GregoryBowers.com

From Jackson Fish Market’s blog post about their own Jenny Lam winning Best Startup Designer at this year’s Seattle 2.0 Awards:

While there were some talented and intelligent folks also nominated in the designer category, from what I can tell, none of those folks actually are software designers. Perhaps there needs to be a separate category for user-experience focused program/product managers. Wouldn’t it be nice if for next year’s awards, all the people nominated in the software designer category actually were software designers.

From what you can tell, eh? Paying attention and actually following links to portfolios must not be part of the author’s skillset. I’ll admit, the award title is rather ambiguous (though it’s not too hard to imply that they are saying “Best Designer at a Start-Up Company”), and yes, some of the folks nominated seem to have graduated to different titles. But to make such a broad assertion is a giant Fuck You™ to every finalist.

Yes, that includes me.

I’m happy for Jenny. It’s a great honour to win a peer award like an S2A, and I never considered myself in the running (I have terrible self-confidence, I’ll admit). I hope she continues to create great things, and I’m glad these aren’t her words. However, our dear linked author, where do you come off making such an assertion? I can’t speak for the rest of the design finalists, and lord knows I’ll never grasp the nomination and selection process of the Seattle 2.0 Awards, but stating the rest of the field were miscategorised, when your local favourite already won the award? That is either a case of serious brass cojones or speaking without putting an ounce of thought into it beforehand.

How, pray tell, would you justify saying that I am not a designer? Is it because I also have to write the front-end markup for our web-app? If so, you’ve obviously missed out on the concept of designers that code.

If not that, then, is it that I have “UX” in my title? Should designers, especially those on 8 person teams, abscond themselves from User Experience tasks? I should say not! If a designer (and yes, this has always been a dangerously ambiguous term) has no dealings or understanding of UX or interaction in a tech startup, are they more than a simple visual artist? I’ll admit that the term UX is an overused buzzword, and has been slapped on every title possible in tech, but does that make me any less of a designer?

It is an affront to my career, my achievements and my abilities to so simply write me off (and my co-finalists as well!) as not a designer because the nature of my workplace requires me to do more than just open Photoshop to build comps. When I’m teaching others how to utilise said software, I often joke about when I learned of the addition of LAYERS to the software years back. I have a strong mastery of Photoshop and Illustrator, and have had for years.

What then? How is it that, in at very least my case, you feel that I am not a designer? Might a propose the answer, to save you the time slapping together a foolhardy response? How about this: you made a broad generalisation, based solely on the listed titles and minute write-ups presented on the S2A voting ballot (which we had no role in writing ourselves), with no actual attempt at backing your comments up with any research into the work of your targets. If you feel as though I still don’t match your definition, you might want to reconsider your definition.

UPDATE: The author, Hillel, (sorry, there is no full name provided) backpedalled and apologised to Aviel and I for calling us less than designers. This was not, however, before posting a rather condescending retort to Daryn’s comment, more or less saying that his definition of “software designer” is the most accurate (though never defining it). I’ll accept the apology (we all say really stupid things online from time to time), but hope our dear author will in the future spend a little more time proofing a blog post meant to tout the bright spots of a company, instead of firing off one that makes the entire company look bad.

UPDATEx2: Hillel has recanted his statement and apologised personally. Un-dickmove-ified.