Habla HTML
Recently, Steven Heller, a prolific design critic, author and former art director for The New York Times, wrote about being a print guy in an increasingly web-focused industry. He said, “I realize that the design world has changed so radically that not knowing this [web development] language is like not speaking Spanish in Miami Beach.”
I’ve felt the same way for some time, and while it seems comforting, at first, to share a career-crisis lifeboat with another person, comfort gives way to panic when you realize that other person is supposed to be at the helm of the rescue vehicle, more or less. So when I mentioned wanting to tighten up my HTML and CSS skills to another designer, I was a little surprised when he shot down the idea. He said our paths as web designers eventually come to a point where we’ll have to decide if we want to design websites or make them work, especially if we’re working in a company. I walked away wondering if he was right, and if so, what to do?
At a crossroads? Minimize risk. Maximize awesome fun time.
In a situation like this, the best one can do is assess the benefits of learning a brand new skill and minimize the risk of wasting one’s time and money. To do so, I came up with three basic guidelines:
1.) Make sure the new venture is something that genuinely interests you. Acting out of obligation only takes me so far, and it doesn’t usually get me anywhere pleasant. If you have the luxury of not doing something you’re only obliged to do, don’t do it. Invest your time in a way that lets you excel at something you like more.
2.) Put the new skill in perspective of where you see yourself in five or more years. Assess how long it will take to get to a comfortable skill level in this new undertaking, whether that time could be better spent, and whether it’s in line with what you’d like to be doing in the future (or if it’s just a distraction).
3.) If it doesn’t meet the first two criteria, be OK with not being an expert at everything. Knowing when to let an initiative go is almost as important as coming up with the idea in the first place. If you don’t stop when you should, you take your time and attention away from current or new work that could benefit from the extra focus. Worse yet, you might be distracted to the point of missing new opportunities as they arise.
So how do you know when to quit? Designer Naz Hamid lays it out this way: “When no further gains are met, when you feel the work is no longer fun, interesting and most importantly, good, that’s when it’s time to end it and move on to the next project.”
Working on my web dev skills met the above criteria for me, so I’ve decided to borrow a formidable stack of books from the office library and start there. I wonder if Heller’s going to do the same, or if he’ll resign himself to simply being a legendary designer/author/critic.
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