An apology and some justification walk into a bar
Well I did it. I achieved the status of “guy who pissed people off” that is generally reserved for n00bs and assholes. Since I don’t consider myself to be one of the other (although that is certainly up to debate by you fine folks) I decided to write a little blog post about why I said what I said and apologize to those who I accidentally insulted.
@zaksoup OH WOW srsly i just caught up with your tweets. As someone with a load of absolutely nothing in your portfolio you have no leg to stand on. Please quit your moaning and appreciate the work people are putting in for theirs and YOUR BENEFIT. Small icons aren’t as easy as you might think so stop talking shit.
Robbie Pearce (@heartofpixels) tweeted my after My first post which featured his 32px set. He’s right. I don’t have a portfolio of design, and I don’t really have any leg to stand on other than my admittedly strong opinions.
What I do have is a big head and a large mouth. My point wasn’t that the sets are bad. We all know that Robbie is a damn, damn, good designer. My point was that there’s a huuuuge amount of 32px icon sets already out there that these great designers like Robbie are simply adding to. While they exhibit good design, in my opinion, these sets don’t display the artistry that a good web design or larger icon (128 or 512) shows.
Compare:
to
I see that Dr. Dre icon and am blown away. It’s truly amazing. Then I look at the small set and just feel like somebody who creates such an amazing icon is wasting his time with these tiny little icons.
Compare:
to
There’s such a huge difference between the amazing quality and artistry involved in the first icon in both comparisons and the second screenshot that it’s hard to believe they were created by the same designer.
This is where my angry (rude, assholish, douchebaggery) tweets come in. I don’t know why I felt justified to criticize Robbie and Prekesh. I’m not a designer. I’ve never pretended to be. I’ve never claimed that I could do what they do. I have an immense respect for them, and I broke that respect with my tweets.
Let me set this straight. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you, Robbie, for unfairly singling out your set and then ranting about it. I’m sorry to you, Prekesh, for constantly bashing the awesome work you’ve done to create a set of 120 icons and never once telling you how awesome you are. I’m sorry to everybody who’s created a 32px icon set purely in the interest of creating something for the community.
However.
I stand by my opinions. People who are as damn good as Robbie and Prekesh could be working for Apple making millions doing large icons (exaggeration but you get my point) and it makes me feel like they’re wasting their talent. I respect them too much to just go “OOOOO PURDY I LUV YOU HAVE MY BABIES” every time they post something on Dribbble or Forrst.
I have an opinion and you’re gonna hear it if I have to fucking shove it down your throat.
Sincerely,
Zak Auerbach
P.S.
Jonah Cohen pointed something out to me that I hadn’t thought about. Both Robbie and Prekesh have chosen this as a professional career and take their work very seriously. Who am I to just come out of the woodwork and tell them that they did something wrong.
It’s tough balancing saying something that you think should be said and staying respectful and polite and understanding the feelings of others. It’s certainly something that I’m still learning and haven’t mastered yet. I think that this is a good lesson for me to have.
