The Next American Dream
Job market has designs on new Dream
Doodlers and tinkerers, take heart. Design has moved from a decorative sideshow to center stage in the business world and, says commentator Kay Hymowitz, career opportunities abound.
Kay Hymowitz (Kay Hymowitz)
More on The Economy, Commentaries, America's Financial Crisis
TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Kai Ryssdal: If it's not a straight bachelors degree then, what might be the best education to help someone realize the next American dream? Consider two equally bright but completely different high school seniors. One's the captain of the debate team with straight A's. She's on her way to Yale. The other's a B student who'd rather draw than study. Commentator Kaye Hymowitz says design is the economic engine of tomorrow.
KAY HYMOWITZ: If you're a young doodler and tinkerer, take heart. You're living in a career candy store, filled with cool jobs your parents and career counselors probably don't even know exist.
As consumers demand more for their money, design has moved from a decorative sideshow to center stage in the business world.
How do you distinguish your washing machine or MP3 player from the crowds of other washing machines and MP3 players that perform as well at about the same price? Steve Jobs sure knew the answer: Good design.
But the new design economy isn't just about industrial, graphic or set designers anymore. Now there are animators, computer-user-interface, video-game, and even info-graphic designers. They turn complex data into intuitive visual displays like "clouds" of popular words on Web sites, and interactive maps of everything from traffic patterns to the spread of swine flu.
Ever heard of a design anthropologist, like the specialists Microsoft sends out to developing countries to see how people use technology?
How about an experiential designer? That's someone who shows businesses how to improve the sensory and emotive experience of their product. New York firm ESI, for instance, refitted Best Buy's echoing warehouses into a series of appealing, village-like interactive spaces.
Labor Department statisticians have yet to catch up, but design trade groups say they have seen big jumps in their ranks.
AIGA, the professional association for design, for instance, notes a tripling in the number of graphic and multimedia designers since 1990. Over 40 new design trade schools have opened in the past 15 years.
It's true that workers in the design economy are hurting right now like everybody else. But that's no reason to become an accountant. Good design is no longer a luxury. It's creating better value and simpler ways to understand a more complex world.
The right people for these jobs tend to be resourceful, independent workers, always finding new problems to solve and new niches to explore.
If that sounds like you, think design. Remember, a good right brain is a terrible thing to waste.
Kay Hymowitz is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
Comments
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09/09/2009
Is there anything us "Doodlers and tinkerers" can do to help in the economic struggle?
From DC, 05/15/2009
Marketplace Story: “Job Market has designs on new dream” by Kay Hymowitz
On hearing the design commentary on Marketplace, I had a creepy feeling that I was hearing words from my own books, slightly changed (In the Mind’s Eye, 1991, 1997, and Thinking Like Einstein, 2004). I strongly agree with everything Ms. Hymowitz said and I was very pleased indeed. But there is much, much more. My first book gives profiles of famous and highly successful people in technology, science, mathematics, business, politics, literature and other fields who think in pictures but had lots trouble in school -- and were sometimes clearly dyslexic, sometimes severely dyslexic. The second book is based on a series of columns I was asked to write for the international professional organization for computer graphics artists and technologists (ACM-SIGGRAPH). Both books give many examples of how visual thinking and new powerful visual technologies are often the deep drivers in major discovertes and innovation. Yet almost no one seems to understand this, although the top people do. Yes, design is the core, not an extra. I will be quoting this commentary in the Epilogue I am now preparing for the new edition (July 2009) of my very old first book, still very much alive after 15 printings and two translations (Japanese and Chinese). My people often say that the visual thinkers and dyslexics “see what others do not see or cannot see.”
Thomas G. West
Washington, DC, 05/15/09
From MA, 05/15/2009
I was really excited to hear this story on my drive home from work. Particularly because, as a graphic designer who mainly works on corporate collateral, I have recently been giving some serious thought to going down another path within the design field but wondered what options were out there. Some of the jobs you mentioned, I wasn't aware of and would love to learn more about them.
Would you be able to share some insight on what resources I could utilize to find more 'Design' focused jobs?
From San Diego, CA, 05/13/2009
Great story, I will be sharing it with my Business of Design Class that I am teaching tonight.
From Birmingham, AL, 05/13/2009
To respond to Trent's question...many of designers are right-handed, too. To be a designer requires logic, evaluation and analyis skills. Your job, ideally is to communicate and to take a design far beyond "making it pretty", to useable, functional and also marketable and manufacturable. It is a pretty left-brain job too!!
Rachael Crutchfield
Sr. Graphics Specialist
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama
former president
AIGA Birmingham Chapter
and loving what I do every day!!
From St. Louis, MO, 05/13/2009
Encouraging the development of visually creative people is critically important for the U.S. in order to compete globally. The failure to value and utilize the tremendous potential of people with creative minds often means a lifetime of frustration and underemployment for them. Such a waste!
Patricia Boman, Art & Design Educational Advisors, LLC
From Dallas, TX, 05/13/2009
Thanks for shining light on an often misunderstood yet essential tool for business. As a creative director I understand that my first role is to understand my client and their goals.
Getting at the heart of what my clients do, the products they sell and ultimately how they convey their vision to their customers is essential in understanding how my designs will help connect them in the most effective way possible to their audience.
Design serves as a bridge between client and customer utilizing the senses to initiate a response, dialogue, expression and awareness.
Design is like "the force" in many ways. It is, for the most part, invisible to us, but it surrounds us and binds us together as human beings. Just watch the "Helvetica" documentary and you can begin to understand the ubiquitous and essential nature of something as simple as a typeface and how it affects the world.
From Fort Lauderadle, FL, 05/13/2009
As Director of Communications at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale I was pleased to listen to your piece. I have passed this on to our Admissions and Career Services personnel. It might help them when explaining to a parent, yes...your child can make a living in a creative profession.
From New York City, NY, 05/13/2009
A BFA in Design is the new MBA. Today's top designers are both left and right brained, adding value and creating business success for clients across every industry. Smart clients have known this for years, but the rest of the world is catching up. Leslie Smolan, Carbone Smolan Agency, AIGA member
From Honolulu, HI, 05/13/2009
Businesses who understand the power of design know that it's not an afterthought or garnish, but a core value and critical ingredient to their success. Thanks for shining a light on an often-misunderstood and growing industry.
- Bernard Uy (AIGA Honolulu Chapter President)
From Franklin, OH, 05/12/2009
Thank you for a great story! My son, a high school junior, intends to major in video game design. Your story helped me understand the wave of design which is about to carry us somewhere else. "Design is the economic engine of tomorrow" is comforting. And "a good right brain is a terrible thing to waste" helps me understand why my son, who is left-handed, sees the world differently than I do. It would be interesting to learn if left-handers (right-brainers) make up a large proportion of designers.
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