1. I’m sensitive. I don’t take criticism too well…bad criticism can get be down, depressed, etc. I don’t handle constructive criticism too well either, or even compliments. Basically: I don’t want to be told what you think of me or my work, good or bad. I’m paranoid that I think that if I get compliments, it could be genuine or it could be an act towards letting my guard down so that someone could take advantage. Paranoid much? (that’s me talking to myself).

The real reason that I could never be a designer is:
2. I’m arrogant and I have too much pride. I take a lot of pride in my work, I’m pixel perfect with design, I try to keep my code clean, I do a lot of the little things most people ignore/don’t care about…because I care about everything I do (that I care about). If that makes sense…

But the thing with design, that’s so different from development, is that design is subjective. I could do my best work, something I’ve worked hard in and take pride in, show it to someone and they can say they don’t like it. And it’s their right. But I can’t take it. I can’t handle when the awesome stuff I’ve done…isn’t awesome in someone else’s eyes. Now, that’s life, I should get used to it. The problem is that I had done design for years now. I’d been an artist most of my life, been naturally talented (not enough to be professional). And then I’d have joe schmo <insert lame banking desk job&th; saying my stuff was no good. Pissed me off. Who the F*** are you to tell me you don’t like my stuff?!

.
. (time passes)
.

I’m looking up “design is subjective” in Google…and it’s telling me Good design is not subjective. And you know what, I believe that. Meaning a lot of things:

1. Maybe my designs in the past weren’t that good. Despite my pride and hard work, maybe I wasn’t looking objectively. Maybe there was too much of my pride in my work and not enough skill/talent.
2. Maybe joe schmo was right all along. Maybe my designs weren’t good enough that they weren’t “good design”. Which means a lot of things:
1. Despite some natural talent/skill, without hard work and formal training/education, I could never be great
2. I made the right choice giving up design a couple years ago and focusing on development, which I have to say, the ol’ brain enjoys. And I take more pride in dev because less people do/understand dev than they can/do design. Well, I imagine….that last statement is not backed up by any facts >_>

I’ll leave design to the professionals. The ones that read about design, the ones that blog and tweet about it, the ones that do research outside of work, the ones with textbooks on design, the ones that are formally trained/educated in that area (and I can only think of one person like that, he sits near me at work).

I’ll leave development to the professionals too. The ones that read about development, the ones that blog and tweet about it, the ones that do research outside of work, the ones with textbooks on development, the ones that are formally trained/educated in that area. Wait, that’s me :D (and yeah, I re-wrote and set that whole paragraph up…to prove/show that I’m a professional developer….boo-yeah). Like settin’ up my own jokes. Your mom.

/realizing this post has a lot of attitude and fun in it….I honestly have to thank the Scott Pilgrim books, they gave me a bit of “attitude in writing” inspiration.

that is SO me. especially eating the birthday cake.

Original image from Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe Vol. 5