When assessing the value in being a specialist or generalist designer, it is important to remember that depending on the context, there will be both pros and cons for each. Specifically, contributors such as demand, competition and skill-level need to be considered, as depending on each of these — and other — factors, the answer may be different.
To respond to the question posed as part of this assessment component, my thoughts will centre on the context of design education, aligning with the discipline choice of the design outcome.
There is a push to become interdisciplinary, both as an educator as well as a practitioner. For the most part, this is a valuable pursuit. At a pragmatic level, the ability to deliver lectures and tutorials across a broad range of topics makes for a more valuable employee, filling the needs of a varying cohort of students from study period to study period. For generalist and introductory subjects, such as art history and theory, this makes perfect sense, creating a more nimble and desirable educator — The administrative and financial benefits to the organisation outweighing any lack of specialist knowledge.
Although not always the case, being multi-disciplinary often equates to being a generalist. And this is where the benefits start to become less clearly defined. The nature of working within a broad industry such as design will always require experts in a specialist sub-discipline. Additionally, a review of the previous 20 years shows a high level of change within the industry, utilising new tools, techniques and areas of focus that require specialist knowledge. In this context, the need for a specialist designer becomes even clearer.
Having seen the associated benefits of both options, it would be helpful to reconsider the original question and ask is it possible to be both an interdisciplinary generalist as well as a discipline specialist?
Although somewhat paradoxical, I believe the answer to this is, yes.
Tim Brown, CEO of design consultancy IDEO described this as being “T-shaped”; the horizontal plane representative of breadth (generalist / interdisciplinary skills) and the vertical plane representative of depth (specialist skills) in a particular area.
This creates the ideal foundation for the modern day designer and design educator — flexibility and desirability.
References:
Hansen, M,T. An interview with IDEO CEO Tim Brown, chiefexecutive.net, March 2011 Issue. Available: https://web.archive.org/web/20110329003842/http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications::Article&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=F42A23CB49174C5E9426C43CB0A0BC46 (accessed 2 November 2017)
DSGN6027 Design Contexts 