Chris Grams

Authored Comments

cgrams
Can truly great design be done the open source way?

thanks for weighing in, Máirín!

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side note:
There are probably few people on the planet who have more open source design experience than Máirín (maybe I can even convince her to write a followup article on the subject... hmmm...).

Here's her blog if you want to see more of what she is thinking:
http://mairin.wordpress.com/
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Thanks for the specific examples and pointers... there are some great models in there for people trying to design the open source way both inside software and outside software.

Your last point is an interesting one, that we need more designers in open source... and we may need more open source in designers too.

On the first piece, I think this may come down to one common characteristic of *most* (not all) open source software projects-- they are engineering-driven first, design-driven second (or later). In some cases engineering and design are not in conflict, in some amazing cases, they may even both be driven by the same person. But in most cases, I wonder if the engineering mindset doesn't trump the design mindset.

Open source DOES need more designers... which begs the question... why are there not more designers in open source? Lack of opportunity? Tools? Awareness? Opportunities?

When I see 200 people vying to do some dumb logo design on a crowdsourcing site for a chance to make $500, it strikes me that there are a lot of resources out there that open source hasn't figured out how to tap into that might be amazing contributors.

99designs.com advertises they have a community of 177,000 designers... most of whom are currently working for free:)

cgrams
Can truly great design be done the open source way?

you're totally right. I used to say when I was at Red Hat that I felt I had more in common with engineers than I did with marketing folks most of the time. I think I probably unintentionally set up a false engineer vs. designer choice there, often they share a lot of the same passions...

maybe a better way of looking at it would be engineer-businesspeople vs. designer-businesspeople... Or maybe engineer-designers vs. businesspeople? I'm not sure:)