So how'd that happen?

Many years ago I was an artist. In high school, I dreamed of nothing more than being an illustrator. My ultimate goal was comic books, but greeting cards, flyers, etc.... I didn't care. I just wanted to draw. 

I got realistic though. I'm not a good enough illustrator to truly make a career out of it, and if I tried I'd end up hating illustration. Instead I keep up with my doodling habits, and I enjoy them as a creative outlet. But I still pursued creative arts as a career and a passion. I moved instead into design. 

I loved design. I was good at it. My creativity and illustrative ability worked well with my technical expertise. I could work on a computer and make pretty shit. And all was well with the world.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped designing. I found a certain comfort in dealing only with code. Others designed and passed that over to me, and I put it together and made it work. There was some freedom in that, really. Coding is still a creative endeavor, although it is a lot different than creativity with design. 

But lately, I've lost even the itch to design. I feel like this flat design stuff killed what it used to take to make websites beautiful. I understand "content first" design and, honestly, I think it's a better way to design a site. But with the emphasis all on the content and trying your damndest not to clutter that up with gradients or even colors. 

High contrast, easily readable fonts make sense for most monitors and most people reading. Fewer images and less "designy" work is better for responsive design. 

In theory, I get it. But in reality, this flat design movement makes all sites (including the one you're one) look identical. Toned-down pastel colors, flat buttons, large background images. They're just so... boring. Some are beautiful, but after seeing the same stuff recycled over and over, the beautiful ones start blending in with the "others". It's all the same. And it's boring. 

Code right now is exciting. There's a new front-end framework every other day. There's new tools to do better work faster. CLI is fast and effective and fun. 

I don't miss design. The former artist inside of me is screaming knowing that all I do now is manipulate code, but I think this is where I need to be right now.