111 - Be Good At Lots of Things

Should you be a specialist, or a generalist? Music and links from this episode Break by Little Glass Men Poolside by Little Glass Men Spray Paint It Gold by Little Glass Men Line-by-line notes INTRO Over the years, the design industry has flicked between different trends The gradient and bevel era where designers were first starting to work out how to use the new features that Photoshop allowed The skeuomorphic design trend, that saw every designer making things look real life things And the current design trends: very simple and clean design that some people think has gotten too simple There's even been trends that have dictated what a designer should be, or should do There's been the traditional graphic designer, who mostly designs print work There's the hybrid designer, who designs web and print stuff And there's the more granular type of designer that's become popular in recent years, the UI or UX design, or interaction designers. They've got different names every week The current trend is to tell designers that we should focus on one area of expertise. That we should be specialists and not generalists I disagree. And in this episode, I'll tell you why. This is AADA, and I'm Craig Burgess PLAY MID SONG In the past 12 years, I've designed lots of different stuff, and worked on lots of different projects I've even built apps and web systems, and dabbled with programming On top of that, I've even looked into video game design, and started trying to learn how to make games I didn't get very far with learning how to make games by the way But it's something I definitely want to return to learning about I truly do consider myself to be a hybrid designer I'm just as interested in getting my hands dirty in the technical side as I am the creative side I get equal parts enjoyment from right brain activities and left brain activities As a young designer, this kind of difference confused me I enjoyed developing stuff, so did that mean I should be a developer? But I'm a pretty good designer too, so should that mean I should be a designer? I was truly confused, and early in my career I nearly took a job as a developer Now, I'm glad I didn't I don't ever see my interest in lots of different topics as a designer as a bad thing at all In fact, I believe It's only turned me into a better designer over the years Because I can understand things from technical viewpoints As well as the creative side When I'm designing something new, I fully understand what can be achieved technically, so I can push the boundaries and not hold back I think any development activities I do as well help me with my problem solving abilities Development, coding, whatever you want to call it Is a creative endeavour You are creating something And you're solving problems And you're communicating Anybody who tells you otherwise is just wrong To me, a good graphic designer should be able to turn their hand to designing almost anything and be able to do a good job of it It's trendy right now to specialise To call yourself something like an interaction designer Or a UI designer But to me, all designers should be interaction designers Or UI...