2019.07.24 / Viewpoint

Designers‘ job are getting harder and harder

I always need to go to a client's company for a meeting every week, and takes a taxi for about an hour on the return trip. Once on the way back to the company, as usual a big traffic jam. The taxi driver casually chatted with me in order to pass time.

Taxi driver: what is your occupation?

Me: Oh, I am a designer.

Taxi driver: Design, sounds great ~ It should be very good to be a designer, a child of my relatives ...

During the conversation, I couldn't help but recall that I went to study in Europe and the United States, worked in different countries, and settled in Shanghai. I have been working in the design industry for decades, and had lots of experiences in dealing with various endless design assignments, staying up all night while doing projects for clients, criticized, seek advises from fortune teller, modify the project till I lost direction... until the final result that present a complete commercial product, with works affirmed by design awards ... and so on.

Entry level for design jobs have became lower

But the requirements for true "designers" have gotten more and more.

In recent years, the fact that many well-known businesses have witnessed organizational changes shows that “designers” have gradually reached the center of the business arena, and more and more “designers” have became important part of the core business, and even become partners. It is now the era of the designers. Most of the trending reports mentioned that in the future, the demand for "designers" will increase greatly which resulted in people thinking that the design profession is a very promising career choice. Mr. Muneaki Masuda, founder of Tsutaya Bookstore which was named "one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world", even said: "In the future, all companies are design companies"!

Whether one likes a design is totally subjective. But, it is absolutely certain that it is not an easy task to do a good design job. In recent years, due to the rapid development of science and technology and the spread of information, the entry level for design has become lower, but the requirements for becoming a true "designer" have gotten more and more. With the development of AI and digital technology task, the easy-to-use software allows ordinary people to easily complete the design. Many of the previous design and execution tasks have now even been handed over to the robot to complete quickly. Due to changes in social structure and people's lifestyles, the design trend pays more and more attention to "human-centered design", especially in the application of design thinking and innovation of design strategies, which requires that designers must have business acumen, interdisciplinary knowledge, systematic integration ability and a broad vision of continuous learning at the same time. Although there are easy to get tools on the surface to make design execution simple, the core and meaning represented by design are more complex than in the past.

Designers in the future should have "cross-professional competence"

I often hear that design companies are worried that they can’t find designers. At the same time, I have some designer friends who can’t find a job. What's going on? Design industry is no longer just looking for people who can use certain softwares or make dazzling and fast design drafts. In addition to being passionate about the design itself, I hope that the people who come here understand research and find information, observe and analyze, be curious, have empathy ... etc. To understand so many fields actually cause a conflict for many people who are engaged in the design industry or studying design. In the past, my designer friends often joked on why people studied design. The answer I often heard was that I didn’t love / or couldn’t read a book, so I went to study design. I didn’t expect that so many "cross-professional abilities" will be required.

Under this standard, a "good designer" is really scarce. For brand designers, many people think that as long as they can draw a logo, and then use a ready-made template to set up a basic brand guideline, they can claim to be a brand designer. But I think this approach will soon be replaced by AI, and they can only stay on as a graphics designer. Why do you say this, because the brand's system planning is definitely more than just a logo or font or a guideline.

The development and accumulation of a brand requires systematic thinking of multiple dimensions and strategies. Qualified brand designers need to be able to participate in business strategy discussions, and must have the skills to find problems with design and then find solutions. Design is a business capability, a service process that takes client value as the core, data analysis as the basic capability, and finally visualizes the service flow through the design. Real designers should use reasonable, pleasant and humanized design behaviors to maximize the commercial value of products, complete the innovation and refinement of social and human insights, and make design capabilities a creative business thinking and method.

In order to be worthy to be a designer and not sifted out by time, a professional designer needs continuous learning and further education. In addition to the interaction and communication from your domestic peers, they should also participate more in the design community abroad and accept the impact and inspiration from different cultures. I highly encourage all members to participate in foreign innovative design seminars every year, not just limited to design skills, but more about improvement in thinking and having different perspective.

Designers are not an easy job

I am very happy to see that designers have become a new generation of professional choices, but at the same time, I must honestly reflect that in fact a designer is not as glorious as the report feels, nor is it a career that leads to a high income. Although it is commercial design, clients are relatively subjective when looking at design. Designers need to have a strong enthusiasm and positive attitude. In the face of criticism, they can adjust their mentality well, stay confident, stay calm, and maintain a clear and organized professional work standard. From the business operation view, design is actually a job that you have to invest a lot of time and effort, but has a long payback period. A basic design project takes 3 to 4 weeks from start to completion, and sometimes it takes half a year to a year. Startup design companies often need to struggle where ideals and reality are intertwined. IDEO, Frog, and other internationally well-known design companies have received capital investment through corporate acquisitions, and have been able to escape the realistic challenges of operating in the design industry.

Design is actually a career that attaches great importance to self-cultivation. It needs to constantly break through the boundaries of self-cognition, find opportunities to communicate with business and the customers, and at the same time, it must adhere to the essence, emphasize self-motivation and guidance, and then achieve self-breakthrough growth. Only through these exercises can we accumulate the thinking and depth of the design profession and avoid becoming a "graphic design artist". For you who want to enter the design industry in the future or are working hard on the path of designer development, good design requires curiosity for new things and knowledge, insight into the nature of things, the ability to effectively communicate with people and convince others, and the determination and courage to persist in the face of setbacks. The most important thing is to truly invest in your emotion and believe in the value of design itself. Good design can bring more beauty to the world.

Design depends on perseverance,

Remember your mission and never forget why you started.