Design Sapling.com

Wordpress alone hosts over 57 million blogs. And the founder of Wordpress realizes there are other blogging systems out there with many more bloggers.

Subtraction.com author Khoi Vinh points out that the number of design blogs is ever rising. So what’s the point of starting yet another blog about design?

1. It’s not really about design…it’s about learning. There will be a slant towards design, but that’s incidental. If my path towards success diverges from design, that’s where I’ll focus my learning.
2. Even more than learning, it’s about becoming successful. The goals will change depending on what I have to do to become successful and that’s what I’ll write about. I think it will be fun to have a log of what I did to reach the top.

I hope that makes the point of this site clear. It’s a blog about what I have to do to become successful, which for me is understanding how I learn and applying that to learning about business and design.

Well, last night, I spent some time designing a layout.
I’m not sure about the using this many colors. Maybe it’s too much.
The premise of the site is pretty cocky, so I figure I can get by with some bold colors

(update: Revised design May 20th)

Everybody has their theories on why MySpace’s crappy design seems to be successful.

Joshua Porter at User Interface Engineer thinks MySpace is Good for Design. He’s right, it definitely sparks conversation. While some people think MySpace’s success shows that we designers don’t really know that much about other’s people’s definitions of good aesthetics, I’m not convinced.

I suspect appreciating good basic aesthetic principles is common among all people. Just as we all share common facial gestures for happiness and sadness, we all feel better when there’s good composition and a good color scheme. And just as there are some facial expressions that are only understood in certain cultures, there are some aspects of design that won’t work well across the gamut. For the most part, however, I believe we all can agree on what makes good basic aesthetics. MySpace users understand good design when they see it, but that doesn’t mean they know how to create it. That’s why jobs like web designers and usability experts exists. We all appreciate good design, but we don’t all know how to create it.

So why is MySpace successful if people understand good design?

Consider this: You go to a friend’s new house and it’s a gorgeous mansion! White carpets, beautiful, expensive upholstery, chandeliers. The works. What are you going to do first? Go over and sit on the couch with a bag of chips? Nope. You’re going to take off your shoes. You’re going to wait for your friend to tell you were you may eat. You would probably feel uncomfortable eating on the nice furniture even if he said it was okay.

Now let’s say you’re at another friend’s new apartment. This guy’s pad has some ugly old carpet with cigarette burns, second hand furniture. He’s got a dog running around. You’re not going to take off your shoes or wonder if you can eat on the couch. You might not like what it looks like, but you have no problem making yourself feel more at home because you know you’re not going to ruin anything.

MySpace invites you to create your own home. It’s like your friends dirty apartment. Don’t worry about making a mess. If MySpace was well designed, people would think twice about changing things. They wouldn’t want to mess up the beauty. It would make them feel uncomfortable and in comparison to the original design, theirs would be inferior, so they wouldn’t want to embarrass themselves.

(For the record, I consider this site a dirty apartment, but since it’s not a social networking site like MySpace, you’re not invited to come in a eat your chips here. You are allowed to comment and criticize however! I haven’t had time to change the default layout on WordPress, but I had something to say. Check back next week when I get around to doing a lot more of what I planned for this site.)

Saplings are baby trees. As all mother trees know, their babies will one day grow to be enormous and wise. Well, not wise as trees don’t have brains. But hopefully, as my own design skills grow and blossom like a sapling turning into a giant tree, I will achieve greater success*. Perhaps this is cheesy, but I like it and it’s my website. When I told my mom the name of my website, she winced and repeated it back slowly, “Design sapling?” She didn’t get it. She dry heaved a little too. Then she told me she to get out of her house. I haven’t seen her since.**

What I really wanted was Design Seed.com, but that was already taken.
I soon found out after buying the domain that some of my friends (including some I consider really smart), don’t even know what a sapling is. What a bunch of saps. Har!

Anyway, on this site, I’ll lay out everything I learn concerning designing and producing successful websites. Currently, I’m just starting out my career in the design business (see how design sapling make sense now? No? It’s a stretch). I currently work for a major university doing web development mainly for the civil engineering industry. I enjoy my work (usually) and I enjoy working with the people in my group. I’m lucky to have a job that allows me to work pretty flexible hours. This is important because many of my friends are still in college and they relentless try to persuade me to stay out with them every single night of the week and get drunk. I’m sure once they get jobs, they’ll learn about responsibility. They even try to convince me to quit my job.*** If my parents paid my rent, that would be awesome, but they didn’t pay my rent while I was a student, so I don’t expect them to consider quitting my full time job to pursue a career as a beer guzzler to be worthy of financial aid.

In conclusion, I can’t wait until my friends get jobs because I’m very sleepy. (BTW, Erik is never going to find a job. He’s an idiot.****)

*Success being satisfied with my current situation with knowledge that I’m making a positive impact on the world. Success is the point of this blog.
**This is completely false. My mom doesn’t know what the internet is, let alone that I have a website.
***This is true!
****Erik, I’m kidding. Zac is the idiot. He doesn’t even know his name is supposed to have a ‘k’ at the end. Zack. Then again, I always felt like your name should be spelled with a ‘c’. Eric. It just feels right. So you’re both idiots.