At my primary website, I talk about myself as three things in one, a designer, a manager, and a programmer.
Software engineer, or whatever else we can call this profession these days.
I came to to this three-in-one definition half a year ago, when I had been updating my resume.
I find it to be true, and I like this definition regardless of anything simpler I may come up with later. E.g. recently I’ve seen a vacancy with the name ‘product owner’ and its description fits me 100%. So, probably, being all three is closer to another profession, a product owner.
But also, well, I can be a CEO, which I was, and it fits quite well too. That’s why I still like this threefold definition. As I see each of one as a fundamental discipline, and the combination of them gives new opportunities to become some rare separate type.
What got my thinking right now, this early in the morning —
it’s still 4 am getting into 5, my favourite time of the day
— is that I’m both all three of them, but also neither of them.
In life, I see this quantum duality everywhere, and it’s definitely the topic that one can a lifetime discussing with others.
While in university, studying physics, this concept was difficult to grasp, as much as grasping what infinity is. These days, I think I understand this quantum superposition state quite very well, even with my very limited knowledge.
That gives me a plausible deniability when anything goes wrong and I’m challenged that ‘hey, a designer would never combine black and red as their primary colour scheme’ — ‘you see, I’m not really a designer’ would be the response.
That was the real conversation between me and my old-time internet friend Kamil, back into my early days of designing. With his patient assistance, we changed the logo scheme from red-black to red-white and the result was much better.
Usually, I produced awful results and he was a very talented designer for as long as I can remember. He taught me much more than he thinks, with his usual patience.
So Kam, if you’re reading this, I’m truly thankful for the many things you’ve taught me back then! I was a happy member of our little, yet very international indeed community.
That was the logo for our community, and while red and white should have been the first colour combination I should have tried, due to my background of living in Belarus.
Unfortunately I’ve never lived in an independent (from Russian occupation) state, so white-red-white colour combination was foreign for me at that moment.
Maybe red and black colour combination is some inborn natural recognition of my Ukrainian roots.
You see, sky blue and gold yellow flag becomes black and red as soon as you wash it in human blood. Which history of Ukraine knows.
Another interesting example was Siarhei being not satisfied with the black and gray colour combination I chose for my blog, ‘unreadable’ he said. I tried to explain, but mostly I didn’t, excusing myself with something like ‘well, I’m not a real designer.’
These days, I agree with him, he was very right. That colour combination was pre-oled and quite ahead of its time.
Plus, it’s not for all lightning conditions. That’s the reason I’m going to add light colour scheme to this website at some point, when I’m less exhausted.
The thing I lacked back then is the understanding the needs of others. You see, on my display it looked gorgeous. As much as this website looks stunning on my iPhone at nights. But not that well on a desktop computer or even an Android phone, especially at a daytime.
I have this theory now, that some content is designed to be consumed in different conditions, and it helps create the proper atmosphere. So this website of mine, and its imagine counterpart, they’re best served on iPhones at nights.
These days, regardless of all my previous fuck ups, I consider myself an experienced designer.
Well, because I have a lot of actual experience these days.
I’ve been through many fuck ups already. Still, I have this deniability when challenged, and I can easily play this card any time.
‘You see, I’m not truly a designer, so thanks for the feedback.’ I won’t even argue on many comments or criticism.
That’s not some sort of ‘fuck you, I know better’ statement, actually.
I am not truly each one of them, and I’m all three of them.
- I’m not a true manager, I know so very little of the discipline, that I’m open to any input from a more experienced one. That’s why anything Peter Drucker goes as the water into dry soil with me.
- Same goes for programming. You see, I’m not the real one.
Yeah, especially because I’ve been programming since my early teens, and have quite deep knowledge of some programming languages of those days, namely C++, AS3, and Pascal. And Visual Basic too, but that thing, I’ve forgotten most of it.
Unfortunately, besides the deniability, and the opportunity to grow, it allows me to be lazy too.
Nah, I’m not a real programmer to think about these matters, maybe one day.
I’m working on it. I guess, accepting myself as all the three in one makes no harm, if I’ll stay hungry and foolish curious and not become an arrogant too-confident fool.
Which is quite easy to become, especially when surrounded by the people of no talent.