Working With Aluminium
Q: I consider myself an interface designer, but some interviewers tell me I would fit better on their team as a front-end developer. I spend a lot of time writing code, but I want to work on design. Should I change my focus? What should I do about people who push me towards engineering?
A: Every design discipline has a technical component. Graphic designers need print, industrial designers need engineering, and digital designers need code. Elegant, efficient designs take into account the properties and limitations of their materials. Designers who do great work study their materials to understand the constraints in which they operate.
Go watch a video of Jony Ive talking about aluminium. He clearly loves the stuff. He’s spent hours thinking about it and experimenting with it. I bet some nights he goes home and shakes metal shavings out of his perfectly faded t-shirt. Nobody tells him that his uncommon enthusiasm for metallurgy means he should don a clean suit and work a CNC router in the factory. He learns what he needs to learn to get the most out of his materials, and the quality of his work reflects that care and attention.
This should be your attitude towards code as a designer. Learn all you can, and constantly apply it towards improving your designs. You don’t have to be a developer to take an interest and gain some proficiency. Sometimes having enough knowledge to ask the right questions is all you need. It’s your responsibility to be involved in the whole design process in any way you can.
Some people have old-fashioned ideas about separating design and code. They pigeon-hole people into separate camps and keep them as far away from each other as possible.
Fuck ’em.
The cross-disciplinary approach will yield better results every time. Get your hands dirty and stay engaged with the technical details. You’re a designer. It’s what we do. 💋
Liam Campbell writes code at Mule Design Studio when he isn’t busy engaging in civic discourse on Twitter. His spirit animal is a pelican eating an entire burrito.
