Jeff rebooted

at 04:53 on 02 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

Rebooted is a stupid and inaccurate term. If you redesign, just use "redesign."

And the new jeffcroft.com looks like every other designer site designed in the last 12 months, with the notable exception of the site of the gentleman who posted this initially.

at 05:09 on 02 May 2006, Jeff Croft wrote:

Cameron: thanks so much for the comments and the link. Much appreciated.

Hadley: "Rebooted" refers to CSS Reboot, which is a semi-annual day in which a lot of people redesign. I didn't invent the term, but I personally think I did a lot more than redesign. I switched servers, switched scripting languages, wrote a CMS, wrote all new XHTML and CSS, and came up with a new visual design. You can call it whatever you like, but I think "rebooting" is pretty darn accurate.

Sorry you don't like the aesthetic of my new site. Thankfully, the process of relaunching my site had to do with a lot more than aesthetics.

at 05:16 on 02 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

I'm aware of what it refers to. Doing what you describe makes the term "reboot" even less accurate. One "reboots" to return to a previous state after a failure or crash.

Furthermore, I would consider much of what you mention as part of design. Design is about solving problems - it's not just the visuals.

Also, I never said I didn't like the aesthetic, I stated that it resembles many other sites that one who visits the sites of designers and "css themed" sites see on a regular basis.

at 05:29 on 02 May 2006, Jeff Croft wrote:

Uhh, Hadley, you're not paying attention.

You said "the new jeffcroft.com looks like every other..." So, you were the one talking about visuals. That's why I said "I'm sorry you don't like the aesthetic of my site." You were discussing my visuals, so I responded specifically about visuals. I never once equated design with aesthetic.

Everything I did is absolutely part of design. If you want to read my feelings on what design is, you're in luck: I posted the just the other day.

Enjoy.

at 05:43 on 02 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

Jeff,

If "everything you did is part of design" then how can is it that you "did a lot more than redesign"? If "everything you did" is part of design and you are redoing it, then by definition you are redesigning.

You've made the point for me that the accurate term for what you did is "redesign" - not the trendy and meaningless "reboot."

at 05:51 on 02 May 2006, Jeff Croft wrote:

Errr, okay. If you're really that bothered by the term "reboot," perhaps you should take it up with someone who came up with, or has some vested interest in it.

Frankly, I don't really care if you like the term or not. I didn't invent it, and I don't even really like it myself.

Take a deep breath and relax, man. A few people saying they "rebooted" isn't the end of your world, is it? Calm down, buddy. You're taking this way too seriously.

at 05:57 on 02 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

Jeff,

I never "took it up with you" in the first place.

Furthermore, attempting to end a debate by imploring the other party to "calm down" or "take a deep breath" is not terribly original, either.

at 05:59 on 02 May 2006, Jeff Croft wrote:

And I never claimed to be original.

I am, however, done with the debate. You may consider ignoring any future replies "unoriginal" -- but I can live with that.

at 07:03 on 02 May 2006, Nathan Smith wrote:

Jeff, don't sweat these types of people or their comments. Based on the opinions of people who are experts at web design, such as Mike Davidson and Khoi Vinh, your new site is a milestone. For what it's worth, I am quite fond of it too. There will always be naysayers, because not everyone can cope with seeing others succeed. I would encourage such people to post examples of their own work, that we may see how superior it is to that of Jeff and "every other designer."

at 17:06 on 02 May 2006, dave rau wrote:

Hadley, show us your work. Maybe you can enlighten us all and show us just exactly what originality looks like. Thanks!

Jeff, I dig the contrast and arrangement of content. Switching servers and scripting languages is a task, glad to see it all worked out!

at 17:09 on 02 May 2006, Natalie Jost wrote:

I second Nathan's comment! Just look at the plethora of praise coming off of your comments on "Boot it." The great designers, the ones who know what good design is, are very pleased, and rightfully so. There are a million Hadleys and only one Jeff Croft!

at 18:19 on 02 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

"Jeff, don't sweat these types of people or their comments."

Jesus, people. The initial comment wasn't even directed toward Jeff. Furthermore, I never even stated that I disliked Jeff's web site. Can we try a little reading for comprehension, please?

And Dave, whether or not my work is original has no bearing on whether or not Jeff's is.

at 18:47 on 02 May 2006, Markus Stefan wrote:

While this discussion seems to be way to complex for a guy like me, i have to say, that i like this site very much. Especially the Footer Part! If you can still call this a footer ... ;)

Maybe it sounds funny but what i really feel in love with are the thin lines of pink, on jeffs comments.

at 18:51 on 02 May 2006, Markus Stefan wrote:

FELL in love ...

at 00:08 on 03 May 2006, Marko Mihelcic wrote:

@Jeff Croft: Great job m8 !

