14 Jul 2004 | Blake Scarbrough said...

It is even funner than before, the advances in technology (CSS, XHTML, Flash) make much more enjoyable. Plus, now you can spend more time on making the visitors experience better and more enjoyable, because of these advances.

Moreover, design is always changing so that is fun to keep up with too.

14 Jul 2004 | Adam Polgar said...

Creating order from chaos.

Creating art: be it the semantic layout, the CSS style, or the knowledge that the site works on many levels -- from the interface to cross-browser compability and beyond.

The challenge of creating art and creating order from chaos.

The process: from blank paper to content.

It's all fun for me, still. And that is good. :)

14 Jul 2004 | jupiter said...

The more you have learned, the easier you can do the things you want to do. That's like learning a new kind of sport - the more you practice the smoother are your movements and you need less energy. Yes - it's more fun now than before, except you have a bad client in your neck...

14 Jul 2004 | Mike said...

Blake: You didn't really say "funner" did you? ;) ;)

I think the fun that I have is consistently trying to one-up my previous designs, and then realizing that with every website I design my skills are improving over what they were before. I remember back when I just got in this game (8th grade) and staring at "cool" commercial sites for hours, just wishing and wishing that I could at one day produce something that looks like that. And now that I do, it's almost surreal.

The motivation lies in the idea that everyone in this community tries to show-off their best work at all times, and everyone's "best work" keeps getting better. To get noticed, you really have to be at the top of your game at all times; the self-determination and wanting to succeed is what continues to drive me.

14 Jul 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

I am thinking of quitting this midwest, mega-corporate life, moving out to Oregon to work for a small company, and avoid doing any web design at all.

Anyone have any experience with that? Does it work, or do you just end up getting drafted to work on the company's Web site?

Matthew's feeling a bit cheeky this morning. And he's talking about himself in 3rd person. Bad sign.

14 Jul 2004 | Greg said...

It's become more than I ever imagined. From humble beginnings a few short years ago, using DW and FW, to the current day of hand-coding CSS and xHTML, table-less layouts. The power of PHP and MySQL, grass-roots SEO practices..... It just does not seem to end, there is something new and of interest/value around every corner.

Having satisfied my insatiable appetite for ongoing learning, we now get to toss into the mix the people and businesses/organizations that you get to meet along the way. I'm always intrigued by the work my clients do. It is seldom boring and is as challenging and fulfilling as you choose to make it!

Last, but certainly not least, is the global community of developers that are enthused about what they are doing and are also interested in furthering the industry as a whole through lists, blogs, forums, articles, experiments, how-to's and such. Warm fuzzies man, warm fuzzies.

14 Jul 2004 | happy said...

With CSS, it's fun to see all the different ways an entire site can look with just the switch of one file. Designing websites is like creating a work of art each time.

14 Jul 2004 | Darrel said...

Anyone have any experience with that?

I almost did that. But then researched things a bit and realized that Oregon is perhaps the most beautiful state and also the state with the most messed up, poorly performing economy.

Am I having more fun? I dunno. My tagline these days is that "I'm a graphic designer who realizes that graphic design isn't really all that important". By that, I mean there's much more to design than the aesthetic part of it. So, I do enjoy working on the 'other' aspects much more these days...usability, functionality, interoperability, accessability, etc.

14 Jul 2004 | Dave S. said...

Not as much, no. The process of discovery seems a little less than illustrious lately. All the interesting development is happening with the tech (syndication, APIs, etc.) and the design is becoming more of a science.

I'll say this for the chaotic mess of 1999 -- it felt like there were more possibilities back then. Now we have best practices and standards and such. Yeah, graphic design has had equivalent building blocks for hundreds of years (typography, proportions, perspective, color theory, etc.) but nobody does much talking those anymore; it's about the work.

That's the best thing to come out of the recurrent 'tired of standards' themes lately -- a shifting of the focus back to the work itself. But I'd assume that also means the giant leaps forward are going to slow to tiny little steps here and there. What's next?

