Jack of all things design, master of one
Exploring the skillset of a multi-disciplinary designer and tapping the power that lay within.
In the best cases, design generalists can be defined as knowing a great amount about a great number of things. In the worst, they can be seen as a “Jack of all trade, master of none.” — Molly Nix
Simply put, design is problem solving. In a fast-paced world like ours, where technology is crossing borders beyond the dreams of our fore-fathers and stepping foot in almost every facet of life, design has morphed into an enormous industry with designers who possess diverse specialties.
Everyone has a role to play in light of innovation; and so a new breed of digital designers have emerged to the scene. You can be a visual designer who strives for pixel perfection or a product designer who designs experiences that delight users or a design engineer who writes codes to translate those pixels to 0s and 1s.
From the outside, these set of designers almost have nothing in common; but over the course of my growing career, working as a brand designer & art director, now a product designer at Interswitch, to designing web interfaces as a freelancer for some of the biggest brands in Africa like UBA to being an associate design consultant for Google — I’ve learned that designing, in whatever form it comes, for a diverse array of problems require application of one skill repeatedly for every new design solution. Whether I’m designing a poster to market a new product or I’m designing the product’s experience and interface or perhaps, I’m writing the codes to the product’s landing page, I require the same skill every time at every touchpoint — that one skill is empathy. It’s my super power.. it’s our super power as designers.
But how can one designer be able to go from one design specialty to another? The answer is by being an empathetic user-centric design generalist; The jack of all things design, master of one.
As a designer born and brought up in Lagos, Nigeria, my curiosity piqued at a very young age. Going into design with a background such as mine is a lot like going to a buffet, where a myriad of choices are available. A design specialist will identify a dish he’s familiar with and make good use of his plate’s real estate. Whereas, a design generalist will go along the service line and have a scoop of nearly every dish and will make a fine meal with succinct combination of a balanced diet. Yummy!
In a few bullet points, I’ll expose with a little bit of guidance the defining characteristics of a design generalist:
- Design generalists don’t design to impress, they design to express. They do what they do because they love doing it; and design is a way of life. Aligning user’s needs with business goals require a lot of finding balance in the middle and that goes far beyond trying to please a stakeholder to get approval. After all, a design is only successful if it communicates in the voice of the customer and delivers on business objectives.
- Design generalists are left-brain thinkers and right-brain doers. They don’t throw spaghetti on the wall hoping it sticks. They are able to be strategic about their designs, in meeting certain objectives which more often than not would be to align with a business’ goal. They usually start off with questions addressing the problem or idea and end off with a solution that brings the user some sort of satisfaction.
- Design generalists are fast learners and quick adapters. They are able to switch across a broad set of tools and use them efficiently. This is one skill necessary to make entering a new territory seem like comfort haven even on day one.
- They are good storytellers. With a habit of seeing things in a much different light, they understand deeply how things work and tend to observe the most interesting insights on work done. They tend to tell less about what a product does or how it works but why they work in the way they do.
- They value team effort and are highly collaborative. Knowing that two heads are better than one in making design decisions, design generalists are able to build good working relationships with designers, engineers and other cross disciplinary partners in tackling design problems.
Being a design generalist has made me a more confident and efficient designer who’s able to tackle problems and solve them effectively.
The design field is constantly evolving and there is always going to be exciting new challenges to tackle. Do you describe yourself as a design generalist? that’s cool — being a multi-disciplinary designer is special. If you define yourself more as a design specialist, read this article on a guide to modern design roles by Jason Marder and see where your super powers lay, waiting to be tapped.
