Natural-Born Designers Can Learn to Design Anything.


Posted by Ken Ramsley , Jan 17,2000,21:50 Post Reply    Forum

At the outset of the 21st century -- that futuristic time of George Jetson and his single-button job, the design workplace, at least, has fulfilled that vision. Centered almost exclusively on the designer's expertise with one software tool or another, we are forced to specialize in ways far more narrow than our natural abilities might like. Once we may have conceived an entire product, but nowadays we only have time to learn about the mechanical tool or the electronics software or the architectural system or the gaming editor. Such are the realities of a complex world.

So it is no wonder that we are pigeon-holed by this expertise despite any hopes for other areas of work. Whether we like it or not, having had our fill with one tool, we seem nevertheless to be stuck with it.

Perhaps it should not be so. Perhaps designers should be encouraged to work in new areas. It would bring a freshness to our activities, no doubt. But nobody is going to make this happen for us.

And so I ask -- are we really stuck on this path... forever to work on the same sorts of projects using the same sorts of software?

No. Of course not. We are our own agents in life. We can learn new skills and talk our way into new situations. A natural-born designer can learn to design anything -- including our careers. We do not have accept stagnation.

Unless we want to!