joetheblow

Join Date 12/2001

Graphic Design Standards

I spoke on this before many moons ago about a standard for designin skins for applications. I was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on that.

Standards are a way of helping those who want to learn how to skin and a way that is readable (the code, nameing conventions, readme files description, user usage, and so on) and so users can unterstand your design interfaces.

The other reason why I was thinking about a standard was so that those who wanted to do skinning professionally could easly grow from the guidelines of how to put together a total skin design, code, and user documentation. It also would be a way to show the company hiring you that you knmow what your doing and deserve a certain amount of pay.

Also by having a standard those copanies, firms and businesses who want to use a skinners services can guesstimate cost for design. If they want to go with the smuck to skin what ever it will most likely not be good. Also if that smuck knows about the standards she might not price herself so low because she knows what the going rate is.

I am not trying to commercaillize this but as artist we could get paid for ding such work. As artist we usually get abused when it comes to getting hired because ther is no standard or it is "art". I hope that by creating a standard there can be a consences on how we should be treated and how we respect each other. No underbidding of work when we all agree it is worth this much. Helping others to get into the world of skinning and design.

It seems to me that skinning will be very mainstream soon. GUI design has not gotten enough attention as it should and now maybe it will. May companies want a look, IT specailist want to control the users computer at the job, interface design helps worker production, the list continues and is long. Intergration between skinning and IT will get very tight. Web designers and advertising designers will want a GUI that supports and looks like what they want. It would be better to get a community thinking about looking out for ourselves before we cut our nose off to despite our face. There are many associations that got on the balll late and have almost no power or aren't coheisive enough to be useful.

So what do you think????

Graphic User Interface League of Designers.
GUILD (Yes Jafo, it is G.U.I.L.D and oppossed to GUIDING HANDS. I would have used that but I forgot the acranim meaning

)

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My thoughts would be that GUI design is a bit narrow a group to build a union-type guild out of. If this comes to be I would imagine it would be a lot like other artist unions, and probably cover all 'for-monitor' art and design workers, including fontographers, iconists, even 3d artists outside the entertainment industry.

As for standardized pricing and terms, that would be problematic, too. It must be enforced, i.e. punitive action for parties that work under scale. Then you must enforce membership, which is even more iffy, especially in international venues such as this.

On the other hand, the prices for Mom&Pop businesses and outsourced corporate projects should be vastly different. IMHO, pay for projects should be based not only on the work involved, but the visibility and magnitude of benefit to the contractee. If Joe's Garage wants a page, they don't stand to make a ton of money because of it. If Kookie-Cola's site needs a ui, then they stand to make a lot of money, and their UI is the workhorse of their online image. The big-guys make big money, and should pay big.

Standards tend to shut out little folks on both sides of the bargaining table, just ask indy directors that have to pay SAG scale to make budgetless movies. No one would wanna pay union scale for a newbie skinner, either. Cuts both ways.

Skinning is about as commercially big as it is gonna be. I think you *will*, however, see a lot of behind-the-scenes skinning, i.e. software built to have interchangable UI that isn't changable by the end-user. This gives developers the option to easily front-end software for different licensees, and yet keep the standardized UI that people need to have consistant, trainable workspaces.

No one wants to train people to use free-form skinnable software that the customer or emplyee can change. I don't think you'll ever see a free-form skinnable AOL interface, for instance. Can you imagine the tech-support headache? "WHERE DID MY BUTTONS GO?!??!?!, WhY iS eVErYThinG PURPLE??!!?!?!"

In the worplace, employees would have to be retrained at some level every other time the UI changed, or face slowed productivity as the employees get used to it. A new version of MS Office every 5 years is enough to burn millions on retraining. Uniformity is very, very beneficial to productivity.

Multi-brandable software will be big, though, and skinners will be able to be in on that for sure.

Artists will always be screwed i think, might as well get used to it. If we weren't we'd all act like Picasso, signing napkins for profit and being egotistical lice.

