Designers need to learn from each other
Something got my back up today. To be perfectly honest, this is something that's been bubbling away under the surface for many years. Today it boiled over. Today Adobe announced a new product promising "Design and publish HTML websites without writing code" Although a massive debate erupted about this, the new product wasn't the issue for me, the anti-print design sentiment that it spawned in various people was. I got just a little bit fucked off with the attitude of some web designers towards print designers. For as long as I can remember, there has been a divide. It's not even a proper divide, it's a perceived divide made by designers in both disciplines who have little understanding of the others industry, skills and knowledge. It's small minded, petty and destructive, in short, it's bollocks. We all need to move on from this.
Why this shouldn't be an issue for designers
Real designers are hungry for knowledge, hungry to express ideas and hungry to know absolutely everything. A designer can point out their own weaknesses and failures and can find solutions. Basically, a designer can solve problems in elegant, unpredictable and surprising ways. The medium of doing so is secondary to what the problem actually is and, what the ultimate solution may be. If something has to be learned to give life to that solution then something will indeed be learned.
Learn, learn more, keep learning. Now discover that you actually know quite little
When I started out, It didn't take me very long to discover that actually, I knew very little. At that early point in my career, I went nuts absorbing as much knowledge as I possibly could about everything I could think of. I knew at that point that my biggest gap in knowledge was to do with web development. I spent years grafting to remedy that. Guess what? I still know a lot less than I'd like to. This holds true for designers in all disciplines. Different sets of tools, different outputs and often different considerations but still a hell of a lot to learn and to stay on top of. Throughout my career, I've made sure i've worked in design for print, print production, web design, web development and design/animation for motion graphics. I've done enough in each field to realise that I know much less than I ever though I did. I do something about this though, I work really hard to stay on my game, I spend a lot of time learning about concepts, techniques, languages, theory and tools. Right now for example, I'm back in amongst typography and this is where my next point is going to come from.
Work with designers who actually give a shit
I am extremely lucky to work with designers (yes, print designers) who passionately care about their work, want to know everything they can and are hungry for new solutions. If you don't work with people like this, it's time to find another job. We do have banter (I should really stop calling them "crayon monkeys" to be honest) but we all respect each others skills and expertise. A united design team is solid gold. We learn from each other, we discuss design decisions as a team. When I want to learn more typography, I have people on hand, only too happy to help. This kind of knowledge sharing is priceless. I can apply what I know, they can apply what they know and we all end up collectively better, with better solutions and with happier clients. When someone gets excited about some new js or some quirky css, my life improves. This works both ways. Today for example I got excited about paper samples. That hasn't happened for many years. I have fine tuned my expertise on the web but I haven't forgotten the principles and methods from the other disciplines I've worked in (well, maybe i've forgotten some stuff). These design principles and methods cross over, there is much to learn from each other.
Do something out of the ordinary. Mix it up
If you're a web designer, go and play around in InDesign for a while, see what you can learn. See if you can find any of the irritations/problems that print designers have and see what your solutions might be. What would you do on the web with this flexibility of design, what ideas do you have? If you're a print designer, ask a web designer for some code to play around with. Tinker with it, see what things do, see what the frustrations and problems are, think about what you could do with this. Once you're done, go and have a beer and a chat with each other. There will probably be new ideas that have come to light. Do something about them.
Stop the negativity and bitching
In my opinion, it is downright childish to continue with this print/web designer nonsense. There is no battle to be had. Sure a web designer will largely do a better job at designing a website and a print designer will do better with an annual report but if you worked together instead of bitching, collectively the results may well be better. Try it. The energy you would spend slating a print designer doing web design would be better spent by learning more, experimenting more and collaborating more. You'll be surprised at what you learn and at what you can produce. If you have no desire to work together and cross disciplines, I'd suggest it's maybe time to call it a day and get a job you actually like.
I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from our junior designer. That's right, our junior designer. Now go and collectively build brilliant things, that's why you became designers.