14 Jul 2004 | JF said...

I am thinking of quitting this midwest, mega-corporate life, moving out to Oregon to work for a small company, and avoid doing any web design at all. Anyone have any experience with that? Does it work, or do you just end up getting drafted to work on the company's Web site?

Ha! Ask EK all about that.

14 Jul 2004 | beto said...

I started doing this out of dumb luck almost 10 years ago (okay, I just needed a good excuse to exploit my Internet fever while majoring in Graphic Design) , and while I've learned by leaps and bounds far more than I ever expected about it, have visited and worked on various countries because of it, and had a hobby turned into my main job... 10 years on the web development merry-go-round are already taking its toll on me. It is largely more of a personal matter than a problem with the industry itself - I'm just getting tired of the endless nights, the rat races and the unbearable stress and grim faces of the buttoned-up corporate world, plus I can't afford to behave like a careless twentysomething anymore now that I've hit the 30-plus mark. I have no doubt that Web Development will continue to evolve, even more so with an increasingly standards-conscious community - it's only that I feel there's not much on it for me anymore. To be honest, the main reason I'm still putting up with all this is because it helps to pay the bills and make a decent living.

When I was younger I dreamed of making a career in the animation or comics industry. I'm looking forward to take some of those old dreams back to life, as far-fetched as they might seem to be right now. But I gotta try.

14 Jul 2004 | Matthom said...

With the ingenuity of Apple, and the breakthrough of amazing technology trends like RSS, web design is such a beautiful, clean thing. Web designers should never be bored or disinterested. There is always new things to learn, old things to learn better, and new ways to reduce redundancy, and make repetitive tasks easier and more efficient.

It's all about communication, and the presentation of information.

I could never be bored, and I feel I will always be involved in this field in some way.

14 Jul 2004 | Mike D. said...

Yep, I echo Dave S.'s sentiments, but I kind of like the fact that we aren't all inventing crazy navigation schemes and graphical sideshows on our websites anymore.

Although I've never been on the validation-or-bust bandwagon, I feel like one great thing standards have done is force us to simplify our designs so that the content stands out above all other elements on the page. Pages tend to look less like TV screens and more like newspapers, which is good, at least in the short term.

I don't see this trend continuing forever, however, as these things tend to go in cycles. We started out in the early 90s with very simple pages. Then we got crazy complicated in the late 90's. Next we got simple in the 00's (that's the first time I've ever wrote that... looks weird) as we concentrated on structure. And in a couple of years, you're going to see us get crazy again... but in a good way. Can't wait...

14 Jul 2004 | Tony said...

No, not really. The newness of the medium has changed drastically, and it seems now very rote and very set. It seems every little step has been mapped out, and you just need a checklist and move through that list. Not nearly the excitement as 'back in the day'.

14 Jul 2004 | Jeff Croft said...

In over 10 years of building web pages, I've never enjoyed it as much as I do today. I think the reason is quite simply that we, as designers, are finally getting to use a set of tools that truly allows us to do everything we've always wanted.

With CSS finally becoming a reality, Flash becoming more and more accessible, and the classic design apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) becoming more web-friendly, we're finally there.

If you're from the old school, it's a great feeling.

14 Jul 2004 | Jeremy Flint said...

I have been designing sites for at least 7 or 8 years. 4 of those years have been with my current employer (and the only employer I have had since graduating colllege in 2000).

Because of the various areas we work in (not just web design - we also do interactive work and video work), i always have something different to work on if I get burned out on web design.

However, like most who have replied to this post, the new possibilities with CSS have really sparked my creative juices in relation to web design. Most of this is because with CSS, I am able to try things that before, with tables, would have been....not impossible...but a real pain to try.

14 Jul 2004 | Geoffrey said...

I like it so much more now that we are starting to see important parameters being put in place. (contingency, standards, usability, etc.) It's good to set limitations, they free the process from gratuitous elements and allow a designer to focus on what's important. I like that.
But it's always good to break the rules now and then where appropriate.

