What’s in a title?
I am not formally educated in the field of professional creativity, my skills in this field are self taught (in so far as I have any).
Or, as I put it in my description at LinkedIn, I have attended the notorious “School of Hard Knocks”, an education which never ends an nobody passes alive.
So what am I?
Professionally, I mean – what is my title?
Designer, right, but that’s like saying you’re a musician, the next question is bound to be “what kind of music do you play”, “which instrument” or whatever – it’s just too general.
So here is my actual work title:
– Design/User Experience Creative Playmaker
the playmaker’s number is usually 10 so why should I be different?
To understand why that is, you must read the definition of a Playmaker, courtesy of Wikipedia:
“… a playmaker is an attacking player who controls the flow of the team’s offensive play, and is often involved in passing moves which lead to goals. [….] – creativity is the only true requirement, and good passing ability and tactical awareness help.”
– and the qualities of a good playmaker:
“Perhaps the most important quality of a playmaker is the ability to read the game, and get into good positions making for effective receipt and distribution of the ball. Intuition is another key element of a playmakers’ game, as they need to know where different players are at different times, without taking too long to dwell on the ball. A good playmaker will often hold possession, allowing other team members to make attacking runs. The ostensible role of the playmaker is to then provide or facilitate the final pass which leads to a goal.”
Notice for example that the playmaker reads the game and is an offensive player, and also notice that the playmaker is a team player par excellence.
The term is, of course, ripped off from the game of football, but I think it’s such an on-the-nose description of what I want to do as a creative professional – namely use my creative toolset to facilitate for those who use other toolsets, be it in the creation of physical objects or the field of user experience (which basically covers everything as we all use stuff, and we all experience stuff – it’s just a fancy way of saying that we see it, feel it and form an opinion about it).
So there you are – the next time we meet you’ll know what to call me.
Jesper W.
wearer of the shirt
