Episode 06: Who is a Real Designer?

In conversation with web developer Lucy Davies, who does not think of herself as a designer, despite lots of evidence to the contrary

Transcript

Kevin 0:16

Uh, welcome everyone to this next episode of, make Life Better by Design. And I'm pleased to say that this is the first, guest podcast, of the series, and I'm very pleased to welcome this afternoon. Goodness knows when you are listening to this. It could be the middle of the night. But anyway, welcome this afternoon to Lucy Davis, who is a web developer, who I've known for a while now, who is based in Sheffield, which if you have to live north of Watford, is one of the nicest places to be. So been doing this, running her own business for quite a while now, and, as she says herself on her website, www dot websites by Lucy dot co dot U K she's passionate about design, which is a good start for a podcast about design. So I will stop rabbiting, I'll say Welcome, Lucy. although I've given you a little bit of an introduction, can you please tell us a bit more about yourself?

Lucy 1:25

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So I'm a website developer and I've been doing this for 10 years. But my background, I've come from a lots of website developers, come from a design side. I've come from a tech side. So before that I worked for a software company for about 20 years and then left to set up my own business as a website developer. I live in Sheffield. Yep. With my partner and our Greyhound and yeah, I love where I live,

Kevin 1:56

So, I mean.

Lucy 1:57

south of Watford.

Kevin 1:59

No. Okay. Uh, I've gotta be careful what I say. I know. Living as I do York myself. No, that's great. And I mean, straight away, you know, we can see, there's design in common, there's dogs in common, which is fantastic. Uh, but I'm

Lucy 2:17

Yes.

Kevin 2:18

deeper into this design thing because I think. It is difficult for me to put across very often what I mean by design and why I think it's important. And I think it's also difficult for a lot of people, um, to grasp design as a very wide topic. I think they perhaps think of it as styling or whatever, and I, and I believe it's a lot more than that. So or who do you regard as a designer? Uh, and, and what would that sort of person do?

Lucy 2:56

That's a really, that's a really interesting question because I was thinking about this and I guess the people who I think of as they are a designer or people who call themselves a designer. For example, a graphic designer and also people who work in sort of niches of design, like architects. And those are the people I would call a designer. But then when you talk about it more broadly, so I think I'm not a designer because if you wanted me to design you a logo, it probably wouldn't turn out very well. I have no training.

Kevin 3:32

are? Does that not mean you are not therefore a graphic designer?

Lucy 3:36

Possibly. Yeah, because when I think about it, if you come to me and say, I want a website, this is, this is what the website has to do and this is the information I want to put on it, I am quite happy to lay that out and. Design that in a such a way as you know how I think it would be best to take people through that process and to make it usable. And I guess that is all design. I think I get quite hung up on.

Kevin 4:02

the word, you used the word design yourself there, you said I would design that.

Lucy 4:08

Yes.

Kevin 4:09

believe

Lucy 4:09

that would be designed, wouldn't it? Yeah,

Kevin 4:12

Yeah.

Lucy 4:13

but I suppose what I'm wary of is people coming. I, what I worry about is people coming to me and thinking that I am a graphic designer.

Kevin 4:22

Yeah, yeah, understand. Well, this is part of the problem, isn't it, in that can cover a multitude of actions and abilities and interests and so on. And

Lucy 4:35

Yeah.

Kevin 4:35

taking it as being at the widest possible, range. And in that, I see you as a web developer, certainly as a designer, you have to, you are making decisions and choices about things that happen on those websites. And that for me as a designer,

Lucy 4:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin 4:55

is that it?

Lucy 4:55

And I definitely know what you mean. Yeah. I, I, well, I, I understand what you mean, but I still would, yeah, I'd be very wary of, the reason I make a point on my website that I am a website developer is because I don't want people coming to me for the services, that expectations of me that I can't fulfill.

Kevin 5:18

sure. No,

Lucy 5:19

And also I think there's a little bit of getting hung up on. Um, you know, not having a background in graphic design, whereas a lot of website designers do.

Kevin 5:30

Yes. Yeah, I understand that. I understand that. So

Lucy 5:32

mm

Kevin 5:33

that's perfectly okay. So having decided what we are for the purposes of this podcast, meaning

Lucy 5:41

Mm-hmm.