14 Jul 2004 | Brian Sweeting said...

I think as long as you can turn to your colleagues and say "Hey, check this out, I've found a totally better way to do this or that", then web design/development will be fun. In other words, as long as there is innovation happening both in the technology and with the producers, it is going to be fun to participate in. The aspect that I enjoy most is finding ways to work around roadblocks (i.e., non-standards compliant browsers and usability issues).

14 Jul 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Ha! Ask EK all about that.

Yeah, I was hoping to pull out a response from him. Hence my "cheeky" comment.

Actually, I wish I could do that. But as was stated in one of the other comments, ORs economy sucks big slimy river rocks right now, unless you are in the medical profession, or social work.

I must admit, I am burned out big time on designing Web apps. Perhaps all I need is a domain change.

14 Jul 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

The majority of my time for the past five years has been spent working on one intranet site, and more recently one internet site. I'm bored to tears, and no new tool/language/approach is gonna change that for me.

14 Jul 2004 | Benjy said...

I still enjoy designing new sites, but don't get to do nearly enough in my current position. I have been feeling some burn-out working on the same site for the past 2 1/2 years since I'm now inhouse with a dot com. Same colors, same technology, having to continue using out of date code, etc. I'm constantly excited by changes in web design (CSS, etc.) but on such a large site and within an entrenched organziation, it's too difficult to implement any new ideas quickly.

14 Jul 2004 | Jamie said...

No. I wish I owned a skateshop or a record store.

14 Jul 2004 | Emily Petrick said...

I love the advances of recent years (CSS, Web Standards, ubiquitous broadband, personal publishing); I still love interviewing people and making something out of nothing. I really love figuring things out and seeing what other people just don't see. I really like hearing people's opinions and incorporating that. I love seeing other great work - all kinds of design.

But I'm tired. And sick of corporations - some of them. I'm doing a lot of work with a cool corporation now - thankfully - but wish I could somehow make more of a difference to what's going on in the world.

I also wish I could work less. I freelanced for a while, and had more time, but in order to do the kind of project I wanted to do, I had to commit to full time.

I don't see myself doing web consulting forever though. Fashion design maybe. Interior Design. Landscape Design....Hmm...

But still design. Design is good.

14 Jul 2004 | Craig said...

I love web design. I've done print design since 1982 and web since 1998. Print design still pays most of my bills, but web design is what I love. There's always something new to learn, new to try. There isn't much new going on in print. If it wasn't for web design I'd be bored out of my gourd.

14 Jul 2004 | Michael Spina said...

I still love it, probably more than when I started. I guess because I'm still learning so much. And I still get inspired when I see a nice, clean, elegant design.

New tools and processes are exciting. When I first got Omnigraffle I was doing IA diagrams for the fun of it! If that gets tiring for me, I have new CSS tricks and PHP techniques to keep me going.

14 Jul 2004 | John Bedard said...

I'm with Jamie, except insert "motorcycle shop or dealership" for the business type.

I don't really get to design much anymore. I do some interface design for web apps but that's a very small part of what I do. And it's boring (for what they need for the projects).

I'm in sell out mode, though - it's not a bad place to work and the paycheck is very good - which is more than a lot of people can say.

14 Jul 2004 | Luke Moulton said...

I have only recently discovered XHTML/CSS design (6 months ago) and it has reignited my passion for developing website. I love the challenge of taking an asthetically good design and making it work with web standards. At the moment we're building around 2-3 small sites a week and this has only become possible with web standards techniques.

In the web design world at the moment there seems to be so many toys but so little time to play with them. I can't see myself getting bored anytime soon!

15 Jul 2004 | Justin French said...

I work for many clients, and I'm finding it difficult to come up with fresh, unique designs/layouts for each of them there's only so many "perfect" solutions to similar problems.

Yes, I'm a firm believer in "letting the project requirements shape the solution", but there are so many boundaries on the web that I can't help but feel "this has been done before" (either on one of my sites, or on someone else's). There's a certain status quo (expectation) of what a web page will do, and it's a hard mould break, especially on corporate work for clients.