@Hadley Rille: Chilli out m8 you said what you had to say , note that every human being has a different opinion on things(in this case Jeff's site)

@Nathan Smith: Hey m8 how's it going, I must catch up my reading on your blog ;)

@Natalie Jost: Well said Natalie!

at 00:39 on 03 May 2006, David B. wrote:

while i dont neccessarily agree with everything Hadley has said i do think he makes a few good points over all.

but i must take issue with something Natile and Nathan said.

"Based on the opinions of people who are experts at web design, such as Mike Davidson and Khoi Vinh"

"The great designers, the ones who know what good design is, are very pleased, and rightfully so"

number 1 i am not saying this with any disrespect at all, let me clarifiy that.

but doesnt that jsut flame the hole fanboy type of attitude?

I am an expert in this field, does my opinion weight less than mike davidsons simply because he has had the fortune and or drive to work with some big name companies? I think that is a danger that the plastic gods article that was posted here a while ago refers too.

I would hope you all are not accerting that the only people who can have opinions worthy of listening to are the 'gods of standards designs'.

seems anytime anyone has an opinion that is not fav

at 00:43 on 03 May 2006, David B. wrote:

... favorable they are attacked or made to feel that their opinion is somehow not valid. this is a sad state of affairs if we cannot support or at the very least tolerate others opinion if it is not in support of said person or site.

and this says nothing of good or bad critism. obviously i am not supporting anyone simply berating someone elses hard work for no reason, but this post did not start out that way.

at 03:11 on 03 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

"Chilli out m8 you said what you had to say , note that every human being has a different opinion on things(in this case Jeff's site)"

I am not preventing anyone from stating their opinion, and I am perfectly "chill[ed] out" already, thanks.

at 20:47 on 03 May 2006, Mike Rundle wrote:

Hadley, no balls to post a URL? Damn that's weak.

at 21:55 on 03 May 2006, jon wrote:

David B talks too much.

at 21:58 on 03 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

I am consulting for a state agency doing Section 508 stuff. I couldn't show you my current work even if I wanted to as it is not available to the public.

But thanks for that valuable contribution, Mike.

at 04:04 on 04 May 2006, David B. wrote:

Jon if you have an issue with me, email me at cd[at]climaxdesigns.com or else keep my name out of your mouth please. or perhaps even leave an address whre you can be reached, dont be a coward and throw rocks from behind a wall, stand by your words like a man and bear the consequence.

at 05:20 on 05 May 2006, alvin wrote:

I do not think you need to provide an URL link in order to give your critiques, or point of views. As a fellow designer, I know i design for people, people like your mom and my dad. They might offer the most outrageous comments regarding design, but if a large number of dads and moms dont like it, i fail my job as a designer.

Just a heart to heart puny 2 cents :).

at 05:21 on 05 May 2006, dave rau wrote:

Hadley, If you're not willing to backup claims about lack of originality with details about what makes these claims worthy of listening to then maybe it's best to not post them in the first place. I don't mean any disrespect by this; it's a serious comment, not a dig.

at 05:50 on 05 May 2006, David B. wrote:

@dave rau, what does showing his work have to do with backing up his opinion, if he doesnt like it then he doesnt like it.

I fail to see how showing his work enforces or rebuffs his opinion?

at 06:03 on 05 May 2006, dave rau wrote:

Simply because someone has access to typing in this little textarea box does not give him any creditability to critique as informed; there's no context to his statements. There's no frame of reference. It's too fucking easy to dismiss everything put in front of you as just another whatever.

I didn't ask for a URL in my 2nd post, only some clarity about details that make these claims worthy of thought.

Certainly art critics aren't good artists, but they're still well-versed in the context of art, their palette is broad, they've spoken with lots of artists, seen lots of images and therefore have quite a bit of reference to talk about art.

Being a good designer or artist gives you a lot of credibility to discuss the topics, but anonymous web posting without thoughtful comments, insightful or educational references or even a sentence about your own frame of being is totally useless.

Really, I'm just awfully tired of unoriginal comments about unoriginal web sites. I've

at 06:14 on 05 May 2006, dave rau wrote:

Damn, I hate when discussions like this go this way. Now it's about a critique of a critique. But leave it to a rogue comment to turn a discussion into the merits of constructive critique.

If someone's going to pull the unoriginal card out they'd better be willing to talk about it. If they can't define or point to original then how can they even begin to discuss unoriginal?

If you're a designer churning out template designs all day then you ought not comment about originality.

On the flip if you're killing folks with originality and really putting out a lot of solid design effort then you should be adding value to the discussion about how someone missed the mark; something educational that a person can take with them and build and learn from.

