When it comes to the crunch

May 16, 2006

I have just resigned as the designer for TechCrunch after the redesign sagas and the latest post on CrunchNotes.

Comments

[...] Designers have a hard job at times. Trying to please the client. Trust me I’ve seen both ends of this stick. I’ve been a hard client to deal with, and I’ve had to deal with hard clients. So when I see this post. I about lose it. Then I head over here. I’m livid. This is crazy. This is exactly how not to treat a designer. And clients have to realize designers have souls. They are humans. They have reputations, They have feelings,emotions, feelings. I have to stand up for Rach here and just call Bullshit really loudly. He makes this look like it was Rachel’s fault for his suggestions. Heck maybe it was her. Maybe it was him. Either way. This is not how you deal with it. By getting another designers’ suggestion and posting it on your blog in the public domain like that. And then acting like everything is great. Howdy do. OY. [...]

— Jack of All Blogs » Blog Archive » How not to deal with your design firm (TechCrunch Edition), May 16, 2006
Good move, Rachel. Mike is self destructing and best to disavow it.

— Aaron Brazell, May 16, 2006
Rachel … sorry about this development. You deserved a little more consideration than this.

Good luck.

— Patrick Grote, May 16, 2006
unlucky yes… but i guess it might end up being a good learning experience. (btw love your blog’s design)

— saurab, May 16, 2006
If I had a professional website, I would still hire you
Don’t worry Rachel, you still have lots of fans out there.

— Alex, May 16, 2006
I hate being this blunt, but screw him if that’s going to be his approach. Your response was classy and to the point.

Bravo.

~M

— Matt, May 16, 2006
[...] Good for you, Rachel. Tags: No Tags Possibly Related Posts: [...]

— Solo Technology » Blog Archive » Sheesh, May 16, 2006
You’ve handled yourself with class through this whole thing. Keep up the good work - I’ve been a fan for a while

— Ben, May 16, 2006
[...] I have to agree with Handy, this was the right decision for Rachel. Well done, you and your job deserve more respect than that. [...]

— Vox’s bookshelf » That was the right decision, Rachel, May 16, 2006
Rachel,

Sorry to see all that happened over the TechCrunch Design. I was one who thought the design was good. It is sad to see a webmaster not stick up for his designer like that. I think too often we are led around by public opinion. If Mike didn’t like the design, he should have said something privately, not made a public statement of this sort…

Sad, really… But you will be alright. A talented designer can not be crushed by one rough outing… Just as a blogger can’t quit after a month online.

Cheers,
Neil

— Neil, May 16, 2006
Heys Rachel,
I’m sorry to hear about the incident and do agree that you deserve to be treated much better than that. I couldn’t have imagined something like that happening and it’s just amazing that there ARE people who have the audacity to be so uncouth.

I hope nothing but the best for you. And yes, I do love your work.

Regards,
Donna

— Donna, May 16, 2006
And you remain a class act - of design and professionalism.

— Liam, May 16, 2006
Thumbs up, Rachel! You did the right thing and you definitely deserve much more respect from the people you work with! You showed class and integrity, much in contrast to Michael. Keep up the great work

— Peter, May 16, 2006
Rachel: i am sorry to hear that. I thought your design was great and all Mike did was publishing a suggestion he received. Maybe i am missing something. I think you did a great job and hope we ll have the opportunity to work again together.

— ouriel, May 16, 2006
Keep up the good work. I second what Darren Rowes said about you in his post on ProBlogger. You handled it all very well.

I love your designs Rachel and think you got the bum end of this stick. Keep designing, I look forward to seeing the high quality that you continue to produce.

— Bill Hutchison, May 16, 2006
Rachel, I admire your Zen-like approach to the situation. You handled it with aplomb and I back your decision to resign from from the position. Michael has acted in a very disrespectful and insulting manner and instead of biting back you have maintained a real professional integrity, one that you earned through awesome work and great work values. You will pick up many fans from the way you have approached this situation and I can see from the posts floating around the web that you have many people on your side.

— Gareth, May 16, 2006
What a total dick. I have lost my respect totally for Michael Arrington and many others have after him making that post.

