Whoever said being a generalist is fun they lied. People like myself who chose to be a consummate professional in the field of art have a different lot in life than those who suppose they are multidisciplinary at the tender age of 21. Understanding skills, qualities of someone with multiple technical abilities, having to be everything for a job.

There has been a tangled mess we have put people in the past 10 years. Starting from the 2010’s Anyone who has entered the marketplace for creativity and tech has had to at some point in time had to take on multiple job descriptions for one jobs paycheque. That is one person had to do the work of 5 people and has only received one persons pay. That’s fine enough for those past 10 years.

The market has climatized to the new conditions and we have reached a new equilibrium called core competency, that is to say. You do one thing exceptional and have 5 complimentary skills you do very-well/well-enough alongside the main thing. Point being is. You keep the main thing the main thing in the main portfolio work in your toolkit. Also have the diversity to draw for other skills to creatively find solutions to problems tasks have brought on.

An instance of this I can say from personal experience is have very good product design skills and using my pattern cutting tools from fashion such as my French curve and pattern master to execute line work you could only hope to achieve in pattern-cutting for industrial design.

Taking this to heart. I realised the market will only pay you for one or 2 skills. They don’t pay for the whole tool belt, you create that tool belt in order to be an industrious practitioner. More than design thinking we are talking about design practice. No longer doing the job of one person, you have the bandwidth to engage with people of multiple disciplines so you can do your job better.

Core competency is the name of your main thing. Industrious practitioner is the evolution of the commission worker. The space between creative direction and hired worker