How would you make this?
Out of context: Reply #24
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- stewdio0
@Jordy: The way you put that: "we already have _the_ programmers doing it all in house" really frustrates me. I know it's my fault for getting upset about it because I live in a bubble where code and art are not separable entities. That doesn't mean my life is constrained to new technologies or screens, it's just a way of approaching new problems and opportunities.
Good programmers can also be good designers. To assume that because someone codes they should be slave to another's "graphic brilliance" is appalling. I don't think this is the point you were consciously making but it is hidden between your words. I frequently run up against this prejudice that coders are artless left-brained grunt workers; simply tool pushers. Admittedly some are. But for me the worst project heartaches occur when a manager (designer or otherwise) has no knowledge of the tools yet dictates design demands to a technically skilled designer being treated as a grunt worker with no authorship. Large projects that suffer from this inevitably fail.
You're working on data visualizations. DATA VISUALIZATIONS. You don't hand-draw these. You don't "mock these up" in Illustrator because that actually takes forever and you can't remodel it on the fly. Instead you code the algorithms like wrapping your hands around clay. Debugging means reshaping, pushing and pulling the code to find the form that was always waiting inside. Coding is sculpture.
I can understand why you're defensive. It's a bit scary to be in over your head. You should cool off with Spooky [Koopsy] and humble yourself a bit. Your "Developers" who are prototyping for you are doing the real work. You're just along for the ride. I'm not being a new-technology-elitist here. A typesetter from centuries ago would be just as skeptical of a hot-headed illustrator bossing them around the press.