Comments on: Jeremy Baines’ Vision of TechCrunch

By: A fiasco!

A fiasco! — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:34:18 +0000

[...] I woke up this morning and a young friend of mine sent me a quick IM – ‘heard of the techcrunch fiasco?’ I have certainly heard of TechCrunch and read it occasionally, and recalled that they had redesigned recently, but hell – what a joke the comments section of CrunchNotes, Mike Arrington’s blog has become.It seems that the ‘fiasco’ was due to him posting a quick mockup another designer sent to him which improved slightly on the original redesign. No big deal, right? Well, maybe in the real world – but the ‘blogosphere’ can make a mountain out of ANYTHING, and indeed they did.30 comments later and poor old Mike is forced to try and justify something that really doesn’t need justifying. Sure, he could have used a little more tact in his original post — specifically, the line ‘There is a lot here that I intend to steal.’ struck me as a little left of centre (considering how antsy designers can get), but really, what is the problem here?Upon further inspection, it seems that the drama got even more “intense” as Rachel resigned from her position of designer at TechCrunch. Good move, right? Perhaps, if Mike didn’t learn about this from a track-back. Nice one.Are people really so starved for entertainment that something like this warrants such a huge and largely unjustified response? I’ve read through probably 100 comments on three separate blog posts now, and the amount of sheer stupidity in many of them is really dumbfounding. [...]

By: Jason Cregar

Jason Cregar — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:46:22 +0000

Mike may be a bit of a rude ass, but he’s the frigging client. Personally, I find the comment about Rachel being ‘precious’ to be hitting the nail on the head. She’s got this huge rep from doing a FEW lame blogs that are content huge, but design bad. Now she’s in ‘the club’, and it’s all hype.

By: Bernhard

Bernhard — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 08:54:36 +0000

these discussions are balderdash.
good design never accures from a democratic (averaged) process.
furthermore the background of the panel members
is unknown or actually questionable.
nice thoughts: http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1230

By: viatrax.net » Blog Archive » Trying… to hold back… from commenting…

viatrax.net » Blog Archive » Trying… to hold back… from commenting… — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:16:18 +0000

[...] May 15: Arrington posts Jeremy Baines’ mock-up (not mockery) of a different TechCrunch redesign. Arrington says he’ll steal some ideas. One presumes he’ll run these through his designer. [...]

By: jason

jason — Tue, 23 May 2006 20:19:50 +0000

i don’t get the tears over this thing. michael has the option as site owner to look at and comment on other designs for his site, even by doing so on his blog. sorry rachel, but if you’re going to be so sensitive about your work, you’re in the wrong field.

By: High School 2.0 - Blog Network News

High School 2.0 - Blog Network News — Tue, 23 May 2006 17:33:28 +0000

[...] Michael, you were wrong for posting the screen shot from another designer and proclaiming to the world that you thought it was cool and that you wanted to steal bits from it. Sure, you didn’t slam Rachel’s work on the redesign and yes, it’s true that you even praised her work in previous entries, but you implied that you were not 100% satisfied with the quality of Rachel’s work with that single entry. What you should have done is take the bits you liked to Rachel and discussed the changes you’d like to make privately with her. After that, feel free to roll out those changes and offer your eternal debt of gratitude to the leech who sent the design to you. Instead, you post a shill of an explanation? [...]

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 22 May 2006 19:44:17 +0000

I can see both sides of the story. What Mike did was unprofessional. What Jeremy did was self serving and ambitious. If he gives the design for free, shame on him. The simple act of doing design work for free tarnishes all those who make it their profession.

Finally, Rachel was probably right in her decision to resign, since she obviously was offended at what took place. I probably would have been offended too. However, posting your resignation on the blog makes you look petty. She would have been better served by doing it quietly. I’m sure pride played a large role in her wanting to get recognition on Mike’s blog that he did a stupid thing. But doing so lowered her to the level of the person she was quitting over.

By: lvv - dance

lvv - dance — Mon, 22 May 2006 09:32:46 +0000

This is indeed one of the most amusing tossups I’ve seen on the web. Wow is there vitriol out there…

Jeremy’s design is good. Rachel’s design was not (somehow she and Mike didn’t get it together). No big deal. Everyone has a bad game now and again.

Bring in another player. No big deal.

And frankly Rachel’s designs are okay but not world shattering. Can’t quite understand the maudlin loyalty games here – a crew gathering around her to lash out, hard, at the world

By: Kelly’s World- A View into the mind of Uber Geek, Kelly Adams » Blog Archive » “Art” versus “Design”

Sun, 21 May 2006 19:38:26 +0000

[...] I spent a few minutes the other day following a series of threads about a disagreement between a website designer and a “famous” blogger. In summary: a guy paid for someone to re-design their website. Some people criticized the design, and the guy who paid said “anything that’s wrong here is my fault”. Someone sent him a of a different way the site could have been done, and he posted it saying “there are some good ideas here, I think we might use some”. Then the designer resigned, and some people went ballistic. [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 20 May 2006 05:59:15 +0000

“This is about everytime a designer does get stepped on, or made to look foolish, or fired, or laughed at.”

The designer deos look foolish and it was her own doing. If this is how ‘professional’ designers behave (and if they are all this sensitive), I certainly don’t want to ever hire one.