konospoon/blog

contemplating an SSD

Tech Trees, Technology and Skills

This is a reflection on working and learning, from the perspective of a graphic designer.

I have a couple of designer friends (friends who are designers) who are really good at one aspect; Ferdi is really good at illustration, a number of friends are very good at photography, for example. Out of all my “skillsets”, I am best at typography (fonts, lettering, etc).

What I notice in common among these cases is that the person usually has an obsessive fascination with the subject, enough so that he is going at it even when it seems irrational or excessive to do so. For example, Ferdi has always drawn in his style for the longest time ever—I would know because we were schoolmates for 3 years in art school—and at one point some of us kids were saying that he’s not creating anything new anymore. Truth of the matter is, he is able to say a lot with that “style” he has honed through all this time because he has mastered it like an extension of his body.

I think in this field, people are too eager to point out that someone “is not doing something new”, as if new is the sole objective of graphic design. I myself have been accused of doing swash when in fact it’s my second time using swash type for an actual job, and that the real thing takes years of practise! The search for “new” is a natural product of the industry which thrives on promising “new”, but I do think that mastery has been pushed aside just a little too much.

Remember tech trees in practically any strategy or RPG game? You have to learn a skill, raise it to a certain level and so on before you are allowed to raise the level of a subsequent skill. I think learning skills in real life is a lot like that. When I was starting out in the graphic design course, I was a Helvetica-hugging type snob, after which I promptly collapsed into postmodernist typographical midlife-crisis, and came out sober, drinking up retro/vernacular typography and getting all drunk again. What I’m trying to say here is that sometimes learning involves going through the motions, coming of age… Before we are able to learn a new, advanced skill, we need to gain the perspective and contextual understanding by grinding an old, basic skill. 

I think the tech tree in computer games illustrate that quite succinctly. I also do think that we should change our minds about grinding. 

I end with a quote, for perspective.

Now, I always saw design careers like surreal staircases. If you look at the staircase, you’ll see that in your 20s the risers are very high and the steps are very short, and you make huge discoveries. You sort of leap up very quickly in your youth. That’s because you don’t know anything and you have a lot to learn, and so that anything you do is a learning experience and you’re just jumping right up there. As you get older, the risers get shallower and the steps get wider, and you start moving along at a slower pace because you’re making fewer discoveries. And as you get older and more decrepit, you sort of inch along on this sort of depressing, long staircase, leading you into oblivion.

— Paula Scher Gets Serious, a very effortless talk that you should watch if you haven’t yet.