Kevin 5:42

a designer. Um, how do you, how do you see yourself working with, say, graphic designers in what you do? What, what sort of relationship is that? What do you require of them to enable you to do your work?

Lucy 6:01

So I, I work with a few designers and we tend to. I suppose there'd be like a minimum. So if I worked with a designer, I would expect them to have done the branding for somebody. So I would expect things like logo and guidance on type faces and colors. A lot of the designers I work with go the next step from that and we'll also do website layouts.

Kevin 6:29

Yeah.

Lucy 6:31

And provide, you know, graphics, additional graphics to the logo, like backgrounds or just elements that are used throughout the site.

Kevin 6:39

Right. Right. Is there anything that you find some of them do or want to do that you find really quite, annoying or just gets in the way of what you are trying to do?

Lucy 6:56

Yeah, yeah, definitely, because, uh, still, most of the designers I work with. Whether they'll ever listen to this or not, I don't know. But we'll design very much for desktop and will not give a lot of thought to how that's going to convert on onto a mobile layout. And a lot of that is straightforward. You know, if you've got two columns on the desktop, we're just gonna stack them on mobile. But then you come to headers and you know, a lot of thoughts, obviously gone into how it's gonna look on this landscape screen. And you look at, you think how, I don't know. It is sort of a different job to put it onto mobile'cause it's a completely different shape. So I do get frustrated with sometimes with that sort of desktop centric design, and also wanting things to be, be positioned quite precisely relative to each other. Which just, you know, every laptop screen's a different rate, aspect, ratio, different shape. So things, unless something is just an image, then things will move relative to each other.

Kevin 8:07

Yeah. Yeah. So.

Lucy 8:09

that could be annoying. So you get feedback from somebody who's looking at it on a different screen, say, oh no, I wanted this here. And it's like, well, it is there on my screen. It's not on yours. It won't be on a hundred other people's.

Kevin 8:23

so they, they tend to see it as a picture as opposed to, uh, uh, a technology for communication that requires different things in different circumstances.

Lucy 8:35

Yes. Yeah. Although I think, you know, they have put thought into how it's communicating in that situation, but yeah, without giving, yeah. As much thought to. All the different situations. Yeah.

Kevin 8:52

You ever find yourself coming into real conflict, uh, with a, a design? You're doing a website for someone? They've brought in a designer, uh, and

Lucy 9:02

Mm-hmm.

Kevin 9:03

no. It's head to head. It's just not going. This is

Lucy 9:06

I've not. Yeah, no, not particularly, but I, I've only worked with quite a small range of designers. I work with one designer a lot more than anybody else, and we get on very well, and we work together. And she will give a design more as, you know, this is what the layout should be, something like this. And if I say, well, that's really difficult, I want to move this to here, she'll be fine with that. So we've built that relationship. There are some situations where with other people where I think I've got more confident, the longer I've done it, the more happy I'm just to say, well, that won't work, or the consequences of making that work will be more cost, or very often with any sort of website development, you only need to mention cost and people back down. It's my, my secret tool. We can make it do that. Yes. But,

Kevin 10:03

Very

Lucy 10:03

but yeah. Yeah. Just like the mechanics, you know? Well, you know.

Kevin 10:09

So really ideally then, when a client comes to you for, a website, what you require as a brief is more what it wants to do, not what it wants to look like. The, the, what it looks like

Lucy 10:25

Yes.

Kevin 10:26

comes in part from the graphic designer Then. But you need to

Lucy 10:31

Yes, definitely.

Kevin 10:32

has to do for that client. Is that right?

Lucy 10:35

Yes. Yeah. And what their priorities are, what the job of that website is for them.

Kevin 10:41

Yeah.

Lucy 10:41

Yeah.

Kevin 10:43

Do you, uh, this is a difficult question I know, but, um, do you ever on a project and then find, you know, I just cannot get on with this. just gonna have to call a, a halt to it.

Lucy 10:58

I've never done that, never had to do that with a job where I'm working with other professionals. No, I have. Been, I've had relationships with people who look after their own site and I've helped them with it where I've Yeah, had to walk away just because a mismatch between, um, people's expectations of what we can make a very small site on a very small budget do,

Kevin 11:24

Yeah,

Lucy 11:25

And what they're practically able to pay for it.

