Happy to receive a ‘Designer Spotlight’ at istockphoto.com

I am delighted to have just received a ‘Designer Spotlight’ at istockphoto.com for the design of this website.

The short version of the story goes like this. I was cruising around istockphoto.com, looking for a good image to act as the base for the design of my new web presence, that I knew was going to be called fluffDESIGN, when I came across the base image I use in my header here at fluffDESIGN. That was February 2007.

The image bought from istockphoto, I then proceeded to exchange delightful emails with the lady who designed it. I was kindly given permission to use the design as part of my websites basic design (you may need to check the terms if you are seeking to do this with an image; images are sometimes restricted so they may not be used as part of a ‘logo’ or ‘identity’ without gaining appropriate permission).

The original image is here. And here’s the ‘Designer Spotlight’.

There’s more…

Not content with waving my arms in the air about this, I will now also highlight something arguably more important to me. In June ’07, I was looking through the slides of Jon Hicks talk “Be a Creative Sponge” when I suddenly ground to a halt and I swear my mouth dropped open like Tom. There, in Jon Hicks presentation, was an example of how Jon uses good software to easily store / locate design ideas etc, in this case it was Yojimbo, a great app’ for, err, lots of things—try it. But in this case he was highlighting how it could store valuable, inspirational design stuff, and the first / main image he had picked to show being stored was … drum roll, the image I had chosen from the thousands back in February.

Er. So?

So Jon must surely have been highlighting something he would be happy to be associated with in terms of it’s design quality (he had included it in his talk), and I had chosen it before I knew this! So my taste, in this tiny, tiny example, had been validated by a designer who I think is awfully good and for whom I have great respect.

Thanks to a_Taiga over at istockphoto.com and thanks to Jon Hicks for cheering me up and thanks to istockphoto.com for awarding my design a ‘Designer Spotlight’. I know the jeerers (there’s no such word, but surely their ought to be?) will say this is just istockphoto promoting their own content. But I think it’s not quite as cynical as that and that there is some real merit here. Add to that the fact that this art was chosen by Jon, and I feel a warm pat on my back from me. Although absurdly British (reserved), I feel I can admit that I have done a good job. And now I’ve done that, I’m off to put my hairshirt back on for even considering, let alone being, self-congratulatory.