A few weeks have passed since Iain’s arrival and his input to the company has been as profound as the growth of his beard.
Graduate from the University of Salford in Graphic Design, Iain brings with him many years of agency level design experience together with his unique taste in music, celebrated as we speak by his absence in the office as he gets royally mashed at the Download Festival.
Iain’s role as senior creative at demoMedia is accented by his passion for history, focusing on 20th Century Military history and complimented by a strong following of Man City. He was hired because on his CV, it said: I hate Man UTD and R & B music.
As is fitting with his non-conformist taste in music, Iain started his work pretty much on a rant straight away:
Pixel pusher or rockstar?
Of late I have been increasingly aware of the phrase ‘rockstar designer’. I’m not very keen on these types of phrases as it can lead to unwanted criticisms form people outside the creative industry. Probably the most high profile usage of this term that I have come across is from the facebook team-
“…is the go-to source when looking for rock star designers”.
As attractive as it is, I’m not sure if this a particularly accurate description of my profession. Indeed a lot of my friends think my job is cool, as do I. It is cool, I come to work each day and create something new, exciting and aesthetically pleasing. I do not go on a world tour, trash hotel rooms (regularly anyway) and have millions of pounds in the bank. Of course that is taking the meaning of the term literally. Perhaps it is a reference to the attitude of rockstars. Do we designers have the same blasé, in your face attitude as the worlds greatest rock stars?
I’d like to think so, but probably not.
Heavily tattooed designer Joshua Davis has just finished building a half-pipe in his back garden, which is very rock and roll. I personally enjoy a great deal of live heavy metal, thrash, grind-core whatever you want to call it. I have a tattoo. Although when faced with daily design decisions such as cross-browser compatibility, I could hardly come to the conclusion of “screw the 33.4% of people that still use Internet explorer, it works in Firefox”, whilst defenestrating my iMac from the third floor onto the street below.
Whoever coined the phrase should perhaps have thought a little bit harder about the image conjured up by the word ‘rockstar’. Would a potential client be happy about employing a wild rockstar type to ensure their digital assets are carefully designed and nurtured? Of course not. I think ‘considerate, professional designer’ is a better description, quite boring though… new ideas on a postcard please.