And if you're not a designer then see my comment above about critics.

at 12:32 on 05 May 2006, Bradley wrote:

I inspected the site - the comment section and flicker section are not tasteful, not easy to find. Clearly a coder and no graphic talent except the logo is somehow a good copy reformulated. Might say it is a blog world after all.

Surely I appreciate people promoting their friends - that is a beautiful gesture but this lacks spunk. The structure is there but the marks to find things easy - nope.

Just look at these examples: http://veerle.duoh.com (my country - Belgium oh so small) - that is spunk and tasteful

at 18:19 on 05 May 2006, David B. wrote:

Dave Rau i 100% agree with you about the anonymous postings of people here, but i 100% disagree with you on having to be or having to have some design back ground to be able to make a worthy critique of a site. Having said that, lets get back to the site at hand. Maybe my 8 years experince in visual design 5 years in front end web design and 3 years experience in backend web development will having some bearing on my credibility and assement.

CODE:

I have spoken to Jeff recently about how connected to the flickr database and even showed him some stuff I am currently working on (nowhere near his brilliance in developing) so lets start on the code. The development of the sites photo log and tubmlelog are incredible and will be talked about and emailed about for some time to come. I do belive, however, that the tumblelog is extremely long and some type of paging should be considered for this area.

at 18:20 on 05 May 2006, David B. wrote:

VISUAL DESIGN:

Lets work down your average page; The logo is very nice and is a strong brand that can be easily separated and eventually become a recognizable icon, The Logo area is somewhat tight and could use more breath, although i understand why it is slim to let the user get to the content faster, but there are ways of doing this perhaps making an out cropping of just the black under the logo and keeping the rest slim.

The stylegalaesque lines of the titles accompanied by the UMAGesque titles work well together and make for eye cathing headers. I think there is a lot of scrolling on may of the pages due to the footer area, which could be solved by paging in some instances and briefer teasers in others. While i understand the need for acsents, the colors chossen in contrast to the grey backgrounds just dont work.

at 18:21 on 05 May 2006, David B. wrote:

The grey , to me, screams to be darker, the colors used seem to be a bit fadish, many sites are doing the lime, magenta, cyan bit, but here I would have like to see shades of oranges and reds, as he uses in the body of his articles which match the logo.

The three columns follow the trends of the last few months and is not bothersome to me, but i think the spacing of the text and overall formatting could improved upon in the footer areas, and i think the large amout of white space when one scrolls beyond the two sidebar columns inthe main content area could addressed by lengthening the content that resides there. I think the rollover should match the section its in, for example all the s rollover to greean, yet the acsent color for the third content are is magenta, so the s should roll over to that color.

at 18:22 on 05 May 2006, David B. wrote:

Overall this is a well done site that presents an extreme amount of information to its users and the site lends itself well to getting out of the way, my last thing would be to add an archive list link to the main menu which would help user get to the meat of the site faster.

(please excuse the misspellings i wrote this somewhere else so i could spell check it , then for got to...)

at 02:45 on 06 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

"If you're a designer churning out template designs all day then you ought not comment about originality."

Well, I am not that, but even if I were it makes no difference. Your argument is illogical. Even if I do the most derivative, unoriginal work in the history of web design that does not therefore make Jeff's work any more original or creative.

I have never claimed, nor do I now, claim that my work is MORE original than Jeff's. I also do not claim it is less original. As such, my own work does not enter into the conversation.

And as I already stated, my recent work is not available for public viewing anyway.

"Now it's about a critique of a critique."

That was inevitable when several people responded in mob-like fashion, thinking I somehow "attacked" Jeff when the primary point in my first post had nothing to do with him specifically at all.

at 17:36 on 06 May 2006, dave rau wrote:

"Well, I am not that, but even if I were it makes no difference."

It makes all the difference. If you are uninformed about the context and history of graphic design then you have no place stating anything about originality or making judgments about quality. You shouldn't be talking about design at all in any context.

"Even if I do the most derivative, unoriginal work in the history of web design that does not therefore make Jeff's work any more original or creative."

But if you did no one would take you seriously. If you're critiquing someone about anything you must have some context and frame of reference. Otherwise you have nothing to relate to and therefore couldn't comment on anything related to the subject.

It's not about posting a URL, it's about making a thoughtful comment that's helpful and informed.

Calling someone unoriginal is a worthless remark and does nothing to help someone in a critique setting. And I think it's been done before... how origina

at 21:59 on 06 May 2006, David B. wrote:

Dave rau what planet do you live on?

"If you are uninformed about the context and history of graphic design then you have no place stating anything about originality or making judgments about quality."

What do you think an opinion is? so you are basically saying that someone needs to have a background in whatever topic it is they are speaking about? That is such an elitist attitude that is almost funny.

