After being an in-house Creative Director for two tech companies, I went independent (freelance) in late November 2006. Since then, three potential full-time job descriptions have been sent to me by former co-workers or friends in attempts to lure me back into the “official” working world. But what was curious to me, and prompted me to want to write this post, is that every single job was looking for a graphic designer who was well-versed in design AND who had was proficient in various programming languages.
Do these people exist?
I’ve always been under the notion that there is some basis for the whole right brain vs. left-brain thing. The theory states that left-brain dominant people are more logical and analytic, while those who are right brained dominant were more artistic, creative and spontaneous. It seems that most people are born with a hemisphere dominance that may or may not have anything to do with what hand they choose to write with. While I write primarily with my left hand (corresponding to the right brain), I am ambidextrous in many tasks perhaps if only by necessity.
When it comes to design, I consider myself a Graphic Design General Practitioner (to use a comparison to medicine). I’ve not specialized in anything in particular, but my skill-set crosses many different realms of design including those that move into the technical (ie. UI design) and the creative (ie. logo design). I make every effort to read and study about the latest trends in graphic design and further my skills as a graphic designer. I enhance this knowledge by picking up tid-bits from other professionals such as engineers, marketers and public relations professionals. I’m always scanning magazines, the web, television and pretty much everything for good ideas and ingenious methods of presenting messaging through pictures, colors and text. But somewhere along the way, it seems that most employers expected me to be proficient in PHP, ASP, MySQL, CSS controls and have experience in HTML, XML, Javascript and ActiveX. (Not to mention the extensive Flash knowledge that most job requirements seem to have.)
So what happened to being a really talented graphic designer?
Perhaps budgets are crunched, times are tight, and companies are seeking just “average” design from a do-it-all graphic designer. The “just get it done” approach has seemed to be pervasive in most web-based environments I’ve been a party to lately. But how much programming knowledge should a designer be expected to have? Can we get by in just understanding how to design for these mediums (programming languages) or do we need to know how to engineer them ourselves as well?
I see those ads frequently… I don’t think they exist. Some of the required skill lists are absurd.
I think many companies believe that anyone can design because it’s only ‘making something pretty’, and therefore hire a programmer that is mediocre (at best) at design rather than budget to hire both a designer and a programmer that can do their respective jobs professionally.
Thinking more optimistically, perhaps many companies would ask for as much as they can and hope for a candidate that can fill as many of their needs as possible, setting their goals as high as possible knowing that they are higher than reality, but hoping for the best.
I have seen this a lot as I have looked into various jobs.
Scenario: A company wants a “Graphic Artist”…oh and they also want someone who knows Java, Javascript, PHP, PerlScript, Database management, how to make coffee and cheese crumpets, xhtml, actionscript, ASP, and use 3d programs as well such as Maya…so I have seen many programmers getting these so called “Graphic Design” jobs, but they can’t design…I guess the companies think that design is something anyone can pick up. Just throw some clip art on a page with a little papyrus text and call it good!
You are right it is a crazy world. Well, that’s it for now, I better get back to studying pascal.
I totally agree with this.. as a “developer” I’ll be the first to admit that most if not all my “design skills” totally suck. I mean I can look at something and say o.. that looks nice, but all in all I couldn’t have put it together from scratch to save my life. I have yet to work with any other “developers†who could do any design at a competent level. Most if not all the projects that I’ve worked on that didn’t have a “Graphics Artists†either failed or were so ugly that I don’t dare to show anyone the work. On the other side of the coin, I’ve worked with a number of graphic artists in the past and Loved it. They make my job so slick it’s not even funny. so.. For the companies out there that may happen upon this post, If you think you want both in one person you don’t. You want a good solid programmer and a good solid graphics guy. You will actually save time and money in the long run by employing both. The job will go much faster and you’ll be a lot happier with the results.