When I think about design, I know it encompasses graphics, identity, architecture, interiors, products, packaging exhibitions, digital experiences, services, or communication¹ — all aforementioned is based on the need of the final people making use of it. From its origins, I can say that design is a multidisciplinary activity that crosses many disciplines.

Today's design industry is more and more fragmented. It starts all in the education process where each student has to decide from the beginning which profession to develop, may it be “Branding,” “Interaction,” “Motion,” or “Advertising.”

When I observe the contemporary designer, as one myself, I notice that the conditions are ever-more siloed. As design means so many things, calling yourself a designer is too vague—so we tend to add increasingly specific descriptions on our titles²: Digital Visual Designer, UX/UI Designer, Interaction Designer, Motion Designer, Brand Designer, Product Designer, Interior Designer, Data Designer, Design Engineer, etc.… And no wonder that young students are confused as they move from classroom to workplace.

Those young designers with a specialized title get their jobs in specialized industries, so the more they climb the career ladder, the more specific their job becomes.

The design world is heading in this direction.

But let’s talk about multidisciplinary design²: what once was the norm today sounds new. It means to reject all the ever-increasing specialization in the industry. A multidisciplinary designer is a versatile figure who can resolve problems from print to digital, usually well educated and serious. It can sound new and intriguing, but the truth is that it isn’t, and it’s rooted since the early design days.

When we look at the history of design, several successful multidisciplinary designers exist. Let us make some names: Henry Kay Henrion in his life designed posters, identities, marks, products, exhibitions, TV titles, books and also taught in various design schools. With his wife Lela, Massimo Vignelli designed not only iconic graphics and identities with Helvetica but also interiors, products, and clothes. Kenya Hara is a more recent example: he designed identities, products, exhibitions, and much more. We don’t have to forget the Bauhaus³, whose master’s work spanned from architecture through art, design, and sculpture: it gave us the foundations and principles of modern design.

As we saw the history is full of examples, I mentioned only some of the designers I admire and get inspiration from.

Now that we have seen where the industry is going and how designers were in the past, what can we establish?

If you are a hyper-specialized designer, you will surely do your job at 100% efficiency aligned with the industry standards, and that’s fine. But a multidisciplinary designer will start looking at things with a bigger picture in mind. His approach will help connect better with the other professionals involved. The final product or service will be much more rounded, that’s because this strategy enables a vertical and horizontal view.

For example, I can start working on a new project in the IT industry on a SaaS platform with this method. A hyper-specialized designer will follow a typical path for the industry to start from analyzing users to establish the requested experience until the refined product/service.

Below you can see two diagrams I designed to showcase the differences, and please bear in mind that every designer or company will have its own variations. This interpretation is based on my personal working experience.

Specialized

You notice straight by looking at the diagram that a specialized designer will have a straightforward process. It starts with the initial requirements; then, it translates into a solution used as a source for ideation. After this stage, you enter an execution phase that starts with prototypes and ends with the delivery. If it’s software, you go back to the “define solution” step to work on new features.

Multidisciplinary

Both approaches have the central steps that bring you to the delivery. What differs is the drill-down in every phase, which will help you gain a broader knowledge of the requests' problems. You will start empathizing and researching to gain the foundations, it all begins doing the right questions. In other words, which problem must the product/service resolve?

Once you are sure to proceed, you define the solution with the help of benchmark research, giving you insights to get inspiration. Then you enter the “Prototype-Test-Review” loop. When everything is approved, you will start assembling. Here you will analyze the production to ensure high quality. Once you deliver, through feedback and study you will improve your production cycle. In case the feedback is negative you will have, obviously, to rework starting from the “define solution” step.

I believe in choosing this approach⁴. It’s the most difficult because it requires an open-minded attitude and the willingness to study continuously; you have to act like an astronaut in sci-fi films whose goal is to discover new paths and ideas just a tad outside the outer galaxy’s rim⁵.

If the astronaut metaphor seems too far away from reality, then let’s observe young children: I notice that they are interested in everything and spontaneously apprehend, comprehend, and organize an expanding inventory of experiences. We should think like young children⁶.

Being multidisciplinary or generalist is becoming a lost art because we are all part of an assembly line working on smaller parts of increasingly huge projects. We will lose the ability to jump from interest to interest and grow. How do we break out of the assembly line⁷? Maybe it’s time to become designers in a broader sense, as professionals who understand and put together⁸.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing on this argument!
Let me know what your thoughts are about this!

Catch you guys in the next one! 🌝