The Generalist

I’ve always been that middle bit of a Venn diagram. At school I was half in with the nerds, half in with the footy lads, half in with the cool music kids. Yes I know thats three halves, I told you I was contrary.

This seems to have carried on into my professional life.

I am not a classically trained designer, I didn’t go to art school, design college and by most definitions I can’t draw so much as a cartoon penis.

I am not a classically trained developer, I don’t have a degree in Computer Science and I can’t tell you more than 2 decimal places of Pi.

I have an economics degree (A pathetic 2:2, which I didn’t deserve) and the battle scars from spending a bit too long looking for something that I love doing every day. Luckily I found it.

I started those faltering steps about 8 or 9 years ago. Trying to become a professional “web designer” as it was back then. I had never heard the term UX, I didn’t know what a function was and the closest I’d come to a PhotoShop was passing Max Spielmann on the way to McDonalds.

I’d like to think I’ve come quite far in that time. I can build pretty much anything with code, I can write and understand quite a few languages, I can conduct a user research programme, design an interface that wouldn’t look out of place on a Dribbble post and talk about design, code and strategy without appearing like a complete charlatan.

But I’ve never chosen a side and I’m wondering whether at some point I have to. I’m not a pure developer and I’m not a pure designer. I cant bear to call myself a fucking Unicorn (I’m a 35 year old man with two kids, I love unicorns, but I’m not putting it on my CV).

The problem is the days of the “Web Designer” doing everything from UX to design, to development to deployment are looking long gone. It increasingly seems like to do things well, reeeeaaaally well you need a team of specialists. A crack research team, a ux design team and an array of developers. I suppose that means at some point I need to pick a side and join a gang.

I’m going to miss being able to play football, music and Warhammer 40,000.