Is it actually better to not study UI design at all?

Was rummaging through old files, and found one of the early LookUp designs that was very colorful and changed background colors with different modes.

I miss how I could go crazy about my designs when I didn’t study design and didn’t know any better. Back in 2014, I had very little design awareness, I had taken one coursera course and that's about it. So I had no idea what "platform conventions", "consistency" meant. I was just too happy to be designing something. So the first iteration for LookUp was a massive change. It involved crazy colourscheme changes and a completely navy-blue and dark color theme.

Ofourse now I know better and now software must support a 1000 other modes, including light and dark, and every platform has its own convention and want not. It makes me wonder, how much of design education is seeking conformity to norms and how much is it really about expressing yourself.

Consistency is a term that's been borrowed, weaponised and industrialised in teh last few years. From meaning that two similar things should look similar so that people are not confused, it's gone on to mean complete conformity with the interfaces ordained by the company's star designers and the branding that the OS provider uses; more recently it also means taking the fun out of your icons because everything must look the same and everything must support the 10 other modes that the OS provides. Right?

Anyhow. Here's LookUp 2. I had so much fun making this design, more than 10 years ago.