I love your work and always will and you are always a great help when it comes to webdesign stuff

— Cam, May 16, 2006
[...] UPDATE. Rachel has resigned from the Techcrunch blog after a what I can only assume is a lapse of judgment by Mike Arrington in publishing someone else’s idea of an improvement to the design. Good for me — now maybe she’ll have more time for the projects I want to hire her for. Also, Darren Rouse adds some of his usual temperate good sense over at Problogger. [...]

— Design Hell » Names@Work » Blog Archive, May 16, 2006
Rachel, I’m not sure I understand the whole story. I’ve read posts and posts about the redesign of Techcrunch, and I can’t recall Mike telling he didn’t like your design. So why the f*ck are people so mad at Mike ?
He posted a “mock-up” some anonymous dude did, and that’s all.
We all know, a design has to go through many iterations and adjustments before being 100% effective.
You delivered a product you can be proud of, don’t get mad at Mike because he wants to do minor changes for “no reason”.
I don’t want to seem harsh or rude, I do think it’s part of our job to accept this kind of behavior..

— Tim, May 16, 2006
You’ve been professional all the way down the line, to an impressive degree. Kudos.

— Rebort, May 16, 2006
Rachel,

If I am correct, more than all the criticism the post by Mike Arrington did the dirty work. It is sad but unfortunately Mike has lost a wonderful designer of his blog. The design that he showed is just a little less bandwidth intensive.. He could really use some tact.

I think Mike should have taken all the damage for the design, redirecting some at you was a bad thing to do.

Do keep good designs rolling and don’t let this discourage you; We all support you!

— Chrono Cr@cker, May 16, 2006
Are you kidding? You’re a designer. You of all people should be aware about the iterative process of tweaking and perfecting a design. Nothing is ever final or complete, especially on the web. And yet you take a defensive position, where Mike’s perspectives and philosophy have always been about collaboration, sharing, and being open. Personally, I think this says a lot about you as a person. It’s not like he didn’t pay you. It’s not like he said your design sucks. All he did was hat tip a guy who - in Mike’s opinion - went out of his way to make a mockup. But I don’t think your fragile ego allows you to understand Mike in this case as a customer, and thereby took it personally. Apparently you had other expectations pinned to this entire thing. Maybe you’ll explore your feelings about that, not overreact so harshly, and make better decisions in general for the next time. Other than that, keep up the good work, you have great designs.

— Mark, May 17, 2006
Mark … by posting the mock up after there was a wave of criticism following the redesign it was a poor way for Mike to handle it.

There was no explanation as to why Mike posted it, but it’s obvious he did it to quell the criticism concerning the decisions he made about the redesign.

To me it was a direct slap in the face to a partner.

— Patrick Grote, May 17, 2006
I’d suggest instead of throwing in the towel so early to learn why your client was unhappy with the design — likely he wasn’t or he wouldn’t have implemented it — stop and listen, and learn. He’s listening to his readers who have comments/feedback and trying to make some adjustments as he sees fit. If *he* wants to.

I honestly wouldn’t want to hire a designer (or anyone!) who quit at the first indication that the client might like another design better than the one they had originally provided. I’d use it as an opportunity to better understand where you could have changed your ideas, or maybe asked better questions, or ….

There are plenty of personal attacks on the internet in blogs — this was not a *personal* attack on anyone — it was positive feedback and thanks for a design he received.

I see that Mike has responded on his blog to all these criticisms.

— Aaron, May 17, 2006
Rachel,
You’re one of the best blog designers around and they’ve made a big mistake. I’m sure that this will only free you up to work on more projects that will interest you.
xxx

— Pete, May 17, 2006
This is hilarious. You know what the first thing that comes to my mind? Rachel is being a typical woman. Can’t take any kind of criticism and then flips out for no reason.

Rachel, if you can’t handle any kind of criticism, it’s time for you to get a new job. Don’t be a woman. Suck it up and move on. Michael’s even explained that what he did was just to show support for his audience yet you took it personally. Quite being a chick.

— John James, May 17, 2006
Congratulations Rachel! You’ve proved your exceptional style and class not only as a designer but as a person. Mike has lost a brilliant designer and a lot of respect.

You’re way better off without clients like Mike, and this will only improve your bright future.

All the best.

— Andy Howard, May 17, 2006
Mark…you’ve got to be kidding.

When the Tech Crunch design first came out it was established that:

1. Mike loved it
2. Rachel had virtually zero input, and coded the piece of crap that he “designed” if you can call it that.

