I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s Small Is The New Big. In one entry, he talks about how he had a hard time coming up with his job title when he was asked, and determined that we are becoming a “multipation” culture. We no longer conform to the “I’m a firefighter” and that’s it. (I have a friend who is a firefighter/tile installer)
In the world of web design, I believe there are 3 “occupations” that shape your makeup. Visual Design, Information Architecture & Code Development (never mind the “sub-occupations’ within them) As time moves forward, the lines are becoming more blurred. Traditionally, a company would hire a separate web designer and programmer. I am seeing more and more job requests for great visual designers who know Actionscript, or Ruby on Rails developers with an eye for design. I’m not sure how I feel about this. There definitely needs to be a knowledge overlap between disciplines, but an entire redefinition of the roles is food for thought. I’ve had to learn my fair share of php and ,Net the past few years, but I wouldn’t consider myself anything close to a programmer. (Actionscript the exception) Oh well, time to go feed the chickens.
Ah, there is nothing better than designing a site, construction it with clean & pretty markup, and handing it to the “PHP guy”. “Here. Make this work. Thanks.”