The Computational Art Director
John Maeda
AI @ MSFT / Laws of Simplicity + How To Speak Machine / LinkedIn Top US Influencer
Maybe we're not looking for just "visual designers" but instead "computational art directors"? —Automattic Designer Ola Olusoga
A small group of folks on the Automattic Design team are meeting this week in DC to suss out what kind of designers we need for the future. Our new Head of Design Operations Alison Rand is challenging us to think about how modern design teams operate. And our Product Practices and Designer Hiring lead Brie Anne Demkiw is taking us through our paces around how we can better recruit and onboard designers.
So we're eating delicious foods in the DC area, while we're deeply immersed in questions about how design is transforming as a field. At Automattic we often eat (and think) together when we're meeting up in some cool city out there.
We're also meeting in more normal conference room settings too (like a ... WeWork, but we're usually hanging out in a large Airbnb somewhere instead). By being in a 100% distributed company, we can meet anywhere in the world. So everywhere is virtually home to us.
Automattic Designer Kelly Hoffman leads our open source commerce team, and she laid out a rough specification just now that includes a variety of technical/visual challenges that we're facing. Our next step is to write that up ...
It roughly sounds like: the computational art director needs to be comfortable with code, facile with generative graphics, and has the ability to work across many disparate output modalities.
You heard it here first! Now we need to start writing a proper JD ... —JM
Senior Manager, Product & Design @ LILT | Lead Product Designer
6 年I like how far ahead in the future you're thinking and I strongly believe that people who are going to work with design in the future will have to have those qualities mentioned just like architects need to understand how the construction materials work. Absolutely stellar thinking there.
Founder at Colle, Inc.
6 年EVERYTHING IS DESIGN. Not just the shape of an object or the way you use it, but its materials, its assembly, its manufacturing, the way it's packed, the way we make it, the way we present and sell it, the way we support it, the way it affects the environment, and the way we treat our employees. All of it is design !!!
CEO, VF Corporation
6 年I agree that multi skilled designers are a good idea. But why not also unlock the designer in everyone by training much more broadly in design?? Great companies will have design in everything, well beyond their products and services. ?