Posting a mock up on your blog that a different designer sent you is just rude and classless on so many levels

— Jesse, May 17, 2006
You guys all need to chill out and put yourself in the position of having a blog with such a large community that Techcrunch does. Mike views Techcrunch not as his, but as belonging to the community - that is why he bothers to ask on his blog what people think of the design, post new suggestions and to listen to what the readers of Techcrunch have to say.

It is very very difficult to have such a large community of readers and to keep everybody happy, you need to have thick skin and not take things personally. Rachel obviously can’t handle the collaborative aspects and is now spitting the dummy because it’s not all about her anymore.

— James Jithers, May 17, 2006
Tim:

“You delivered a product you can be proud of, don’t get mad at Mike because he wants to do minor changes for “no reason�?.
I don’t want to seem harsh or rude, I do think it’s part of our job to accept this kind of behavior.”

No, Tim, it’s not part of “our job” (I’m assuming you run a design firm) to be expected to incorporate other people’s design ideas into our own. I don’t know about you, but Rachel is at the caliber where she doesn’t have to mess around with this cookie-cutter changes, she can just quit, like she did, if she feels she’s getting the raw end of the stick.

Do you consulting work, or do you work for someone full-time? Your sentiment sounds like someone still stuck in the employee position rather than the client/designer position.

— Mike Rundle, May 17, 2006
Low, low, low. On so many levels. Do tell if Mike gave you a heads up Rachel, or if you discovered the post as everyone else did.

— Derek Punsalan, May 17, 2006
[...] Rachel resigns as the TechCrunch designer [...]

— 5ThirtyOne | How not to treat your designer, May 17, 2006
I far prefer your design rachel. Can I have it if he is no longer going to use it.

Keep up the chin, and indeed the great work
Dave
http://blog.brightonvibes.com

— David, May 17, 2006
[...] Rachel resigns | 5ThirtyOne | JOAB | Pearsonified | ProBlogger | Solo Technology | Names at work | Vox’s Bookshelf [...]

— resiny.org » Blog Archive » Utterly lacking in class, May 17, 2006
[...] Rachel resigns | 5ThirtyOne | JOAB | Pearsonified | ProBlogger | Solo Technology | Names at work | Vox’s Bookshelf [...]

— resiny.org » Blog Archive » Utterly lacking in class, May 17, 2006
Sorry about the double trackback. feel free to delete the first one and this comment

— Jesse, May 17, 2006
Rachel, I’ve always admired your work and the new TechCrunch design is no exception. I think I would have had the same reaction as you did to what happened. I hope the upshot of all this is that you gain increased visibility and recognition leading to better jobs in the future.

— Anne, May 17, 2006
Man, I’ll bet that all that photoshop finger-painting left you totally unprepared for the posibility of a client wanting to change a design that everyone in the circle-jerk blogosphere already said they hated.

Maybe you should continue making the same WEB TWO POINT OH style sheet 50 times for a million stupid blogs, and stop crying to your sycophantic fans.

— Yeah, sure, May 17, 2006
His loss, you are a sweet designer.

— C. Wess Daniels, May 17, 2006
what was stupid was the idea to make people vote about it, and so soon. The public ALWAYS prefer the old design, just because they are used to it. It’s been always like that, thats why people can’t vote about the new ABC logo or the new Times re-design etc.

Thats why designer learn design and thats why they are paid for the design they create.

— nlx, May 17, 2006
Sorry that happened, Rachel. I had something similar happen to me a few weeks ago. We helped launch a brand with a new web site. They were appreciative at the time and the site did very well making it to the top of Digg.com, del.icio.us, Slashdot, and Technorati (http://tinyurl.com/8sjgw - see comments). When it came time to redesign the site post-launch, a project I was hoping to use your blog design services for, the client chose to use another resource. This is fine but they essentially slapped us in the face whilst waving their arms to announce the new look. http://blog.krugle.com/?p=105. Oops. I guess someone there is not a fan of the Web 2.0 design aesthetic. I assume they didn’t intend to be mean but the words hurt just the same. Rachel, you launched CrunchNotes and can always be proud of and reference that work.

— Brian McNitt, May 17, 2006
If you design something, it is his. He is free to do whatever he wants to it. Sometimes it’s difficult to use just one person on a design, many times you see way more than one.

