This week was an advisory committee week. I’m currently chairing the Digital Media Arts Advisory Committee for Clark College. We meet twice annually to discuss the Digital Media Arts program that the college offers to its students and members of the community.
We normally address program curriculum while talking about the state of the creative industry and making decisions on how we can guide the Digital Media Arts program into the future and how to keep producing competent, equipped, and marketable students.
We ended up deeply engaged in a discussion about upcoming technologies that were shaping the video, motion graphics, interactive, and creative professions — with an, expectedly, long pause/exploration of the topic of artificial intelligence (AI). While we talked a lot about the technology itself, we spent a fair amount of the discussion talking about how creative professionals will be impacted by AI and what skills will be important to focus on in a world where creative output and ideation is aided even further by software.
This essay explores just one of the areas we discussed as you’d probably need to 20,000+ words hit all the areas. More topics will be discussed later.
Please keep in mind that these are all early thoughts. I’m not an expert, but I play on in this newsletter Ultimately, there needs to be much more reflection, more conversation, and a healthy dose of trial and error to really get a grip on how future technologies will truly affect the creative pro.
A Skill to Pay the Bills
I don’t think it’s surprising that many of the skills we discussed are not new. As usual, what we found is that it all comes back to reinforcing the basics. On the top of the heap, however, is critical thinking.
Critical Thinking is a Skill and Must be Learned
The ability to critically think will be a skill that will become even more essential to the creative professional of the future. It’s directly linked to how we problem solve and employ design thinking skills. The better we become at learning how to address problems through a process of deep thinking and reflection, the stronger we become in delivering solutions that accurately address and solve real-world problems.
While critical thinking has been a staple of design and creative education programs from the beginning, depending on the type of educational path you pursue will say a lot about how those skills will develop.
The Skinny Path and the Wide Road to Knowledge
Most technical, trade, and community colleges are primarily focused on software skills and getting students ready for the market and employable — and rightly so. These are the shortest and, in many cases, the most affordable higher education options available. They require a shorter timeframe to complete, and as such, tend to focus on core software skills and less on critical thinking and theory.
Four-year and post-graduate programs, on the other hand, are generally built around creative thinking and theoretical process. At many universities, programs like the Adobe Creative Suite and other popular software solutions are not even taught on campus. Instead, they focus on core skills (theory, process, practice, foundational understanding) directly related to the degree being pursued. The idea is that having a strong foundation and the ability to critically think are ultimately what will propel a career forward. Software comes and goes, but foundational skills remain stable and trustworthy.
If you are self-taught, then the chances that you have been exposed to critical thinking skills are slim. The focus of this path to education is generally on building marketable software or traditional technical skills first, then trying to mash in a few foundational skills where they can.
This educational approach tends to result in individuals who are highly adept and capable in their software/equipment use, but they might have much shakier skills when it comes to the deeper foundational basics. I’ve found that when hiring someone who is self-taught there is a lot of time that needs to be invested to plug in the holes of what can amount to a foundation that is a little like Swiss cheese. That doesn’t mean they are bad employees, but we need to do a little shoring up of the skill sets.
In a world where AI is assisting in creative asset generation, however, there seemed to be a consensus (among those on the board) that the focus on software mastery might become less important, while the ability to become a strong critical thinker will be a defining trait of the future creative pro.
The Boat is Still Docked
This does not mean that any one of these educational paths is better than another, but it does mean that the more technically focused, shorter education programs might need to re-configure a few of their core classes to help students become stronger thinkers and problem solvers. For those who take the self-taught route, they will need to be adept enough to realize that critical thinking will play an important role in their day-to-day work. They will also need to understand that it could literally determine just how far that person can advance in the creative agency or workplace of the future.
Of course, again, much of this is speculation, but I’d like to think that speculation has some weight based on two decades of working in the creative fields. One thing is for sure, though, developing the ability to critically think is never a wasted effort. The benefits are numerous and it will make the creative pro stronger making them more innovative problem solvers, regardless of the area they practice in.
Getting Started
A quick Google search will give you hundreds of results on how to approach critical thinking as a learning path. Starting with the links I’ve embedded above is the start of a primer and I have a few resources listed below as well. There are lots of resources out there dedicated to lifelong learners pursuing critical thinking skills.
As we wrap things up, keep these next thoughts in mind. Artificial intelligence is here to stay. It’s a done deal. We can also be sure that AI will transform the creative landscape in ways we can’t even imagine. While software skills will always be important to the creative process, tacit, foundational skills like critical thinking will become more essential to make us stand out more among our peers, ultimately leading to longer creative careers.
Resources
Besides the links included in the essay, check out these other resources:
Start out with this general Google search on why critical thinking is important to designers.
If you want to go the book route, there are a ton of great ones on Amazon. If you want a recommendation, I’m in the middle of reading, Critical Thinking by Jonathan Haber. It is part of the MIT Essential Knowledge Collection, so it’s got some heft and goes deep when it needs to.
There are several other good articles on developing critical thinking series.
/// Until next time.