Stand Up For Your Rights!

“So you want to be a farmer, eh? Farming ain’t easy, boy, but it’s honest work and it puts food on the table. How much do you know about it?”
“Not much, but I’d like to get started right away.”
“I like your attitude, boy! Ever had a garden?”
“No. Never really wanted one.”
“Hm. Well, maybe I could start you plantin’ some corn. That ain’t too hard, and it’s good for learnin’ how to put the seeds in right, plus I could take the time to cover some of the basics about weather signs.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t want to plant seeds or hear about the weather, of all things. I want to be a farmer.”
“You all there in the head, boy? How else do you plan to grow food, if you don’t plant seeds and keep the fields watered and fertilized? How do you expect to have your crops make it without knowin’ about the weather?”
“Why would I want to dig in the dirt or listen to boring lectures about meteorology, when all I want is to be a farmer?”

“So you want to be a sculptor, eh? Well, it’s a long and difficult road, but full of rewards for those who can master the skills. To start out with, here’s a hammer, a chisel, and a block of soapstone. Try sculpting a sphere, and then we’ll see–”
“Excuse me, but I’m not interested in chipping away at rock. I just want to be a great sculptor.”
“What?”
“I said, I’m not interested–”
“I heard you. I just didn’t understand what you meant.”
“The goal of a sculptor is to create art, right? That’s what I want to do, create art, not fiddle with these silly tools or get stone dust all over me.”
“Wait just a minute. You’re saying that you want to be a sculptor but you don’t want to learn how to chisel stone? That you’re not interested in learning the properties of granite, marble, and so on?”
“That’s right. Why would I?”
“Well, now I’ve heard everything! Listen, you can’t be a sculptor without understanding the nature of stone. It’s just not possible.”
“Don’t be absurd. Maybe all that stuff is interesting to you, but I’m an artist. Creation is my business, and frankly it’s a mystery to me why you think I should be bothered with anything else. Now, are you going to teach me to sculpt or not?”

“So you want to be a graphic designer, eh? Graphic design has a long and noble tradition, as Edward Tufte has made abundantly clear in his various works, and these days it’s done as much on computers as on paper. Accordingly, it’s important to know as much about computers and programs like Illustrator as it is to know about paper and ink. Furthermore, no matter what medium is used, it’s critical to have insight into the human brain and perceptual senses, color theory, and a great deal more. I’m sorry, did you have a question?”
“Yes. When do I start designing?”
“Well, of course you’ll be doing some basic design work as you study all the aspects of design I just mentioned, of course. After all, one of the best ways to learn is to do.”
“No, no. You talked about a lot of stuff that doesn’t interest me. All I want to do is design, not be subjected to a lot of boring stuff like learning computer programs and psychology.”
“Maybe you weren’t paying attention. Understanding those things is necessary in order to be a designer. Without them, you’re just scribbling. How can you hope to create a great design without understanding how your work is perceived? The wrong color palette, for example, can completely undermine your message; or, alternatively, be deliberately chosen in order to intentionally undermine it, thus giving the design an extra layer of meaning.”
“You really believe all that, don’t you? Sad. Look, just because you think that kind of thing is interesting doesn’t mean that you should go around forcing it on other people. I’m here to be a designer, not a psychologist or a computer geek or whatever else you think I should be instead.”
“Look, if you’re not willing to learn the basics, then maybe design isn’t for you.”
“Oh, sure, whenever someone isn’t willing to quietly swallow your pretensions, you declare them unfit to join your holy order, is that it? The only people who can be designers are the ones who think just like you, right? The ones who play your little games and jump through the hoops you set up? You just keep stroking your ivory tower, okay? Just stop pretending that you know what makes a good designer, because it’s clear you’ve become completely dissociated from reality.”

“So you want to be a web designer, eh? Well, that’s fine, just fine! There’s a lot to learn, but I’d be happy to get you started. First, we’ll talk about markup languages and semantics. Then we’ll spend a good deal of time on how CSS works and how it compares to older forms of layout, plus a basic grounding in the nature of text flow and ‘limitless canvas’ flows. After that–”
“Hold on there, Poindexter. I want to be a web designer, not a computer scientist.”

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