I think it’s a sense of immaturity that I see, when you cry about the fact that someone changed your design. He paid for it, and you did it, he’s free to do whatever he wants. Simple as that.

— Anthony Timberlake, May 17, 2006
Having used you as a designer on several occasions, I know you are showing class and holding your peace.

The TechCruch guys aren’t going to tell the story, because I don’t think they have the emotional skills to figure it out.

Class and respect isn’t being shown there.

It is here. I commend you. And since they wish to blame you, I think resigning is a mature and wise choice. They want it both ways, all ways, and tough. Good on you for backing up and getting out.

It’s not like you’re begging for work, or treating your clients like second class citizens.

I read some of the criticism, you don’t deserve it, and I am sorry.
I’d be angry, hurt and happy to move on.

Keep up the great work.

— Bene Diction, May 17, 2006
We support you Rachel!

— Dennis Bullock, May 17, 2006
Wait, now we have two categories of hipsters? Web designers AND blog designers? Isn’t a blog a kind of website? So wouldn’t it be inclusive enough to just say “I design websites?”

Sorry, I just think you’re all a bunch of primadonnas. You’re making stuff for the intardweb, not painting the Sistine Chapel. If you really think otherwise, just be sure to never leave your social network of yes-men who’ll perpetuate the reality distortion field.

— scurvyman, May 17, 2006
*yawn* Ok scurvyman. Thanks for knowing everyone so well that you feel qualified to make such imperialistic statements

— Regan, May 17, 2006
Inhale some more of whatever it is you are smoking there scrurvyman. Just don’t let your mum catch you.

Let’s see your site and blog designs. I bet they are peachy.

— Bene Diction, May 17, 2006
There’s nothing so great about this design, medicore at best.

— Anthony Timberlake, May 17, 2006
Aghh.
Rachel, why are so kiddish?

— scar, May 18, 2006
“The TechCruch guys aren’t going to tell the story, because I don’t think they have the emotional skills to figure it out.”

Perhaps you missed the post where Arrington did, in fact, tell the story. Here is a link, which you may find helpful when you’re done kissing ass:

http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=209

— Yeah, sure, May 18, 2006
This reeks of childishness. Seriously, someone had some good ideas, ideas that weren’t your own, and the head dude in charge may use them. You are a hired hand. He requests, you do, he pays you. Everything else is gravy.

I just don’t see the connection that you are somehow a bad designer or are snubbed when someone else has good ideas as well and they are recognized for it.

Good luck next job. I wouldn’t hire someone this sensitive.

— Evan Erwin, May 18, 2006
Web designers are incredibly annoying.

— pwb, May 18, 2006
[...] May 15 (marked 16): Cunliffe resigns. On her blog. Michael doesn’t find out until he sees a trackback. [...]

— viatrax.net » Trying… to hold back… from commenting…, May 18, 2006
I find it amazing that all this drama came from one post that has a screenshot of a modified design submitted by a reader.

I saw the blog posts critiquing M. Arrington for ‘dissing’ his designer and they all link to that post with the one screenshot saying “I like some elements of this design�?.

I keep going back to that blog post to see what Mr. Arrington wrote there that was so offensive and couldn’t find it. He never says “Rachel’s design sucks�?. He never says “I dont like the redesign�?. He just says “I like some elements of this reader-submitted design�?. And that’s what all the drama is over?

Designer does design. Designer gets paid. Gets upset that client doesn’t like all aspects of the design and plans on changing it. Guess what? That’s 100% fair and he has every right to change it.

If this is how all designers behave, then I’d hate to ever hire one.

— Jon, May 18, 2006
Mike seems utterly blindsided by this. He publically praised Rachel’s design. He posted a design by some other random guy (who did it gratis) and said there were some valuable elements that he might swipe…

I think this is a great example of internet overreaction. Rachel misread Michael. Michael didn’t anticipate her sensitivity to the events.

For the people who thinks what Rachel did was “classy”, I would disagree. Unless Mike did other things to tweak her, she should’ve called him to discuss the issue, and resigned gracefully if she confirmed that he wasn’t satisfied with her work.

My gut feeling is that Rachel was already upset about all of the negative reaction from the community and was “primed” to over-react.

To be honest, they both owe each other an apology.

