The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

June 4th, 2009

It’s been long since I’ve blogged, and longer since I’ve been compelled to do it for myself. By the way, this is solely my opinion and I am not trying to get you to agree with me. But leaving all that aside for a different post.

I’ve started reading and talking on Twitter with other designers, such as @nikibrown about this idea that was denigrating the design profession and felt that I had to give my 2 cents about it (read Niki’s ideas about this subject on her blog post). I’ve twitted about it, but that wasn’t enough. So, here it is.

The issue is Tutorial Blogs. It seems like I can’t turn left or right without reading about a design blog post saying things like “50+ tutorials on how-to create the perfect logo” or “Tutorial on how to create an awesome portfolio layout”. And I think to myself: “What?!”.

First of all, if you need a tutorial to teach you how to design your own design portfolio, you are in trouble. You may need ideas on what to say, how to style the CSS for some nice effect, or the latest JQuery technique you want to implement. But you CAN’T honestly say there is a tutorial on how to design your own portfolio. It is your page, your identity, your voice. Even if you’re a beginner, you should always focus not on reading tutorials that promise to give you a final product, but the ones that teach the techniques that will help you create your own. (example)

Second, since when did designing a logo become just like a food recipe? You should have a logo creation process. But learning to make a good logo or an identity system is not something you can just follow 10 steps and it’s done. There is no easy as 1-2-3 process that can make one perfect logo every time. It takes thought process, sketching, testing, presenting to the client. Even when you have your own process, it will not be 100% all the time. Creating takes time and takes being inspired, and sometimes, even when all that is there you still can’t convince your client that what you have created is the best solution for them.

So, I decided to do what I used to do with my Design students in Brazil and show you what’s out there, call out names and say what’s the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Tutorials.

GOOD

Websites like Smashing Magazine that either reference good design as inspiration or show techniques for you to create your own stuff.
Websites like A List Apart that have trend defining and defying articles that help anyone involved with web design at one time or another. (BTW, this one is a must-read).
And websites like JQuery for Designers, CSS Tricks and others, that explore and teach techniques to help you get exciting features done on your own work. The quality of the explanations and accompanying screencasts set this one aside for me, and I wish these were available when I was a newcomer or when I was teaching.

BAD

Websites like Desizntech and others, that make posts on how to create your own “grunge” portfolio. I mean, please, any designer that has a portfolio created following a tutorial like this one, shouldn’t be taken seriously at all.
Websites like SpoonGraphics promising step by step how-tos on creating a logo. SpoonGraphics is a good blog and sometimes has decent tutorials but they shouldn’t be promising what they can’t give you.
And unfortunately, good websites like bittbox that sometimes post tutorials on stuff like glossy vector logos web 2.0 style in 5 steps.

UGLY

And for me, the ugly here is not only creating this kind of content, but passing it on. So, websites like, Six Revisions when they do posts like, 15 excellent logo tutorials and include some of the ones mentioned here in the list make me feel really sick. (Six Revisions is not a bad blog, on the contrary, most of the time I enjoy their stuff, but they did post the logo tutorials, and that’s why I used them as an example. A lot more websites redistribute this stuff, and more than half only redistribute and don’t even produce content which is even worst ).

Conclusion is: have your own opinion, have an identity and a mind of your own. Use the tutorials for what their worth, which is learning new techniques and growing the set of tools available for you to be a better designer. Don’t get caught in this simplistic idea that you can just follow a simple 1-2-3 step and make great design and loads of money. Design is strategy, it’s visuals applied to marketing and your clients objectives. And all these tutorials just make it seem like our profession, is unnecessary and meaningless, when it couldn’t be further away from the truth.

Tags: design, design profession, tutorials, twitter

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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