Should you be a specialist, or a generalist?

Music and links from this episode

Break by Little Glass Men

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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 designers

Specialising as a designer in interaction is a tautology

Shouldn't everything you make be designed to be interacted with?

And what about when the trend veers back away from UI or UX design?

Where does that leave your very specific skills, honed so narrowly that they can only be applied to one area of design?

Specialising as a designer doesn't take into account the true makeup of the design industry

Most agencies are small, and when you're a small team you need to be multi-disciplined, and willing to work across lots of different mediums

Specialising as a UI or UX designer limits your true potential to large agencies, which might not be where the most rewarding work is

I don't mean to keep bashing on UI and UX designers

There are other examples of very specific...