Samuel Hulick

On Altruism in Design

The backlash against spec work in the design industry is, as I see it, justified.

We are legitimate producers of value, and those contributions need to be reciprocated and respected.

I get that. I agree with that.

But let’s not forget the role that altruism, volunteer work and community involvement play in legitimizing our practice, as well. We are all working for a day when there’s a balanced relationship between those commissioning work and those creating it, but bearing our teeth at the scent of every contest will only spite ourselves in the end.

Let’s not forget that fighting for a more reasonable perception of our works requires only that we be judicious in our sharing, not dogmatic.

The backlash to the recent Obama Jobs poster contest has found me surprised. Not so much the lack of participation – I get not everybody has the time or interest to volunteer their time to a national campaign – but for the vitriol.

Despite it being odd that they’d ask for volunteer work on an economy-driving campaign, this promotion makes no bones about being strictly non-paying. They’re not soliciting assets with a lure for a potential return – they’re saying the return is in the involvement itself.

If we can’t ever share our talents without financial compensation without risking our industry’s legitimacy, then I question the viability of the legitimacy we think we’re protecting.

My dentist travels overseas annually to provide care for those who can’t ever come close to affording it. Lawyers provide pro bono work on a regular basis. Professional athletes participate as amateurs in the Olympic Games. All of these are respected and well-compensated professions.

I will know our industry has achieved the respect it desires when we can greet a promotion like this not with agitation, but indifference.

Or, possibly, altruism.

On What I Love to Hear

I think you already did. Thank you.

On the Thing I Learned Most in 2010

Never ever, ever,
ever stop iterating,
stop working,
stop finding new ways
to get started.

 

On Seeing Webfonts

Mark Boulton is an accomplished designer, author and all-around authoritative contributor on many things Web.

He recently linked to a Stephen Coles-penned article by the name of The Webfont Revolution Is Over, Let the Evolution Begin. It’s a good read, and primarily focuses on the need for producing fonts that render clearly and legibly under many different screen conditions (OS makes, browsers, font sizes, etc.).

The “money quote” for me read as follows:

Demand fonts that render well for the bulk of all web users, not just those on Mac OS X or Windows 7, but also the poor saps on Windows XP who still represent more than half of the browsing population.

What I find particularly curious about said article and the linking to it by said party is that the webfont on MarkBoulton.co.uk, his personal (and recently-refreshed) weblog, looks absolutely terrible under some not-so-unlikely conditions.

On What’s Possible & What’s Ideal

After reading Fred Wilson’s post on creativity, along with its comments, I’ve had plenty to chew on for the past couple days. I obviously suggest you read it as well, but the main points as I see them are thus:

• The Technology industry is historically an engineering-driven one
• Engineering is the “how” and Creative is the “why”
• The Web has matured to the point that the “how” is something of a given
• This leaves the “why” as an area of differentiation
• Thus, bolstering your Creative team is a wise move
• Bonus: Does this significantly alter the nature of the industry?

Let’s get one thing out of the way quickly: “Creative” is a terminological can of worms and unhelpful for the discussion because of its interpretations multitude, which the author basically cops to in the opening paragraphs. I’m assuming for the purposes of the point he was making it was used as shorthand for “a thinker” instead of “a doer”; of course, that’s also a notion that’s difficult to fit in a box, which speaks to an issue of context:

On How to Code a Better Multi-Select Box

Multi-select boxes aren’t often seen in the wild, as they’re horrifically unintuitive.

Users don’t come prepared to expect holding a key while clicking a second option will highlight both. Throw in the esoteric difference in behavior between CMD/CTRL and SHIFT and you have a recipe for disaster.

I believe I’ve found a waaaaaay more intuitive interface that gets the job done just as easily, and is a snap to code, to boot.