HOw do you know Hadley doesnt have experience in this field? if he doesnt have to show any work, why should we discredit his opinion simply based upon the assumption that he is not versed in design. thats the biggest load of crock i have heard all year. and ive heard some wild ones.

nest time you go buy a car, be sure to preface that purchase with a 4year graduate degree in mechanics...

at 23:40 on 06 May 2006, Jason Kroner wrote:

Hadley, no balls to post a URL? Damn that's weak.

Mike Rundle, that's the dumbest thing someone can say.

at 17:02 on 07 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

"It makes all the difference. If you are uninformed about the context and history of graphic design then you have no place stating anything about originality or making judgments about quality. You shouldn't be talking about design at all in any context."

You are confusing the messenger and the message. Any statements I make about Jeff's work are either accurate or they are not. The degree to which they are accurate is not dependent in any way on my own work.

As it happens, I am not "uninformed about the context and history of graphic design" but again you would not know this one way or the other simply from viewing my own web sites.

"But if you did no one would take you seriously."

Again, your logic is faulty.

at 15:22 on 08 May 2006, elitist asshole wrote:

(last one, I promise!)

Should the only criteria for informed discussion be that you have an opinion?

It's not about your work (if you're not a designer), it's about your context!

If you are a designer then is absolutely is about BOTH.

If you're not a designer and you've got no context then shut up!

at 17:22 on 08 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

"It's not about your work (if you're not a designer), it's about your context!"

Clearly this discussion has been done to death, but I have to say I don't really know what you are getting at here.

The validity or lack of validity of any statement I make, whether I am a designer or not, is based on its truthfullness. If I say that "Web site X has an unoriginal design" that is either true or untrue (or partially true.) If I am a skilled, experienced designer then it would seem more likely that my accuracy in making that statement would be greater - but that I am a skilled, experienced designer is no guarantee of this. Ultimately, the relevance of a statement must be measured on its own merits.

As a result, whatever statement I make about Croft's work is either true, false, or partially true. My own personal work has no bearing on the issue one way or the other.

at 00:57 on 10 May 2006, maleika wrote:

I find the site to be very nice. I would have liked a bit more colour, however, that's entirely a personal preference. It's fun to browse through the different sections of the site and I can tell that a lot of thought and love has gone into this design. Very nice effort. :)

at 12:05 on 10 May 2006, Tiago Rio wrote:

Hey! Why don't you people arrange a real fight, instead of verbally battling online, and let some record the whole stuff and put the video on You Tube.com, so i could have a lot of fun seeing you bang each others head... LOL

This discussion is pointless!!

Everyone has a right to their opinion whether you like it or not...

So just judge based on the majority of opinions. That's what statistics are for. There's always someone with a different opinion and we have to respect that.

If a lot of people say your site is good, then it is (period).

at 16:12 on 10 May 2006, Hadley Rille wrote:

"Everyone has a right to their opinion whether you like it or not..."

That does not mean everyone has an informed opinion. I may be of the opinion that the Sun revolves around the Earth but that doesn't mean anyone should take my view seriously.

"So just judge based on the majority of opinions. That's what statistics are for. There's always someone with a different opinion and we have to respect that."

No, we don't have to respect people's opinions merely because they have them. That is foolishness.

"If a lot of people say your site is good, then it is (period)."

Nonsense.

at 16:19 on 30 May 2006, Tiago Rio wrote:

Allright Hadley, I've had it with you!

You're just a stupid, selfish bastard who thinks that you own the truth. Well you don't.

So just stay with your own opinion, in your own little world, and forget the rest of the world exists.

By the way you MORON, when i said: "Everyone has a right to their opinion whether you like it or not...", i was refering to YOUR opinion!!!!!!!

Now i regret i said something in your defense. You don't deserve it. You're just too worried about fighting off everyone, you didn't even stopped to see who was on your side...

I'm out of this discussion, it's stupid and pointless...

at 22:47 on 05 January 2008, Logo Designers wrote:

cant we all just get along?

at 21:15 on 17 June 2008, Internet Web Design wrote:

some tension on this post

Add a comment:

Keep the comment relevant, constructive and be polite.
A valid email address or URL to your site must be provided, or the comment might get deleted. Content seemed inappropriate or offensive may be edited and/or deleted. Avoid explicit language and words such as "sucks" and "ripoff". For more in-depth discussions use our forum. Email addresses are never displayed. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted - no need to use <p> or <br/>. Quotes & apostrophes are automatically converted to smart punctuation. Be careful when copying and pasting portions of entries or other comments. The following inline HTML elements may be used: <strong><em><pre><q><blockquote><code>. All other code will get removed before posting. Don't forget to close your tags.