What it means to be a Full-Stack Designer

A designer’s ability to move between creative functions is not a luxury, it’s a business necessity.

For those who are not tech-savvy, the term “Full Stack” refers to the layers of technology in an application. For a developer, this commonly means having command over all of the technologies required in the development process of a project, from the interface (HTML, CSS), interactions (Javascript) and communication with the server (PHP). The technologies used may change depending on the tech stack, but the idea is that the developer has the skill set to take you through the whole process.

If we apply this thinking to the role of a graphic designer what does this really mean?

Some would argue that this means having to be a “jack of all trades and master of none” and that this role is not what graphic designers naturally want to be and that specialization is more native to creative sensibilities. Historically, specialization and compartmentalization have been an extension of how creative businesses work, and more importantly how they bill. For example, if account teams were to assign a senior designer and a UX lead to a project these would be two different people filling two different project roles.