Single Focus, Interdisciplinary, or Full Range?
Recently, a colleague of mine named Mariko Sugita needed to hire a designer for a website she was creating. Since she’s an urbanist, especially digital, and she’s not involved in design, she asked the nearest designer (me) who happened to be there, “What kind of designer should I look for?”
After some thought, I realized there were a few possible answers, but none summed up the full range of roles that exist in our space today, and how each designer’s title actually describes their skills. There was no summary of what it represents.
This got me thinking about how accurate the scope of the role of digital design at Common Era 2018 really is. I started sketching my ideas. When Mariko saw the notes for this article, she said, “Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to know beforehand!”
Let’s start!
preface:
design skills paint stroke concept
It would be irresponsible to casually group designers without emphasizing that no two designers are the same. Here’s an idea from the person who came up with the idea for The Soft Skills Engineering Podcast. The basic concept is that rather than just thinking of a person’s ability to be T-shaped, that is, they have a broad understanding of many things and a deep understanding of one thing, their abilities are It’s about understanding that it’s better than a line of wet paint. via screen.
The paint forms broad lines across the top layer of the canvas, implying a basic understanding of many areas, but dripping in many places at varying depths representing varying depths of the designer’s varying skills. fall. The point is, whether it’s vector design, digital prototyping, user research, coding, motion graphics, or anything in the creative sphere, all designers have different levels of experience-based skills. is that you have Therefore, the title they call themselves on paper cannot be expected to define the body of their philosophy and experience.
“That’s fine, but I just want to know what kind of designer to hire!”
I can hear you loud and clear. So let us define some idiosyncratic deterministic titles, knowing that with a single deterministic title he can never really represent the whole picture of a person. .
All sarcasm aside, here’s a candid look (in my own personal opinion) on what reel designs are commonly seen. 1. Single focus design reel
“But Jasper, you said there is no such thing as a T-shaped designer!” And it’s not. But if you want to focus on hiring someone to do a specific thing for you, you can also find someone who calls himself a specialist.Usually holds one of these titles. A person who does can perform that particular job at a very high level. Also, yes, I put a frontend developer above the designer. The line between designer and developer has blurred so much these days that I feel it’s important to have a baseline of where a full-time developer sits on the spectrum.
Notes when reading these charts:
1.The top row of roles represents the overall breadth of that role, and the shading below represents different skills along the spectrum.
2. The role of interdisciplinary design
This is where the lines begin to blur between generalized roles, especially those of his UX designer as I see them.