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Thanks for the input. Very insightful. I didn't think about the small companies haveing to pay big prices for a design. I know there are allot of issues that would have to be worked out with this. Just wondering how people felt it. You probably right about how big it might get. i just see so many avenues for it to go into or tie into. If your w web designer and you have skinning ability, it is an addition to you skill to be able to make a, for exapmle, WindowBlind based off of the Website.

Avertising would probably be the biggest pull for skinners, but I also see those who are doing graphic design for a living could also benefit from being skinners of appplications.

I know for exaple the city of new york offices, there IT management controls the wallpaper look of the desktop. If they could the would use DX for control too, and it would be uniform, and a personal style of Windowblinds would also be something they would want. (althoug the user wouldn't be able to do anything, the MIS department would)

Then there are desktop siutes and specail designs... I know everybody I show this stufff to is like amazed. Some feel they might get sick of it after a while but for the most part many people love it. They did not know they could change anything.

It is always hard to introduce a new standard... I am not sure if this is something that would work for skinners. I personally feel that skinning works with what I already know about graphic design. I might not make it too far with just skinning under my belt.

Maybe it is just a niche.... any more opinions? I really like to know what other people think about this.

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p.s. the one area I think skinning will take off a bit more is gaming. I think that 2D interface and 3D model skinning will get more and more popular in the next few years. If I weren't a hopeless, shaking addict, on-the-wagon, I'd be skinning Everquest right now...

one more point. There are a lot of interfaces outside of desktop PCs as well. Think about information kiosks, video games and gambling, and all those neato appliances that will have touch-screens in the next jillion years.

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I wanted to say something here, and I have read this thread 3 times now

Further than that artists love their freedom and do not care about money, but all the more about what they make, is all that comes to mind. ( I even couldnt figure out the grammar on this sentence

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?????

You mean artist will revolt art the idea? Like they want to be able to charge or not charge or just not care at all about the situation of money?

At the same time are you saying that when push come to shove they need to feed their addittion to thier art and selling it is a option and last resort?

You read this 3 times???

Don't worry, you can comment here. Anyone can. Just want opinions.

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just about the last comments.. man, if i had enough time to get a portfolio together and somehow start selling some art - wow! that would be awesome.. i would -love- to make money doing something i loved.

the last time i thought money was not an important concern, and that selling my art was prostitution, i wasn't paying my rent or buying my food.

the funny thing is, people who complain that money is bad and art shouldn't be done for money just don't understand what money is. money is a symbol. the things some people do with money are not cool, but money itself is a good thing. it represents hard work.

see, money works like this..
first, step in the way back machine. we find a talented artist hard at work. he's serious about his art, so he doesn't have time to hunt or till his land for crops. both those take -tons- of time! he needs to eat, but wants to do his art.. so he gives some of his art to a baker for bread. man, he should get a -ton- of bread for one stone carving.. i mean, compare the time investment of the artist and the baker. but that much bread will spoil before he can eat it all.. what a waste. and he doesn't just need food. he needs all kinds of stuff. the baker and smith and weaver, and all the others, don't want to share one carving.. what can he do? aha.. he goes to the big city (ur) and sells the piece for money! now he can give money to all the different people he needs things from.. even if they don't like stone carvings.

pretty neat system, huh?

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I read it another 3 times

I am trying to understand what you mean! I am not familiar with the gaming industry nor movie industry. Maybe those branches need skinning the most? Dunno. As far as lay-outs and design for a program a company wants to use, I don't think they really care if it looks grey or red or yellow. I can't imagine a normal company hire a skinner to alter the look and feel of an interface. Important is the program has to work. I can imagine a developer hiring a skinner though. But then I think, like in any artform, the good will always come to the surface and will be able to set prices. As far as protecting a wage of any person there are standards for that. Dunno how you call it, workers union? Companies always want to hire people with the lowest "hiring wage"..If you want to found a designers league and set minimum standards, I think it might be beneficial to those who are already familiar in the skinning area, but they will charge higher hour rates anyway...

