Design isn’t a skill, it’s a muscle. Build it.

An energetic debate recently erupted around the unreasonable asks of employers around design.

The argument was essentially this; companies are being unrealistic when asking for a ‘unicorn’ to manage all the facets of design which would be more normally managed by a team of specialists. The sides in the argument were for and against specialism, (I was arguing for the latter) — but it’s really the wrong argument.

The argument should instead be about how and when we, as designers, attain specialism. You see, I’ve always thought of design like science. An approach, rather than a skill. Problem analysis, critical thinking, scenario mapping, and the use of frameworks and tools to build a hypothesis that can be tested and learned from.

If this argument holds water — it’s less about the specialism acquired and more about applying the methods of design to adjacent specialisms in order to understand how to improve the quality of the end to end experience.

I have a great love of specialism. In my time I’ve bemoaned the loss of lithographers, typesetters, editorial subs, Information architects, Film chemists, the list goes on. But I’ve come to realize that specialism should be rare. To take an entire human lifetime and focus it on a single facet must mean that the subject is of value to the entirity of human kind. Design should be able to harness the value of any specialist not rely on them to function.

But the World we live in is the reverse. Specialists are the rule and the comprehensive mind is the rareity — hence we find it hard to talk to each other and translate subject matter knowedge in a way that it becomes valuable to adjacent specialists.

Design is a muscle, built on a method. We must continue to practice it in order to build strength. And as with any strength training the diversity of excercise we undertake is the key to building a stronger human, and planet.