I recently (as in yesterday) realized that I am getting old. My site is now three years and some change old, and so are some of the subsites that came with it. Looking at the dates on some of my designs and seeing “2005″ plastered on it made me a little sick inside and I’m not sure why.
I think it may be because I’ve spent three years of my life doing this whole design thing and….this is where I’m at? Sure, I would say that I’m pretty successful, but I’m seeing kids that barely spend more than a year designing that are surpassing me.
Sometimes, I like to blame the millions of resources that are available- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this certain paisley brush on people’s sites, or this certain rose flower pattern on people’s layouts. But a layout is only as good as the person who makes it.
I’m officially three years into this now, maybe more. I have successfully watched the design terrain change and age with every coming day and I’ll tell you that I’m quite shocked I’ve even lasted this long.
Going through my link exchange list, I made sure to notice when the last update on each site was. I was seeing ridiculousness such as November 2007, September 2007, lots of February 2008….
whatever happened to us?
Like….in American history we learned about all those indians in the northeastern coast that all of a sudden disappeared and marked “CROATOAN” on a tree.
is this our mark? “February 2008″? “HIATUS BE BACK SOON” ?
where did we all go?
I’m watching all these great designers drop like flies while I turn into a grandma of the design industry. I remember all these great sites i grew up on that are kind of….dead. Or maybe sites I admired with everything I had that I now look at their designs and go “whoa, did I really like those?”
To me, the future of design seems a little grim. I mean….there’s a lot of up and coming designers out there, but they’re not opening or maintaining their sites. There’s a lot of new flavor, a lot of new ideas floating around, but can dinosaurs like me keep up with that?
In the design world, is “Old School” necessarily a good thing?
If I attempt to keep up with these new sites and designers any more than I already am, I think I may need a hip replacement….
June 4th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Well, I’m older than you missy XP I’ve been around for… 5.5 years. Wow. I see what you mean.
I have noticed a lot of sites disappearing or closing. And not many are stepping up to take their place. It does look grim for the community as a whole if it keeps up, but what do we do? Die as well? I’m sure not going to. Perhaps if we keep chugging along, some newbies will come along and like us enough to start sites like we did when we saw inspiring sites?
But I know how you feel about being Old School. I feel this surge of feeling, like I need to grow more. I’ve always been about a site’s growth and I feel like I’ve been a little stagnant lately. Perhaps with the redesign and my plans for the next layout changing format again… *crosses fingers*
June 6th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I’ve been around for 6 and a half years… o_O it really doesn’t feel that long.
I just recently made a premade layout that’s ‘blendy’ and I know a lot of the people I showed it to were telling me how they missed the old blending days… I think that it’s not bad being ‘old school’ and I think there’s a way to bring ‘old school’ and ‘new form’ together and make something out of both. I know that I keep learning all the time, but I’m not going to up and ditch everything I know. When it comes down to it, I don’t think it matters if you’re ‘old school’ or not as long as you’re yourself and you design for yourself.
It’s sad though how many really amazing people are moving on…
June 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I’ve been in the AWC for about 7.5 years and I do have to admit that it definitely didn’t feel that long to me either. There were definitely times when I felt like I wanted to just quit, but I was always drawn back.
Now, as for what’s “hip” or whatever now…I don’t think it really matters if it’s ‘old school’ or not or whatever. I agree with Mei about how it shouldn’t matter, so long as you’re satisfying yourself. After all, what’s the point in doing something to satisfy someone if you yourself aren’t happy with the outcome? I design for the sake of myself and my satisfaction rather than awaiting the praises of others. I do show my works to friends though, for pieces of input (should I change the color to this or that, for example) but that’s about as far as I go in terms of designing to satisfy others.
But yes, I find it most definitely sad that so many of the sites I used to really admire have kind of just died out or have gone into a forever long hiatus (announced or not). And, it may just be me, but the newer aspiring sites I’ve been to haven’t exactly been up to par with the old ones that have been disappearing. Some of the new sites are good, but too many of them aren’t as satisfying as those that have gone.
June 8th, 2008 at 12:12 am
absolutely.