That being said, I'm still really enjoying the industry after 6+ years. CSS and standards have given me new possibilities and a new lease on life, and my work on application development with PHP & MySQL means that I can mix it all up not always working on interface design & layout.

15 Jul 2004 | Geoffrey said...

Justin: Just curious here, do you think the same holds true for brochures, or annual reports? Print designers have been putting those together for decades, yet original ideas always seem to surface.

I tend to think that with the web, design comes first, and content shows up whenever it's ready, if at all. So web designers are forced to design around potential content, so there's not always a driving force. Which leads to repetition of what's worked before.

I think the status quo you speak of is no different than a the status quo a magazine publisher faces. But a magazine publisher has the luxury of seeing the content before the design, and rightly so. Because a website should be about content first, not how it's organized.

15 Jul 2004 | Steve Agalloco said...

If you are starting to feel burnt out, perhaps you should consider volunteering your services to a local area charity or community service group. Someone who could really benefit from the work you do, that ordinarily wouldn't be able to pay for your services. It may be a good way to change your outlook on things.

15 Jul 2004 | Chris said...

I often wondered whether I just stumbled into web design and whether, in fact, I wasn't meant for it.
When I'm on a roll I love every second of it, creating the site to look just so, getting a page to function in a specific way ... but when I can't get the design right, when I suddenly realise that I've been staring at the screen for close to an hour, when I know that something is 'missing' but I just can't figure out what - those are the times I start to question whether I should truelly be here at all, messing with all this code.

15 Jul 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Here is Scott Berkun's take on how to survive creative burnout.

Papaya!

15 Jul 2004 | Brian said...

The short answer: No and yes.
In my day job, I create designs for a bulk templating system. The design is more or less just re-arranging and re-skinning the same thing for the same market. Also, I am getting a little burned out on the constant BS in the corporate environment. However, it still thrills me when I can write some code and it shows up in a browser. I have some pro-bono projects that I'm working on that allow me to flex some of the other muscles that I don't get to use on a daily basis at work. Which is somewhat rewarding. Also, being of a background that has included print, environmental graphics as well as web design, I don't want to do the same thing day in and day out. Variety is the spice of life, isn't it? But in this world of specialists it's hard to find opportunities to have that variety. I'm currently trying to figure out how I can only work 9 months out of the year. Life is too short to spend in front of a monitor when the sun is shining outside.

16 Jul 2004 | Thalwil said...

The simple answer is: YES!

I can only speak for myself, but I feel that the process of designing is perhaps more important to me than the finished design. I recently redesigned my blog ( http://home.tiscali.ch/thalwilblog/) and am now twiddling and fiddling the details, but at the same time I already have ideas for yet another redesign which I've also begun to work on, because I just can't resist the temptation and the old redesign already feels stale. Maybe my motivation is that I just can't stay still...

Creativity is always fun and adds balance to life, especially when (as in my case) it's a hobby and you don't depend on it for a living! It's even more fun on a Mac (Safari is just so sweet! - My only moments of frustration come when IE breaks my design and I have to create some ugly fix: keep downloading Firefox everyone!!!):

16 Jul 2004 | Heidi said...

Not burnt out, just boredwith the trivia, that is, not the design.

Is it just me or do other long-time designers feel that web development is increasily just about knowing browser quirks trivia? The IE box model, positioning quirks, 4x browsers, etc, javascript acrobatics, whatever.

The late 90s and early 00s did see increasing complexity, but it was a sort of add-on complexity. You knew what bells-and-whistles were or weren't going to work, and usually you plunked in a "this site best viewed by…" and called it a day.

Now, I feel like I spend so much time getting the "bones" of a site to work, toggling between platforms and browsers (I had seventeen at last count) that I have little energy left over to work on the really interesting stuff (php, flash, even alternative stylesheets "just for the hell of it").

