signs of trendwhoring?

[goma]

I've recently began reading up on more Photoshop tutorials and getting serious on gaining some real proficiency with these tools. It's interesting to read an article on some effect I always wondering about and Sitepoint has some of those right here.

My main concern is trendwhoring. I know what the term means and implies and I fear that I'm doing just that. I've never swiped a design from anyone but I do use some tricks that I've seen somewhere else, like some scanline discretely placed here and there, some grids, a few 45 degree angles, that sort of thing. But I keep away from obvious fluff like those arrows and tiny text. All my layouts are my own though and I try to move away from estalished layouts even as I get genre inspiration from other designers.

I've seen trendwhoring from the extreme (completel ripoffs of sites ) to just a few similar tricks here and there like what I do. So what am I then?

[redux]

a conformist ? producer vs. inventor ? silent innovator ?

[goma]

LOL...good one Redux

I kinda like the last one.

[Jeremy W.]

"So what am I then?"

Learning.

I don't think any designer has a really definitive style or repertoire until they have been at it a couple of years (no offence).

Any younger than that and you are simply on your first iteration through the world of design. Times change, and designers change themselves faster than the times. I know I have personally been through a dozen different design mindsets and processes in my decade of designing, but in my first couple of years everything really was either experimentation or the same old same old.

Now I do what is needed of me on paid gigs, and rarely have time to play around. I don't miss it because I know that when I open up PS to play again I'll have lots of ideas and likely lots of inspiration as well

[RussellG]

Yeah I'll admit it... I'm a trendwhore.

But I find it to be a real high when I am able to do something that I've seen on another website. I'm having a great time learning, and too me at the moment thats all that matters. It's not like I'm copying the whole website.

Hopefully in 2-3 years people will be looking at my designs and saying "Wow I wonder how he did that?".

Now that would be a real buzz

[goma]

thanks for the reality check Jeremy

Yup, I'm still waay behind on a lot of things

[tdev]

the worst is when I'm watching a commercial, movie preview, whatever and that basic Photoshop Lensflare Filter pops up either stationary or in a simple little animation ... I think the animation is actually included in the basic tutorial ... anyway, I can't count the number of times I've seen that little trick by big name companies ... now that's cheap and cheesy.

I think it was Labatt's Blue beer that even had/has it on their logo.

Nice Work!

[iTec]

ditto what Russell and Jeremy said.

I have about 150mb of just .jpg's of stuff i have done, some of it is trendwhorish, some grungy, some vectorish and some just plain wierd but all of it is just experimenting, and that is part of the process of learning and developing your own style.

[platinum]