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I remember the great Karel Appel selling his work for 25 guilders to the director of a big hardware shop in the sixties so that he could buy paint and food. All he wanted was make paintings, and when he was in shortage of money he just went with a few freshly painted canvases and sold them again to the same person. He indeed traded his paintings for food. Point is, how big is your passion for art and your persistance to communicate with people in this way? The bigger it is the less you care about what you get for it. As long as you can make a next one. I don't see that as prostitution.

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Herman Brood betaalde geregeld dingen met een schilderij.

(yeah that's Dutch, wouldn't mean much if I had said it in English for the international crowd)

But I can't sell my 'art', they're my babies!

Also, skinning falls under the umbrella of user interface design. Which is taken pretty seriously. Especially in these days of ergonomics, usability and all those buzzwords.

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I like buzz words

That is what I am trying to get at. Being that I experienced 3 fields (Architecture, Multimedia/Electronic design, and computer programing with system layout) the one thing that has been increasing steadily is the user interface importance. When I see all these skinners works and see what they are doing in some part of the field I see such an amazing connection. When it comes to ad vertising, business, and industry, they are starting to see the need for better user interfaces and control of the desktops. Many IT systems managers control what is on a desktop or what is seen mostly for maintainnce but also to see what your doing (spies

). GUI design (like WindowBlinds and DesktopX) does that very well and could increase productivity as well as give the company a "look" as most company, city, state agencies look for. (as of this moment they moslty have been changing the wallpaper on desktops of city angencies)

With the priceing I guess it could be rated so that the mom and pop stors can get a skinner too for a good price while the Pepsi generation pays through the nose mostly because they can afford it.

I have found so many businesses has or are interested in WindowBlinds, Winamp, WMP, DesktopX, as well as other programs have been noticed as a way to promote themselves on a medium that gets looked at every day.

Here are the industries that are looking into skinning very seriously:

AOL

Music- (from Madanna's Mavarick to Def Jam), Promotional; for
there artists or based on songs

Movie- Paramont, Universal

Websites- Based on a website design

Games- (From Playstation to PC games)

PC makers- Buy a PC and get skins already on it.

For employees of a business- To increase work producivity and unify the job place into a team

For personal use- download for free or buy designer suites or commssion a design for a wedding, engagment, party, club,etc

TV shows- From "106 and Park" to "Friends"

Those are some possible exmaples of industry looking at skinning. i is happing now and I feel it will only get bigger. before it gets to big and too out of control, we might try to come up with a way to deal with the commercialisation of it so it does not kill the fre spirit of skinning (like downloading free skins that are of mazing high quality)

This way we can keep the vision of free skins and be able to do what we love and have some sort of life (it would be nice to go to the movies once and a while or eat out) and be able to pay some bills as your slaving away 40 to 60 hours.

Please feel free to have positive and negative comments. The negitive ones are very important as to it bringing up flaws in the idea that would have to be addressed

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While we're discussing this, there are some commercial ventures already out there. Pixtudio is one, and The Skins Factory has been in the field for a long time. Have a peek at how they see the role of skinning in the big world: http://theskinsfactory.com/Index3.asp?alt=DigMark

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Petrol Designs too (Austin Powers for WinAMP2), and I think SkinWorkz (spell??) Harvard has a skinning site for Windows Media Player.

When I was reading a new story here or some thread there ws a mentioning of something called skin channels... something lke that where businesses would have there own "station" for there designs and promotions. Not sure how that would work but I see it having more value than I did when I first read it.

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Does anyone else have anything to add to this post? I am dieing to know (well maybe not dieing) what other skinners and users of skins and just any person who just hangs around he message board what they think of the subjet.

I also posted a news arcticle somewhat related to this about websites and earning power.

It is my hopes that one day the internet can be a better safer place that helps people become more involved and better off. I hope that anyone who does go into a busniss, no matter how small or big, does it to hep all of mankind rather than to do it to get rich or just to get by.

What's your opinion?????

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