"You are the niche."
Vibe Check Vol. 7
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For the last 2 weeks I’ve been obsessed with the latest and final Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) album. I’ve listened to it at least once every day with some days having multiple listens. On the first listen I was so surprised to find that the tracks were a little all over the place, jumping from high intensity chaos in a track like ‘Got to be’ to very beautiful singing with strings in the background on ‘Steps Beach’ to a more rap-y track like ‘Yoshinoya’. It immediately reminded me of how my brain works with thoughts jumping all over the board most of the time. With all these different sounds in one place I couldn’t imagine the amount of work it took to try and get them all to sound genuine, but somehow Donald Glover always delivers. From the time we met Donald Glover and the things he was making, he has always been creating at a high level. We started with him being on the show Community, to him creating the persona Childish Gambino and putting out the classic album ‘Because of the Internet,’ to his show he did on FX called Atlanta. He has always been pushing himself to not only just do new things, but to somehow master them on his first outing. Donald Glover has created so many things that I truly love and is for sure one of my favorite jack of all trades.
A jack of all trades is a person who can carry out many different skills, rather than focusing solely on one. Some other jacks in our more recent time are Jamie Fox, Zack Fox, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Issa Rae, Jon Favreau, and Quinta Brunson to name a few. All tackling different industries with such ease. With this usually comes a saying: “Jack of all trades, master of none”. In the 17th century when the phrase originally emerged it did not have ‘master of none’ on the back half. It was meant to praise those who could accomplish work in multiple fields. Some believe the ‘master of none’ part was added later around the time of the Industrial Revolution which pushed the practice of specialization. Specialization is a foundational component of capitalism and is the practice of focusing your labor on a specific expertise. By doing this you are able to create products with better quality, at lower costs, and much faster. This allows one country to then be able to trade their goods with another country and make a profit. Now a days specialization is seen everywhere. When I was an engineer and worked in factories it was in the assembly lines used to make products. The labor needed to make a Boeing 777 brake was broken down into very small specific jobs and if you were an operator you turned the same wrench on the same parts every day. You become very familiar with that station making you improve quality and move faster, which overall lowers the costs of the product. You also see it in going to college where you will have to pick a single degree as the focus of your studies. I’ve recently been seeing a third part added to the phrase: A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one. It’s not known where this last part came from, but I find it interesting to see the back and forth nature of the phrase. If that last part has been added more recently then does it show a kind of a rejection of the tone of ‘master of none’?
Being that design is my second career I had to find a means to gain the knowledge I needed to be successful in this industry. My way of doing that was and has been through networking with other ppl currently in the industry. In a lot of my first talks with people I was immediately introduced to the term niching. Niching in this concept meant to focus your the work you are selling to others down to one very specific area of interest. So some of the examples I was given was if you make logos then you would sell your logo making to just the fitness industry or if you are someone who makes websites you would then sell those websites to just cybersecurity businesses. You are supposed to pick industries you are interested in so that hopefully you can show more of your passion and be able to work in that industry for longer. When I was first hearing this the idea it kinda made me want to explode. I don’t know if it is the ADHD or what, but my brain immediately starts doing this ‘what if’ thing. What if you choose the wrong industry? What if the industry is hard to brake in to? What if you had to make the same ‘fitness’y’ logo for the rest of your life? All these questions for me always lead to panic.
Niching is a form of specialization. So it is popular for the pure fact that it makes it easier to sell when you are selling to a very specific market. You have messaging that really gets to their pain points and that messaging is the same every where. That eventually all adds up to the best possible situation to get the sell. I’ve also heard of folks in other industries feeling left out so they also come running and want to work with you all. This specialization could really lead to more sells and ultimately a booming design business depending on how well the industry you have picked is doing.
I recently did a poll on if my peers felt like they were a jack of all trades or highly niched. The result were interesting. about 60% of people said they were more jack of all trades, 10% said they were more hybrids that knew a lot, but have really dove deep into one area (some call this T-shaped), 30% felt like they were niched. If niching has such a potential to be positive for your business why aren’t people going that direction? I feel like a lot of it is fear of choice. It takes a lot of guts to run full speed in one direction especially with a business. I think a lot of people also want to be well rounded as a designer. If you have been seeing the direction that full time job requirements for designers has been moving, you will have noticed it has moved to more of a jack of all trades requirement to be employed. They ask you to know design, but also video editing and motion. I think as a result people are continuing to educate themselves as much as possible. In some of my research I found that one negative byproduct of specialization is mental health decline. I think people are worried about ‘turning of the same wrench on the same parts every day.’ Eventually leading to mental fatigue and making what makes design fun turning into this drain on what they used to love.
I think when it comes down to it this argument turns into a little bit of a both are needed to be successful. When you have gathered more than one skill then you have the ability to pivot. When you niche and message directly to the person you want to receive the call it is easier for that person to digest. There is also something that could probably be said that it takes trying a whole bunch of different areas of design to eventually know what you like and don’t like to do, so naturally as a part of your journey you will niche along the way on your own terms. So hopefully that takes some of the pressure off. I saw a quote the other day from @inspiredtowrite on Ig and it said ‘Fuck finding your niche. You are the niche!’ and I love how that is worded because at the end of the day these focuses that you are deciding on really have to be things that you are ultra passionate about. It has to come from your lived experience if you want it to work. You have to love the pursuit to stick to it and keep moving forward.
→ THINGS I’VE MADE
I interviewed Andy J. Pizza!!
Check that out if you haven’t seen it yet. We talk a lot about our ADHD, we hit on his creative style, and is his last name really Pizza?
→ THINGS I LIKE
One of my design homies Luana Cieza built a database for designers that is jammed packed with resources! She describes it as “The Designer Database keeps everything neat and organized in one simple template, so you can kick back and focus on the actual design part of the process.” If that interests you check it out!
This is podcast episode from Adam Conover’s podcast called Factually. This episode was really interest because it talked about the true state of A.I. and made me realize it is not as threatening as I thought.
Minted New York - Design Work by Smith & Diction
When I say this brand work blew me away! It really did. It felt fresh and creative. I freaking love what they made for this brand. They have been high key killing it for awhile! To see the full post check it out here.
→ FIRE PLAYLIST
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