)... DONE
• My primary skillset is software development with Microsoft technologies (MCSD + MCDBA)... DONE
• I've dabbled a little with Photoshop, GIMP, Paint.NET, Fireworks... FOCUS HERE!

To round out my devigner portfolio of skills, I am enhancing my design skills, specifically with the Expression suite of "designer" tools.  Expect to see some posts about them! 

With the industry's current emphasis on designer-developer workflow, there will be demand for devigners who focus on building good UX and are competent with both developer tools, like Visual Studio, and designer tools, like Expression Studio.