Admittedly, I live in a not-urban area and lately develop for primarily small, regional businesses, but, seriously, half our customers use Mac Classic IE 5.0 while half of their friends still have ancient versions of AOL running, basically, N4x and the other half use modern browsers. Between designing for that backward 3% and the old addage about the client never being wrong, I feel increasingly mired in a type of design insanity that was never present, even in the earliest days.

16 Jul 2004 | Jeni Grant said...

For the most part, yes. I enjoy the actual process of designing and developing - putting together the interface, building it in Flash or XHTML/CSS, adding on each layer of complexity, testing it, and then finally releasing it to the world at large. There's something refreshing about the experience of combining creative with technical. The only other time I feel as engaged is when I've got my camera in my hands.

That being said, I hate the industry with a passion. I'm lucky - I've ended up in a place that understands what I do and what I can bring to the table. Yet I've worked my share of bad jobs and had my share of bad clients. It's frustrating for companies to hear that I'm a "web designer" and ask me what WYSIWYG I use. It's frustrating for my work to be overshadowed by an art director who only thinks in term of print. It's frustrating for my suggestions about logic flow and functionality to be ignored, despite the fact that I have more usability experience than the rest of the room combined. It's frustrating when jobs get harder to find because everyone's outsourcing to India. It's frustrating that the bar for designers is much lower than it should be, and two-bit no-talent hacks are getting cushy positions when I'm working my ass off. It's frustrating to be screwed over again and again and again by employers and clients - after all, I'm only the designer. It's not like I do anything important.

Why am I here? Because I love what I do. Despite every single frustration and heartache this damnable industry throws at me, I still love designing for the web. It's what I'm good at. As long as there are still creative challenges and new technologies to learn, I doubt I'll go anywhere else (unless that photography thing starts going somewhere...).

17 Jul 2004 | fishboy said...

anyone else find it tough knowing just how much you don't know?

17 Jul 2004 | Emily Petrick said...

....quick update.

The little firm where I work just got acquired by another little firm, making us a bigger firm. It's a good thing and makes sense if you think about it (similar cultures, they have a very nice office, great synergies - we do web, they do mainly hard goods and print), but it's taking me a little while to absorb it. I lived through USWeb -- marchFIRST, divine, so please forgive me if my first gut reaction is scream and hide.

The 90's are BAAACK....!

I'm so glad I'm going on vacation for 10days!

21 Jul 2004 | Shirley Kaiser said...

I've been designing and developing websites since 1996, 8 years now, running my own business. I love doing it at least as much or more than when I started. In order to do that, though, I have to feel tremendous passion for my work and love what I do. Otherwise I wouldn't do it.

As others have also mentioned, CSS has added so much to the process. I love challenges and change, and this industry certainly provides all of that! ;-)

I especially enjoy the design process, brainstorming for ideas, working out the information architecture, developing the design, putting it all together, producing the final results, and making clients happy. I'm not too fond of the paperwork behind the scenes that are required with running a business, but I can live with it.

I also have a multitude of interests, 2 kids, a home, and a family dog, which I take time to enjoy. The past few years I've worked more typical business hours, not letting myself work too many long hours anymore. Time off and time away helps tremendously. So that's my secret for not getting burned out, too.

29 Jul 2004 | wethepeople said...

quote: 15 Jul 2004 | Steve Agalloco said...

If you are starting to feel burnt out, perhaps you should consider volunteering your services to a local area charity or community service group. Someone who could really benefit from the work you do, that ordinarily wouldn't be able to pay for your services. It may be a good way to change your outlook on things.

This is exactly what I did, and it did change my outlook on things.

I would rather do freebies for non profit organisations now (whilst holding down a 'normal' job to pay the bills)

I'm not exactly an expert in xhtml/css, but it's what i aspire to be, and to be frank most of the web companies I could work for in the uk don't know their 'arse from their elbows'!

Maybe I'll want to get back into a salaried web design job one day - when there's a UK company with the same ethos as 37signals that is.