A Fine Balance 2
I just finished reading Bryan Veloso’s new entry, and I had some thoughts that I didn’t care to leave in a comment, nor did it seem to really fit the context of the post, so I thought I’d make a post out of it.
So, in his entry, Bryan brought up a point that hit home a bit:
It’s been scaring me lately, that the subject of this blog has slowly begun to straddle the line between design and programmer. I guess that’s not really bad, per se. But it’s like when you give to one talent, you take away from another.
Those that have poked around this site (outside of my blog) know from my resumé and portfolio that I do both design and programming, and those that know me enough personally know that I love doing both. Whether it’s fussing about in Photoshop or mastering the intricacies of the dynamic duo of XHTML and CSS, I love designing, and the same goes with PHP and programming.
While I’m not a well-known designer like Veloso (yet?), and it’s not quite the… identity crisis (for the lack of a better term) it could be for him, I do relate to the issue he’s having in a way. Doing both is a balancing act, especially for services rendered. The two follow different laterals of the mind— one being pure logic, the other being art. So, it’s hard flipping the switch from art to logic. One beats and flows to its own rhythm while the other is structured, organized, precise. In keeping up with one, you risk sacrificing the ability of the other.
I’ve always been a designer first. Milk Carton Designs was not, at first, a service offering web design and development, but just the former. And in being a designer first, I never had any experience with programming until I made a plugin for WordPress (that which became known as Addictions). This led me to realize all the cool things I could do with PHP, which started me down the road of experimeting and learning. I, of course, followed this road until I thwacked into a wall and realized I hadn’t had a single design thought in months (okay, fine, it’s an exaggeration, but you know what I mean). I learned a lot, but I had left what was my design savvy out to dry, and it was extremely hard to get back into the groove of things. I have now, and I’m seemingly balancing the two fine, but I was shocked at what I had done to myself and how easy it was to fall out of the groove like that.
So, kids, the lesson learned? Well, I’m not sure. I’m still doing this balancing act, and it’s a bit straining sometimes, but it’s working for me. I’m better skilled, at least. I guess we’ll see how things work out in the long term, I just hope I don’t sacrifice one for the other, because at the heart of things, I love doing both equally, and I’d hate to cut short my own talent.
Any thoughts would, as always, be appreciated.
