I can't believe Smashing Magazine is writing this article. They soundly missed April Fool's Day. If there is a single thing I've seen Smashing Magazine promote, it is imitation and mindless copying. Their analysis of design is consistently surface level, of the likes of "Look at how this deep blue makes this brand look expensive, also curved corners". The result is "designers" who can make a flashy site, but have no underlying knowledge of usability or taste. Taste is something sorely lacking in a lot of design. Design should be useful, not ostentatious.

Anyway, I like imagining how laughable a Smashing Magazine equivalent for programmers would be. "15 Great For Loops and Iterators"

' Their analysis of design is consistently surface level, of the likes of "Look at how this deep blue makes this brand look expensive, also curved corners". The result is "designers" who can make a flashy site, but have no underlying knowledge of usability or taste. '

So, is there a site or a book that teaches (to the extent possible) taste? Because it's not just Smashing Magazine, it's most sites and books on design that I've seen. They focus on certain mechanics without much to help you train you mind and eye to manage higher visual concepts.

The few that are not simply prescriptive how-to's are in turn too vague about notions of attractive design and aesthetics. Or they trot out the Golden Ratio which, while good to know, mostly helps you make designs that are attractive in a practical way, rather than truly striking yet not overbearing.

I have found that the best grounding in aesthetics and design is learning to draw. This teaches you to truly 'see' and gives you basic techniques like appreciating white space and better ability to perceive color/tone values. From there it's much easier to learn and apply principles for creating satisfying compositions and color theory.

Once you have the fundamentals in place, the next step is to learn about more specific graphic design topics like typography and grid layouts.

This comment calls for the classic Steve Jobs quote on taste:

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste; they have absolutely no taste. And what that means is–I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way–in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product. And you say ‘Why is that important?’ Well, you know, proportionally spaced fonts come from typesetting and beautiful books, that’s where one gets the idea. If it weren’t for the Mac, they would never have that in their products. And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success,I have no problem with their success, they’ve earned their success, for the most part, I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products."

I think that "15 Great For Loops and Iterators" article is on Coding Horror.

All irony about the source of the article aside, I think that they are missing a demographic shift that underlies the topic:

Just as people are calling themselves CEOs and entrepreneurs without much actual business experience, likewise are people calling themselves designers just because they know HTML/CSS enough to create a web page.

And applying those labels to yourself is fine -- they are technically accurate.

But in the past, there was an implied level of the depth of expertise in a field before one would claim such labels. What we have lost is not the expertise. There are still designers with very deep knowledge of the art, who apply is very effectively. I'd even guess that there are more of them than in the past. But they are overshadowed by the inexperienced designers who claim the same title.

Reliance upon lists? Reliance upon how-tos? Reliance upon tutorials?

Is it just me or did Smashing Magazine take a long hard look at its archives?

Highly ironic.

I even got a Getty images ad on that page. Thought it was pretty amusing.

I thought Bob the designer saying "Yay!" to the death of design was pretty good: http://tweetphoto.com/17624519

the thrust of this article is good, but there are a lot of annoying details such as: (i) no content above the fold and (ii) he cites "How to draw comics the Marvel way" but shows an illustration of two D.C. characters underneath it.

I noticed the DC characters, too. I will give the author the benefit of the doubt, though, and assume he did not select the accompanying images.

Normally I would, but if you're talking about fundamental issues about quality in graphic design, I'm going to hold you to a higher standard than the usual blog entry.

This article should be more accurately titled "The Dying Art of Design among those who never went to design school and don't know anybody who went to design school".

Someone who loves a bit of irony?. It's so sad that a site talking about the art of design and creating something which can't be copied has a pretty ordinary site template.

The nerve!