What’s all this about Digital Design?
Digital design is coding right? No. It’s not.
Being a ‘Digital Designer’ means you’ll be staring at a computer for the rest of your life right? No. It doesn’t.
I don’t have any experience designing for websites or phones or tablets and wouldn’t know where to begin. Perfect - you’re in the best position possible.
There’s a lot of stigma around digital design, interface design, web design or pretty much any design that involves a screen. There are probably a million reasons for this but I suspect the major culprits include how quickly technology is moving, the fact that traditional education systems can’t keep up (how can they?) and all over the world education systems are teaching way too much code. (Most designers aren’t coders, they’re designers).
On a domestic level - how cluey do you think the board of education are to the new ipad retina display? Even if they were at the forefront of new technologies there is years of red tape to go through to update a curriculum on a certificate or diploma level and I suspect it’s an even longer process at the degree level. It’s no one person’s fault in particular, this is just what the world looks like right now.
So we (that’s you, me and everyone else in the industry) find ourselves in an environment where technology moves faster than education. In two years who knows what the landscape of technology will look like? Last year the use of tablet devices doubled to 18% and it’s expected to double again by the end of this year.
Scarey stuff right? Not at all. It’s an incredible time to be a designer. You just need the knowledge and experience to capitalise on these technologies and be on the front lines of the new wave of design solutions to make yourself an invaluable member of any team and advance your career.
I’m a ‘traditional’ designer but this year have set goals that I need to achieve before 2013 - and number one on the list is to gain a greater understanding tablet, smartphone and web design to the point where I could be a valuable person to have on a project. I have the advantage of access to some very talented people already working successfully in the field and whilst I wont be able to learn directly from them, I have kept my ear out and have learnt something. Which has strengthened my resolve.
If you want to be successful in the years to come:
Learn digital.
Cheers,
Flyn
NB | This is my first blog post in a while, I’d be surprised if anyone actually reads it. I’m making a concious effort to write here more often as a way to dump my thoughts at first, but then see where it goes. If you want to say hi, I’m on twitter here - @flyntracy