Kevin 11:29

yeah. That, because ultimately in, in almost any well area of design, whatever it is, that client design relationship, that's gonna decide successful it is at the end of the day, isn't it? You can't work in isolation from a, a, a client, uh, and just hand it over and that's it. It is a relationship thing, so it's all about

Lucy 11:55

Yeah. Yeah. And trust, you know, the, the ones that work best were, you know, great for clients to have ideas and to feedback and say, oh, that's not quite right. I'd like this, but it's really good when you can say to people either, yes, great, I'll do that, or, you know, that bit. No, I wouldn't recommend you do that, or We can't do that. And they trust you. They don't just think, no, she can't be bothered doing it.

Kevin 12:22

yeah, yeah.

Lucy 12:23

And that's the kind of relationship I like to build with my clients, where we're all adults in this. I'm not trying to trick them, you know, and I'm not trying to get out of doing it.

Kevin 12:33

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. right. Good, good. Right. Okay. So I think that's given me a pretty good idea of, of how you see yourself in the, the design world and, and where you slot in to do that sort of thing. But obviously, I've laughingly called the podcast Make life Better by design. And I believe that there is huge scope to do that now. Fair enough. You are engaged in one particular area of it, but as a, as a premise, do you believe that design can help to make life better? You do. And, and how on the broader, scheme of things then, do you think that can work?

Lucy 13:19

I think, I think in, in sort of two fundamental ways. So firstly, something well designed. In my, in my head, is something that is easy to use and does its job well. And you know, there's some gadgets you have where a bit of the process is just a battle. Every time you do it, you just, you know, why have they put that switch there? That kind of thing.

Kevin 13:42

Yeah.

Lucy 13:42

So there's the practical, you can make life better by design, by making things easier to use and better, more functional and, and then there's also, because I do appreciate things. The, you know, beautiful design or things that speak to me design wise, then it also makes life better.'cause there's buildings and, you know, cafes or restaurants where you walk into and you just look, ah, yeah. Ah, yes.

Kevin 14:08

Yeah.

Lucy 14:09

So that's a less practical thing. More of the aesthetic thing. So, but I think both of those are,

Kevin 14:15

But

Lucy 14:15

you know, where design does input things.

Kevin 14:17

say it's ideally it's a blend of the two. It's the functional and the, well, I mean, to use a word like aesthetic just tells you that you're a stuck up flipping designer, doesn't it? But if you say the practical, the functional, and the feel good stuff, then, then yeah, if you can get the two of those together. I think you are onto a winner, and it makes people feel better, their lives better.

Lucy 14:44

Yeah.

Kevin 14:45

I'm just gonna give you one pertinent example now of how design could make my life better, is that if this microphone that I'm using had a big red light on top that. It was red said, yeah, things are happening. And if it didn't, it said, turn the damn thing on, because otherwise Lucy is not gonna hear you. So that's very practical.

Lucy 15:15

would be a good design feature.

Kevin 15:18

I, I wonder if I can bring it up myself. I'm not gonna pay for another one. Too expensive. Okay. So that's good. So is there any. Any particular designer or designers that whose work you would admire? Not necessarily just in your field, but more generally or is there any field of design that you think is particularly difficult or when it's got right, that it really is beneficial to people?

Lucy 15:48

I mean, the area of design that I probably look at the most and have most opinions on is architecture. My dad was an architect. Um, so I think probably growing up with him made me notice buildings. And I think buildings and landscapes, you know, how city centers have developed, have a massive impact on people. In terms of specific people, I, I tend to like specific buildings. I love the Arts Tower in Sheffield. That's a sort of modernist tower, which I think is particularly nice. Um,

Kevin 16:22

I don't, I don't think everybody shares that view, do they? Yeah.

Lucy 16:26

I don't know. Possibly not, but yeah, I would like it. I think it's a great building. Um, and it's such a, it's such a distinctive thing on Sheffield skyline. I would imagine quite a lot of people in Sheffield like it, a bit like there was, um, two big cooling towns north of Sheffield. And if you speak to local Peak, I, I wasn't brought up here, I moved here when I was 18. But if you speak to people who are actually brought up here, they all loved the cooling towers. You know, they were massive concrete. Whatever you build cooling towels out of things.

Kevin 16:59

icons.

