Imagine a major automotive company running a TV ad about how their cars now have windshield wipers. Eli has a point here.

Can someone tell me what's so problematic about this tweet? Our industry is the only one that I've seen that shies away from criticism, unless it's directed at a large company outside our little bubble (like a GAP rebrand or something).

What's wrong with voicing an opinion? Dangerous road to start muzzling designers/critics just because it seems "mean" to you. This industry needs thicker skin.

I take Eli's point. I had a similar initial reaction to the Framer video. I never feel the need to voice these types of reactions in public personally, but its good that other people are different and there isn't anything inherently wrong with them expressing their negative reaction.

I think with Eli, there is context here that is important. It feels to me that Jon and some other people in that thread are more or less responding to Eli's consistently shallow cynicism toward the design world. This tweet is only the latest example of that – "This is what we're reduced to." I'm fairly new to this world and I followed Eli for a bit after a funny tweet of his showed up on my feed one day. Eventually I unfollowed him, because boring, "what the world is coming to?" cynicism is a pretty accurate summary of his account.

I hope I won't be misunderstood here – I really do believe that there are interesting and important reasons to be critical about the "design world," but what Eli does is smirk, quip, and occasionally insult in the way that I did online when I was around 16. His tweets are nearly all written in a "holier than thou" tone and he is constantly throwing around critical terms in a slightly off-key, cryptic, "first day we learned dialectics in Phil 1A" way.

And just like 16-year-old me, once anyone asks the reasonable question of "Where precisely do you get off being so unpleasant?" he hides behind the idea that what he is offering is a form of valuable cultural or aesthetic "criticism" or "critique." What Eli offers (even when I don't take issue with his actual opinion, which is the case here and is often) is not vital cultural or aesthetic criticism. He isn't some Edward Said of design. He is almost never insightful, informative, or particularly studied – he's an edgelord whose discourse peaks at funny tweets and rarely escapes self-serious, "money is just paper, man" banality.

It's obviously silly to imagine that critics have to also do the thing they critique, but criticism is an art and it's an important art only in so much as it discerns, clarifies, and illuminates its objects to add to the understanding of its reader. In that sense, asking what precisely Eli adds is, in my view, a very reasonable question.

The more I read the Tweets hating on Eli Schiff, the more disturbed I get by the state of designer egos.

How are such well respected designers this sensitive over a Tweet like this, and how can they seriously say things like this about criticism? Criticism should be done in private? You have to create at the highest level to be allowed to critique? The absolute line for criticism is being polite and respectful?

What has happened to us?

Can we just ban Eli Schiff posts on DN already?

Love how all the people who argue with him make him more relevant, there's some high profile ones too

Can I both like Framer's gradient video AND Eli's point?

It's kind of disappointing to see how harshly even well known and celebrated designers take Tweets like this.

It was not his intention to give design advice. And I agree with him on this one.

Are gradients in an app be a big deal?

Not really.

Is there anything wrong with making a promo vid for it?

Not really.

Marketing is all about getting more eyes on your product. As a small business owner, I fully support and understand what Framer was doing with this promo vid. I have personally made it a big deal on social media when I made very small changes to my product. Those announcements will be seen by existing customers, but they might also be the very first time someone has seen my brand and interacted with my content. Seeing Framer put so much effort into a cool product video made a very positive brand impression on me. The video was great! Really well done! And my trust in them as a business is better because of it.

Do they really think gradients are that big of a deal?

Honestly, probably not.

But that's not the point. This is video isn't really about gradients. It's about being another brand touchpoint to establish credibility and trust in the market. Every tweet, every post, every article, every video, and every interaction with your customer base reflects back on your brand.

In my personal opinion, their gradient video left a very positive brand impression.

The barrier to entry to being a designer is so low, that the industry is jam packed with people who can't take criticism and take themselves too seriously. I almost wish it was harder to become a "designer".

bahahaha I love how worked up everyone gets about this. On both sides.

Eli Says something. Backlash ensues:

Backlash to the backlash

hey, Tropical Hooch, please be fair with the DN community and next time use #elischliff tag in the title...

This was brilliant marketing. Got nearly the entire design industry talking about Framer's features now.

Don't know why some people praise what he said as if he is some kind of brave hero in dark time that dare to speak the truth, so deep, constructive and insightful while the other feared to voice it out — he's just a man that have no manner. That's what he is. I think straightforward opinion and rudeness is not the same thing. You can be constructive without demeaning other people's work.

What he did is insult people's hard work with his own opinion that created in a vacuum. I mean, I'm sure he didn't give a damn about talking to the Framer team about the strategic reason behind the gradient video decision. He just don't like it and want to rant,

and we all to blame to give him the attention.

Design should be about the user. The user, in this case, is a designer so the notion of a feature video highlighting a design feature isn't a bad thing. The video itself is nice and will likely convince many designers to try the tool. That's the point of a promo video. I think the headline could articulate the more of the breadth of the design tool. A headline about gradients doesn't highlight the product benefits around simplicity, animations, and dynamic expression.

As a design community, we should invite skeptics, critics, and naysayers with open arms. If you can't articulate your design decisions, how do you know they are any good? At the same time, we should encourage critics to explain their critique and offer alternatives. That's the only way that new designers can get better and experienced designers can hone their craft.

What a dick.

Just a little reminder that we are in the "business" of critique. If you can't handle it, then you chose the wrong profession. Your colleagues will critique your work, your clients will critique your work, and users will critique your work. You won't always like it – but it's going to happen anyway. Learn how to handle feedback and argue your point respectfully.

What Eli is criticizing here isn't Framer, it a whole industry. He just focused on this as a means to argue his point. I've yet to see a solid rational argument in the other direction (not about Framers gradients, but about the Industry's penchant for promoting minor upgrades as ground-breaking). Seems like people saw who wrote the article and formed opinions without diving into the actual substance of the piece.

Wow, this is a hot potato.

I may have missed a comment, but no one seems to have pointed out that the big fuss and coverage around Eli's tweet came from those who didn't like it, not Eli himself.

Why didn't Jon Gold just let it go? Eli is entitled to his opinion, and I can see why Jon disagrees, but it was no big deal really until Eli's critics made it a big deal.

They both have good points about design critique, the fragility of designers, and where the community is at right now. And I'm sure they both agree on many points.

How many people in this thread are building a product that is heavily relied upon by many talented creators within the digital world and are quickly iterating on it in an agile fashion? It would be interesting to hear those people's opinion's too.

I'd wager that much of the criticism here is from people who do not or have not found themselves in that situation.

When every small thing is emphasized as breathtaking, then the genuinely important things are no longer.

When every small thing triggers the design community, then the genuinely important things are no longer significant.

take eyes out of head to then roll them across the floor because normal rolling of eyes isn't enough.