FLOSS+Art

For the FLOSS+Art reading I chose the chapter by Michael can Shaik on "The Shrink Wrapped Design Process." Shaik, a trained designer from the Netherlands, explores the restrictions that designers place on themselves. Adobe has such a monopoly over the design software business that they just bought their only competitor (Macromedia) and Adobe is usually the only program taught to design students. Shaik says this is detrimental because designers are not using computers to their full potential. They are working in artifical workspaces created by a software company. They stick to what they know: design. It is the programmers job to figure out how things work. By making the computer speak "human" with webpages that look like paghes of paper with previous and next buttons and icons with actual folders on them, we restrict ourselves.