Me, Myself and Everyone else

Last weeks blog left a couple of questions unanswered, and this weeks class raised even more questions, or rather brought back to mind the questions asked in the first class of the module.

Those questions were along the lines of what are your responsibilities as a designer? What is your design philosophy? And other short and snappy ones to prompt answers.

For some designing away global warming is what they want to do, for others they will do everything they can to bring a smile to a person’s face.

My answers to those questions, well they are not exactly straight forward or as clear cut for me as they might be for some, at least in my head. Yes I want to improve the situation around sustainable manufacturing and help to bring smiles to peoples face but those are not things that are always at the forefront of my mind.

The most common thread for me is one of learning, or helping others to learn. I love to help people out in pretty much anyway I can. Sharing the things I learn with others and helping them with what they are stuck on. This sort of thing fulfils a rather selfish goal of mine to never stop learning, together with furthering other people along whatever path they are on.

Lets bring that a step further, there are always new things I want to learn, Be it design related or otherwise. Some may worry that I would become a jack of all trades and master of none. The reason for this is if you want to become known, you have to specialize before you can show other aspects of yourself.

Chris Do explains it very well using an example of Ronaldo; He was first a soccer player, and became very good at it, now he has clothing brands and other things that aren’t soccer related because he is known. How well would he do, or who would care if he did those other things before he was known as a soccer player? Like as not he wouldn’t have done very well. You could also liken it to a renowned surgeon, they can also do a myriad of other medical procedures but are known for their speciality.

I am not worried about becoming a jack of all trades, if that happens I would be happy. I am not one for talking myself up, and I am not sure that I want to be known, to be famous as such. I prefer to just be. The ideal is to make subtle changes that make big differences, but I guess what starts off as something small if it makes a big difference it becomes known and not so subtle anymore. But then again, when the big change becomes widely adopted and the norm, it is taken for granted and forgotten about.

Take for example the pencil and ballpoint pen.

These are things that I wish that I had come up with, both items revolutionised the way we documented things. but have since become an item we take for granted on a daily basis. They were brought to the moon. In fact there was a specific pen developed to work in space, when they could’ve just used a pencil. I am not knocking the fact that they came up with a way to have a pen function in space but there was a far simpler option.

Sometimes simple is best, and it is often overlooked. This is the case for most design portfolios that are out there, and it is often the feedback given by prospective employers, to keep things simple and clear so that they can stand out. I listened to an episode of The Futur podcast recently. The guest was Errol Gerson talks about contagious selling and design thinking. He talks about how simple things like making a slightly oversize CV, so that it would stick out when you try and organise a pile of papers, got him an interview for a job. I recommend that you listen to it at least once, I got a lot out of it.

I haven’t settled on how my portfolio is going to look, or what I will populate it with, but I hope that there is an element of simplicity to it when I get through the first iteration, as I am sure it will grow and mature with me as I progress along my own path.