— Tony Wright, May 18, 2006
Part of being a good professional designer is knowing how to not take comments about your work as personal attacks on you.

— Darrel, May 18, 2006
I’m astounded - having worked in web design and software development for several years - as to why so many people think that quitting after receiving one critique of a design is either professional and/or classy.

Sincerely, Rachel, what am I missing here? I’m not tyring to dogpile but were there other reasons than this?

— Justice, May 18, 2006
So Justice, it’s not professional for Rachel to announce she has resigned as the designer for TC but it would be professional to disclose the workings of her relationship with Michael Arrington and all the ins and outs of what went on? Sheesh. Read between the lines!

— Regan, May 18, 2006
Much ado about nothing It seems as if both the parties involved have gotten back to their daily businesses. so perhaps it’s time for the rest of us to drop the issue, and get on with life.

amazing how everything on the ‘net gets exaggerated 10x

— saurab, May 18, 2006
“So Justice, it’s not professional for Rachel to announce she has resigned as the designer for TC but it would be professional to disclose the workings of her relationship with Michael Arrington and all the ins and outs of what went on? Sheesh. Read between the lines!”

No, moron, it’s not professional of her to resign in the middle of the night via fucking blog post, because of one screenshot, instead of handling it like, you know, a professional.

Justice is right - either there’s something going on here, or Rachel was acting like a child.

— Yeah, sure, May 19, 2006
To clarify, I did not resign via a blog post.

— Rachel, May 19, 2006
Yeah, sure… I guess you’re right. As Rachel’s husband, what would I know. I mean, I wouldn’t know that she emailed Michael first. And I also wouldn’t know what else was going on.

And I’m also sorry that you’re too stupid to know the difference between “I RESIGN” and “I HAVE JUST RESIGNED”.

But what would I know. I’m a moron.

— Regan, May 19, 2006
Yeah sure…work on the verbal skills. -
When I hire a designer I work with them.

I am taking sides here, deal with it.

— Bene Diction, May 19, 2006
When i wrote this post about arrington’s treatment of the online storage gang and his weak profile of Mozy, he immediately wrote me an email. This is what he said:

“Your post is incredibly insensitive. There must be a motive”

Several emails later, he apologized and wrote this:

“I’m sorry to be so thin-skinned.”

I think he’s the sensitive one, and not you. Best of luck.

Pete Abilla
http://www.shmula.com

— Peter Abilla, May 20, 2006
You’re a moron for resigning. And you couldn’t have done it in a more improper way. Jackass.

— me, May 20, 2006
I think you take yourself VERRY seriously, Rachel. Mike was simply giving a shout out to the community. You letting your ego get in the way is very traditional-media of you.

If I’m missing a few steps in this process I may have to stand being corrected.

— Jory Des Jardins, May 20, 2006
I’ve been reading this saga as it’s evolved. At first I wondered how Rachel had responded to the excruciatingly negative comments about the work she did. Did she complain? Was she hurt? The criticism was very harsh and very public.

I had never seen TechCrunch before so I had no pre-concieved notions about it. The design looked fine to me, not wonderful, not horrible, but about as masculine as I would have expected, and certainly a lot better than I could do.

Then she posted her resignation, so I popped over to TechCrunch to see what was up before I’d even finished reading her sentence.

It seemed to me that while Rachel was completely silent as people ripped her work to shreds, her customer couldn’t handle the complaints and so his posting of an alternative design was some sort of way of dealing with the situation. It seemed sort of mean to me. He could have sent along the screenshot and asked Rachele to redesign it again more like that if that’s what he wanted. But instead it seemed like some sort of public humiliation that he chose to do instead.

I have no idea whether Rachel’s response was unprofessional or not, but it was certainly subdued. I could only hope to be so restrained. The whole situation is terribly unfortunate. And as people continue to pile it on she still maintains silence. Biting her tongue? Being professional? I do not know.

All I can say is Rachel is my new hero and I only hope I can be as restrained as she has been as my own career continues to move forward. I hate being a designer. People are ruthless and say things they’d never say to any other professional. And yet my life continues to move in that direction.

Thanks, Rachel, for this peek into your world. I hope to learn from it.

