What QREATiv Is, and Is Not

Although we’re not trying to reinvent The Wheel this site does raise an immediate and obvious question:

With so many established and popular community sites for artists, designers, developers etc., does The World need another one?

Nope. Probably not. But I did, so I built one.

The Reason Why

QREATiv was conceived as an attempt to improve upon what I sometimes feel is a lackluster user-experience, or out-of-context and threadbare explanations found on some of the community sites I frequently use. That QREATiv also includes Reviews and (non-technical) Articles is a natural extension of the goal of publishing diverse, thorough, and well-written content.

This site is not setup as a forum or mailing list and, despite essentially being a blog, has no threaded comments. Why?

Keeping the author’s content uncluttered and on-point was important, thus making it quicker and easier for visitor’s to find content relevant to their interests and experience/skill level with fewer dead-ends. If you prefer ‘threads’ then this site will probably not appeal to you.

As I See It

Regardless of profession or interest, when looking for answers there’s no shortage of online resources. We all have our favorite go-to sites where we invariably begin our search. There are a lot of great (and not-so-great) resources out there, and while finding content relevant to our interests is the goal, the process can be frustratingly hit-n-miss and fractured.

Part of the problem is the convenience of the Web encourages lazy communication, often at our own peril. We comment, tweet and post in sound bites because it’s easy, fast and we don’t have (or want) to think too much. Too often effective communication takes a backseat to how quickly and easily we can say something, which may be fine for social media but not when you require deeper context.

The near ubiquitous Q&A format (forums, mailing lists, a.k.a. threaded conversations) can be extremely effective for imparting answers quickly and efficiently. I use them a lot. The downside is that it can also mean over-simplified or threadbare answers or worse, picking through disjointed, snarky or stream-of-consciousness replies all in the hope of piecing together disparate sound bites into a workable solution. None of which is much help for those times when I need a step-by-step explanation.

The hope is that QREATiv will, in time and with your help, provide resources that are thorough, well-written and of course, helpful to others like yourself.

— Todd
That QREATiv Guy