Here in Hong Kong, what I see is that the design schools are quick to react to the whole mix of categories, everybody is in a hurry to catch up on building an app and innovations. But working in a college, I find that they are in such a hurry that the basics are often left behind.
There has always been that constant struggle between the “computer geeks” and the “design geeks” (then inside the design geek camp there are graphic designers vs the fashion designers, one thinking they could replace the other), and now the lines are blurred, and there are 2 parties who fueled this trend: it has to be the clients or the employers, and over time the design industry adapted.
Having browsed through D&AD, I don’t see the categories set up as “occupations”, but rather a display of the complex processes that goes in to design work. Designers get bored easily and every single one I’ve met are compiled with their unique combination of hobbies, and I’ve only started to realise the importance of knowing my own cards and how to magnify them for other’s to see.
The overlapping of categories happen when a problem/ project is put on the table, depending on the requirements the mentality and the eye for specific disciplines are then summoned, and then one of our most important job as graphic designers is to make them align and deliver a visual consistency which the viewer could fully submerge in to.
I don’t think any graphic designer could completely speak for another, we’re kinda like cats with a variety of coats and unique personalities. But speaking in reverse, personalities could fit back in to many categories, but it does come with practice.
Having work as a graphic designer and playing music are keys that have opened me in to many different realms, my mind is set to flip problems upside down and that music have gave me a sense of rhythm making me sensitive to video editing, sounds and words. To sum those all up though, I think it’s important to FEEL, since everything a designer does is being FELT by a viewer or audience; then we better get pretty darn good at self-judging and be in tuned with our feelings.
Here in Hong Kong, I don’t feel that many care about the categories, but the expectations of a graphic designer able to handle a range of acrobatic tasks is very common. I do think it’s important to keep the categories alive and well, the younger generation of designers need to know the existence of different disciplines and rolls, crafts, mentality and knowledge that does differ from one another; at the same time they should also know the connection between them. It is also important for the business people to recognise that how much labor, thoughtfulness and time actually does go in to productions, and that design is an organized, systematic discipline supporting the livelihood of a bunch of geeks like us!
ANDY was here 🤓 