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Comment by bzupnick | Hacker News Reader

i, as a web developer, have the same exact issue, im not an artist, yet i need it done. so i believe if your not good at something, dont pretend that you are. you just got to bite the bullet and say that if I try doing this: A) its not gonna be good anyway B) im going to waste time on bad designs. so personally, obviously taking my lack of design skills into account, i would hire someone OR partner with a designer. thats also a good option

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See the thing is, I think I have a decent sense of what looks good and what doesn't, but I just have no idea about common design patterns and how to create the designs I envision. I also am reluctant to believe that this can't be learned.

It can be learned, but it's hard, you might be able to use every single future of any graphic tool, but if you(or anyone, me too) lack of that feeling that usually a good designer have from birth, it's really hard to get, For example an icon or a logo, can be just 3 or for lines or a simple canvas, very easy to do, but what is hard to get is the idea, that's what is important that's what i pay for. This is my opinion.

I'm a web designer by trade. While I think I have a good innate layout and design sense that I've been working since the days of print, I certainly do not believe it can't be learned. If your goal is to produce product, though, you have to consider if there's a long term time/money benefit to learning. I license layouts from Theme Forest and icons Graphic River for clients all the time when budgets are tight and money is an issue. There's no shame in it. It's very efficient and in the right hands, effective.

For me the biggest advantage is that they do backend stuff as well, which since that is God's most tedious job, is a real bonus. It is so much easier when you have somewhere to start.

Of course it can be learned. 10,000 hours to mastery of anything is what they say. Substantially less if you want to be passably good at it.

Best advice I've ever heard on design is "copy, copy, copy, copy until you don't need to". Themeforest or TemplateMonster are both good starting points.

  > A) its not gonna be good anyway

I couldn't disagree more. "Artistic talent" is not what makes you a good designer, regular practice and passion are what matters most.

Check out this thread from conceptart.org forums: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870

The guy starts in 2002 drawing stuff like this: http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?s=7c... or this http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid...

And here are some of his artworks after a couple of years of hard work: http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?atta... http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?atta...

I'm sure you could achieve the same level of progress in web design or UI design field as long as you are willing to devote enough time for practice.

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