The Unicorn Myth

I was recently called a “unicorn” – a term being bantered around to describe people who have multiple skills.

 

Here’s a quote from http://unicornspeakeasy.com/

“Dear outsiders,

Silicon Valley calls us unicorns because they doubt the [successful, rigorous] existence of such a multidisciplinary artist-engineer, or designer-programmer, when in fact, we have always been here, we are excellent at practicing “both disciplines” in spite of the jack-of-all-trades myth, and oh yeah – we disagree with you that it’s 2 separate disciplines. Unicorns are influential innovators in ways industries at large cannot fathom. In a corporate labor division where Release Engineer is a separate role from Software Requirements Engineer, and Icon Designer is a separate role from Information Architect, unicorn disbelief is perfectly understandable. To further complicate things, many self-titled unicorns are actually just programmers with a photoshop habit, or designers who dabble with Processing. Know the difference.”

Here’s David Cole on the “The Myth of the Myth of the Unicorn Designer“. He says:

“Design is already not a single skill.”

There are valid arguments on either side of the debate as to whether designers should be able to code. What do you think?

-Jeffrey

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