Lucy 17:01

And people loved them because for them there was things like when they were coming home from holiday when they were kids, you know, that meant they were home. And

Kevin 17:09

Yeah.

Lucy 17:10

so I think there's affection from a lot of things that wouldn't necessarily be called classically. Beautiful. Um,

Kevin 17:17

wonder if that

Lucy 17:18

I, I think I've drifted off.

Kevin 17:20

No, you haven't at all. Um, I'm trying

Lucy 17:23

No.

Kevin 17:24

I'm trying to get you to drift off, um,

Lucy 17:27

Oh yeah.

Kevin 17:29

that is something that, that touches on another aspect of design, with architecture where. There's always this, um, skepticism about the new, but leave the new long enough, long it takes something new to stop being new. I don't know. That's one I'd like to discuss. Um, and, and, and then becomes, suddenly it becomes acceptable. Uh, and I've got some very personal experience of that. But, but it is the case that there is this resistance to the new with many, not everybody, but with many people. Um, and it has to have this, it's the pattern or of age, or whether it's the dirt and dust of age. And then suddenly it becomes, yeah, I can, I can go with it. What do you think about that?

Lucy 18:20

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to think of, of sort of local examples of that. I mean, the Sheffield city center's being massively redeveloped at the moment. Um, but I've not, not heard many people sort of talking, having opinion. There's plenty of opinions on, you know, the sort of overall pace of change or lack of it, but they've not had many opinions on the actual stuff that's going up. Um. I dunno. I think I don't better, the people who don't like those things always don't like them.

Kevin 18:52

really,

Lucy 18:54

I mean, I tend to like, because it takes somewhere like Park Hill Flats, I still, there's still a lot of people who hate them. They don't seem to have, I think the people who like them are the people who always liked them and liked the idea of,

Kevin 19:11

yeah,

Lucy 19:11

know, I don't see people becoming affectionate about them.

Kevin 19:15

Do you think it makes a

Lucy 19:16

Which is a,

Kevin 19:17

if

Lucy 19:17

because I think they're here to stay.

Kevin 19:19

Yes. Do you think it makes a difference if people, um, use a particular building or area or something as opposed to those for whom it's just background? It's just,

Lucy 19:31

yeah, yeah, yeah. Because people, I know people who had, you know, sort of grandparents who lived there and things like that. Talk about it very affectionately as a community.

Kevin 19:41

Yeah. So it, it's, it's not a simple, straightforward business. I mean, the complexities of why design works or doesn't work for different people, you'll, we'll never, I don't think get to the, get to the bottom of it, so to speak. it does

Lucy 19:58

yeah.

Kevin 19:59

scope. To designers, to try and find a way to make things, to make things work, to make people's lives better, I would say. Okay. I've got two more

Lucy 20:13

Yeah.

Kevin 20:14

before I let you, let you go

Lucy 20:16

Okay.

Kevin 20:16

um, walk, walk the dog. One of the big things that's happened, um, certainly in half of my lifetime. Is the way in which technology has allowed a lot more people, to put themselves out there, um, put their opinions and so on out there with social media with. Things like podcasts. I mean, the idea of doing a podcast say 20 years ago would just never have occurred to me. Um,

Lucy 20:49

Yeah.

Kevin 20:50

think that that general growth has been a good thing or a bad thing?

Lucy 20:56

I think that's a good thing. I like that because I like, I like it when I like passions and I like people who've got passions, you know, the most obscure things. You know, somebody who spends all their spare time looking for specific. Model trains or I, I just love passions. I think they're really interesting and fun. So I love that those voices get to have a place now.

Kevin 21:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Lucy 21:23

and they can have a place. I find it quite, it's quite hard. I do think though, there's probably loads of stuff like that out there that's really good. And it's hard to find because there's, there is so much of it,

Kevin 21:34

yes.

Lucy 21:34

and I hate the way it puts me off. Writing things or doing things like that.'cause it does feel like there's just a whole load of noise. And I just thought sometimes I think, oh, I just don't want to be part of that.

Kevin 21:49

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but is that in part because you think somebody else either has already said it better than you might, or that nobody's gonna listen anyway, so what? What's the point of bothering.

