JKR

I recently read an opinion piece which suggested that there was a new breed of freelance designer emerging, one better evolved for today’s challenges. The three skills such a being would possess, which set them apart from the tired old model, were set out as:

1. Having influence (via blogs, twitter etc)

2. Being entrepreneurial (more blogging, developing phone apps and suchlike)

3. Being well informed and adaptable (more reading, and mastering the latest software)

As a vision for the future or template for what makes a good designer relevant, I find it appalling. I’m not blind to the irony of using a blog to comment on an overfixation on blogging, but this analysis seems to miss the very point of what being a designer is about.

The way to gain influence as a designer, real influence, comes from designing things that the wider world adopts. Talking about yourself and your views (in an entrepreneurial context) is infinitely less important than thinking about what you can originate – great design changes the game, it doesn’t spectate upon it. And being informed comes from living in the real world and producing design relevant to it, rather than gazing glazed-eyed at twitter feeds.

Speaking personally, I generally knock out the blog you are reading each morning on the tube – but it’s a sideshow to the day’s real work. Design is about deeds, not words.

To quote the blog which provoked my ire “The Old Designer does one thing  – design. They may be good at it or bad at it, but their primary job and source of income is design. Sound familiar? A New Designer goes beyond one simple skill set.” What patronising, shallow nonsense. It’s my privilege, at jkr, to work not just with bright young things but also characters such as Bob – a designer in his sixties who worked on the Aladdin Sane cover, collaborated on groundbreaking work for Bovis and Pirelli, and continues to take complex client problems and transform them into elegant solutions. I doubt he knows what a blog is, and twitter is a sound he enjoys in the park. But for me he personifies what design excellence can be, and it has little to do with making a name for himself online. And as for the new generation of colleagues, they might find inspiration online as well as in books, but they too know the proof is in the pudding, not a description of the recipe.

If it’s true that in the future designers will be rated as much for their views as their work, I’d prefer to kick it old skool.