— Diane, May 21, 2006
[...] Rachel, you may have had every right to quit the TechCrunch project, but you come off looking flaky, unprofessional and hypersensitive. You may be a great designer, but if you can’t handle yourself professionally and take the high road, people will not want to work with you. Firing a client should be done with finesse, and not a blog entry penned in the heat of the moment. Couldn’t you at least wait 24 hours for Michael to actually read the e-mail and respond? [...]

— High School 2.0 - Blog Network News, May 24, 2006
Please, this is why people want to outsource overseas–to avoid the ego and entitlement some people here have.

If you can’t take the criticism, then charge a high enough price so you can!

— Cary, May 26, 2006
Rach,
I just wanted to lend my voice in support of you. Knowing you, I’m sure that you have done the right thing. It’s sad to see some of these people who don’t know you, taking things at face value and ignoring the facts. To say that you are a prima donna is really laughable!

— The other Rachel., May 27, 2006
[...] the resignation the comments - look for Dave Krug’s posts [...]

— crawlspace|media, May 29, 2006
Prima donna. Unprofessional. There are better ways to handle “alternative suggestions” than to bail! I’m appalled. Time to find a new client…if someone can deal with you, more power to them.

— Me, May 31, 2006
wow your ass must be sore from everyone kissing it. check your ego at the door. your not as special and great as you think you are and your actions clearly show it.

— the truth will set you free, June 21, 2006
[...] mySpace Take a drink every time some technology writer (read: hack) lists the value of mySpace any dollar over what you can find in your seat cushions. {ok we made that one up} So now we add to this noble list with the Michael Arrington TechCrunch OpenHype Bar game. First you need to sneak a bottle of Wild Turkey into Ritual and top off your mocha with a hearty splash of 101. Launch your RSS client and start drinking. Take a drink when Michael calls something ‘killer’. Take a drink everytime TC reviews sites that offer almost the same features, yet fails to interject any analysis declaring one better than the rest. Take a drink every day Edgeio loses money Take a drink when a website using AJAX is referred to as ‘app’. (this could very well kill you, if you are not gifted in heavy drinking.) Take a big chug whenever you’re sure Mike is XMLing smoke up your ass. You can tell he’s just copy-and-pasting the PR email and adding the word ‘killer’ here and there for good measure. Good, hard pull everytime Mike gets testy with another blogger. TechCrunch starts yet another Crunch ’spinoff’, sorta like a blog version of Jodie Loves Chachi, finish the bottle. Whenever Mike promises to comp your blog writers some free tickets to his party then totally negs on you because ‘the list is getting a bit tight’ hit him with the empty bottle. Revenge is a dish best served cold, Mssr. Arrington. [...]

— Supr.c.ilio.us: The Blog » I’ll Drink To That, September 30, 2006
[...] So now we add to this noble list with the Michael Arrington TechCrunch OpenHype Bar game. First you need to sneak a bottle of Wild Turkey into Ritual and top off your mocha with a hearty splash of 101. Launch your RSS client and start drinking. Take a drink when Michael calls something ‘killer’. Take a drink everytime TC reviews sites that offer almost the same features, yet fails to interject any analysis declaring one better than the rest. Take a drink every day Edgeio loses money Take a drink when a website using AJAX is referred to as ‘app’. (this could very well kill you, if you are not gifted in heavy drinking.) Take a big chug whenever you’re sure Mike is XMLing smoke up your ass. You can tell he’s just copy-and-pasting the PR email and adding the word ‘killer’ here and there for good measure. Good, hard pull everytime Mike gets testy with another blogger. TechCrunch starts yet another Crunch ’spinoff’, sorta like a blog version of Jodie Loves Chachi, finish the bottle. Whenever Mike promises to comp your blog writers some free tickets to his party then totally negs on you because ‘the list is getting a bit tight’ hit him with the empty bottle. Revenge is a dish best served cold, Mssr. Arrington. [...]

— Supr.c.ilio.us: The Blog » I’ll Drink To That, September 30, 2006
[...] In the wake of all the bad press and even worse commentary from Michael over at CrunchNotes, Rachel Cunliffe resigned as the TechCrunch designer. I hope like hell that she collected a nice check before making her announcement. [...]

— Why Hire an Expert? (Or What the Hell is Mike Thinking?) | Pearsonified, October 3, 2006

When it comes to the crunch

May 16, 2006

See also

Comments