Lucy 22:09

Oh, I did. I think I get overwhelmed by the amount of things out there sometimes. So it's, yeah, there's probably a bit of a, what's the point feeling to it,

Kevin 22:19

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Lucy 22:20

and I think that's quite, I think that's worth battling against though, because the people who do it, I find things that I really like. I think, well, if they had just hadn't bothered because they thought there was too much out there, then these things won't be there to find.

Kevin 22:33

I mean, I think if you do find, other people with passions that you have, it is a great way of forming communities. I mean, I, I used to feel when I was much younger. It was very easy to, uh, do, I mean be or do, I mean, feel isolated because I was unaware of all the other people and they were actually there who shared my enthusiasm's interests or views. Um, but, you know, other than falling over them in the street, I was not going to discover them really. And that's one of the great benefits of, the new media.

Lucy 23:13

Yes, that you could meet people. Who were all over the place

Kevin 23:17

Yeah,

Lucy 23:17

and, and a way to find them.'cause you, you wouldn't even ask somebody on the street, would you bump into someone on the street and never ask them whether they were passionate about design?

Kevin 23:26

no. You'd probably have to get locked in a lift for a couple of hours before anything like that

Lucy 23:31

Yes. Before you discovered that. Yeah.

Kevin 23:34

My

Lucy 23:35

Yeah.

Kevin 23:36

you've been ever so good. Thank you. But my last question, which is what I'm, I've decided I want to make as a standard last question on any interviewees, uh, who are kind enough to come and talk to me as you have. Um. If, if you had the opportunity, you know it's the old, if I ruled the world, if you had the opportunity to change one thing about our modern life, modern society, what would it be and why? I.

Lucy 24:08

Right. It would be something around the amount of time. We spend on screens and social media and the way it's led to people just being so willing to just shoot people down and not think about the impact of what they say has on people. People are just so are see on social media,

Kevin 24:33

Mm.

Lucy 24:33

not even the, obviously you get trolls who are just downright nasty, but you just get people who just say something casual in passing. Somebody just like shoots them down for it. Just like you just would never do that. I'm just Sure. If you were just in the pub and you heard somebody say that, you would not tell them what you thought.

Kevin 24:53

Is it that distancing that social media can can give you that makes them think, well, I can. I can say that. Yeah, that's fine.

Lucy 25:02

I think so, yeah. Just not looking in somebody's eyes when you do it. Um,

Kevin 25:07

It's like the sort of updated equivalent of the letter in green ink with no name on that, that

Lucy 25:15

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's probably even worse in sort of situations where you're anonymous, like you can be anonymous on social media or in games, chat rooms and things. I bet there's all sorts of nastiness, but even people in just the local Facebook group under their name, and they just, you just think. They're not even hiding behind their anonymity.

Kevin 25:39

I get the impression you are again, from personal experience there.

Lucy 25:44

No, particularly, actually, it's not people who've said things to me. No, but it's just I am in the local, I dunno why, because I, I am in the local Facebook group, so four times I can, a day I can say to part, could we see what this person said? And he's probably thinking, oh, just leave the group. But no, it's more just watching it and just thinking, why would you, why would you ever say that?

Kevin 26:06

Well, I, I don't disagree with that. I mean, I just think that better manners all around would, would make life better for all of us.

Lucy 26:15

Yes. Just a bit

Kevin 26:16

dunno.

Lucy 26:17

kinder.

Kevin 26:18

Yeah, let's be kind. Let's be kinder to each other. Lucy. I'm

Lucy 26:23

Yeah.

Kevin 26:24

Uh, clearly you didn't have to do this, and I've offered you no incentives other than laughing at me, not knowing I hadn't turned the microphone on, which was a good one. but so thanks very much. Um, it's given me certainly the confidence to try this again with, with other people.

Lucy 26:41

Good.

Kevin 26:42

And I would say that if when we finish this you think, oh, oh, I wish I'd said that then let me know and I'm sure we can schedule something further again. Okay.

Lucy 26:53

Okay. Yep. Yes. I'll probably never listen to it because I'll be cringing.

Kevin 26:58

Alright, thanks again and I'll speak to you soon. I'm sure. And

Lucy 27:03

You are welcome. Yeah. Speak to you soon.

Kevin 27:05

if indeed they have. Thank you very much. And uh, watch out for the next episode. Bye now.