• Top 10 worst cities to live in
• 5 reasons you should refinance your house
• 8.5 reasons you’re raising your kids wrong

You know, shit like that.

I recently came across a “list” on Yahoo! Education entitled “5 Careers for Shy People.” Now you wouldn’t expect to see politician or stand up comic on this list, but the #1 profession they listed was still a bit puzzling to me: Graphic Designer.

Wait. Huh?

Since when can you be outright shy and expect to do meaningful work as a designer. Sure you can be quiet, laid back, sometimes a bit reserved (lord knows I’ve had my moments), but being shy and being a Graphic Designer just don’t mix.

One particular quote struck me:

“Any position where you work with data and ideas instead of people would be ideal careers for introverted people…”

She’s right, that Graphic Designers work with ideas, but they work with ideas that are aimed at people. Not trees, or chairs, or dogs. To say that you can cut people out of the design process is just wrong.  You can even make the argument that people should be always be at the forefront of your process whenever you’re designing.

Whether it’s your boss, your coworkers, your users, or audience, there is always some form of personal interaction happening when you design. I’ve never run into a process where I didn’t have to explain, defend or sell my design work, because as designers we work with PEOPLE. And we design for PEOPLE.

So let’s not forget that Graphic Design is for and involves people. More than a lot other professions, so if you think being shy is an option, it might be best to keep moving down the list.

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There’s also this little thing called Responsive Web Design going around the web right now. (No, it doesn’t make you itch or anything) And this was my first chance to put it to good use as you’ll see below. Feels like only yesterday I was coding in tables. The interwebs, they grow up so fast…

As a designer, and fan of The Simpsons in general, Homer Simpson almost gets it right in episode F419 “Homer’s Enemy”—applying function and form in order to upgrade the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Translating this quote to design, he may have missed the mark by “copying” the existing plant, but all else rings true in a sense. Without much knowledge of nuclear power plants, adding “fins to lower wind resistance” sounds completely arbitrary, and probably is. But the baseline idea—trying to make a functional choice for your power plant (or website) that will benefit the user in some way—is on the right track.

Same with the racing stripe. Sure it’s just window dressing here, but when does a racing stripe fail to be awesome? The answer is never. It’ll always elicit an emotion, good or bad, but it will connect your users to the design. (and if the design calls for a racing stripe, it will be instant awesome)

Getting the wind resistant fins and the racing stripes to work on a web page is what drives me. It’s bringing it altogether, in one harmonious upgrade to your website, logo, email, what have you, that keeps me coming back for more. So have a look around, drop me a line, you know, whatever you’d like. After all, they do have the internet on computers now.