We recently read an article from Basecamp designer, Jonas Downey on how fragmented the design industry is becoming, and we can’t help but agree. He makes a hugely valid point about the absurd number of different names for design roles and titles.
One thing that really stuck out to us was the quote ‘I believe Design requires a holistic grasp of problems, potential, and materials.’ At Magnetic, our designers are not only capable of, but also comfortable with working across a variety of different disciplines and responsibilities. A good designer is not limited by ones job description; they should have the ability to be flexible and think outside the box when finding creative solutions. Furthermore, a good designer should be willing to take on tasks not necessarily assigned to a ‘designer’, like project management, copywriting and coding.
You may have noticed from our previous job descriptions that we don’t categorise our designers into boxes. We aren’t looking for people that specialize in UI or UX, because if you’re a ‘designer’ you should be able to grow into experts of a range of disciplines. We have a philosophy of continuous learning and we want our team to be constantly improving their skill set. It keeps work interesting, and it makes you a much more valuable asset. We won’t group anyone into a box, because design thinking is all about thinking outside the box!
Photo by Sanwal Deen
