[einai]

I'm a designer on Dribbble. The work I present on Dribbble and the "actual" work I do for my clients are quite different most of the time. You can think of Dribbble as the "runway" of graphic/UI design - most of the stuff there are for showing off the designers' ability and/or are conceptual. They are fun and beautiful to look at, but not always designed for practical use, just like most people won't wear runway fashion everyday.

[bigiain]

So it sounds to me like you agree with him – your Dribbble content is closer to "digital art" than "examples of your typical design work".

I wonder if there'd be an opportunity for a Dribbble-like site to showcase your "business goal articulation" or "optimised interaction flow"? I'm guessing not – partly because I don't think nearly as many people do that work for "fun" (in the way that many people _do_ create polished final renderings as an art/pastime), but mostly because I suspect there's significantly more business value in them – I'd expect to see that sort of higher-level business-strategic work showcased as whitepapers on a Digital Agency's website (or locked away behind NDAs or contractual/provacy agreements with the clients).

[einai]

My Dribbble content still reflects my design style to a certain degree - with things like icons, logos and illustration, it's a bit easier. However, with a 400x300 (yes, I'm aware that there are @2x pixel and file attachment but when people browse, they only see the small cropped thumbnails) pixel restriction, it's not always easy to fit a meaningful UI design there and still keeping the thumbnail attractive (so you can get more clicks - this isn't just for an ego boost, we need to market ourselves too).

When a potential client contacts me on Dribbble, I usually send them samples of my "real" work so they can get a better idea of what they will be getting from me.

I used Forrst for a while, and some people posted design processes there. However, people are naturally drawn to eye candies more. Like others have mentioned, Behance is another option.

[colmvp]

I mean... behance allows you to present your work in a way that's similar to a case study so people often do writeups and show sketches of their process.

[bigiain]

Thanks, I hadn't seen Behance before, it seems interesting - I'll take a longer look later.

On a quick glance though, it's not quite what I was imagining, it's still _mostly_ focused on the final visuals. I was imagining something which'd stop well short of that (or at least downplay the final graphic styling), and instead highlight the problem discovery and solution process, the business goal articulation, the interaction design – perhaps everything upto the brief you'd then give to a designer. That'd fascinate me (but as I said upthread, that's quite probably considered significantly more valuable business intelligence or intellectual property by the people who're good at it than even highly polished visual designs – that's the stuff that makes a Razorfish or Mule Design job worth mid six figures, and why they're not competing with $5k or $25k "web design" firms).

[plaguuuuuu]

How often do you find yourself at work thinking "man, I really wish I could do more of this dry business work! I hate doing creative stuff!"

[wuliwong]

This is exactly how I see it. I just don't see how there's anything wrong with making fun designs, trying new things, hearing people's comments, etc. I am amazed that anybody felt this article was interesting enough to repost. I'm not a designer, but I do a lot of solo projects where I'm responsible for the back and front ends. I enjoy looking around on dribble for ideas and inspiration.

[bigiain]

I dunno – I upvoted it pretty much based on this fragment:

" … but work that doesn’t address real business goals, solve real problems people have every day, or take a full business ecosystem into consideration. "

That's a conversation I have almost every day with clients, designers, co-workers, and friends.

"Pixel pushing" visual design is something that some people are very highly skilled at – and the difference between good visual design and bad visual design is obvious even to those of us without the skills to create "good design", _BUT_, in terms of a product or web project it's the last ~20% of the time/money budget. Unless you've got (in the article's terms) the "Mission" and "Vision" properly articulated, and then the "Outcome", "Structure", and "Interaction" properly thought through, you don't really have enough actionable data or goals to appropriately brief a visual designer.

(Having said that, for some businesses and budgets, choosing "existing artwork" and jamming your businesses specific requirements into it might be the right way to go - the same way as most retail stores don't build spaces like Apple Stores, but make compromises based on what's available for rent in the area they want to trade, then "making do" with the space/architecture they end up with. I've helped many clients build inexpensive websites by articulating the solutions to the business problems, then cutting costs by choosing something off somewhere like ThemeForest that's "close enough" and either living with the deficiencys or bodging/hacking over them like a quick paintjob instead of a major shop refitout…)

[goldvine]

Great comparison to the runway - love that!