Topic:
Creative Careers
Year:
02 January 2026
Let’s talk about how every bloody design job ad these days basically wants you to be a unicorn fucking octopus. Gone are the days when you could call yourself a “graphic designer” and have people actually understand what the hell you do and how to put it in Layman's terms for Gran. Now they want you to be a graphic designer who can also write copy like Dave Trott, animate like a motion wizard, build a website, do front-end dev, manage socials and somehow run the whole agency while you’re at it. It’s getting a bit bat shit.
There’s even terms I've seen floating about for what modern companies want from designers: “T-shaped” or “specialised generalist”. That means someone who knows a deep core skill like design but also has broad knowledge across a bunch of other shit. IDEO, Apple, Google and others have been hiring for that profile for a while because they reckon it gives them “more effective problem solving on teams”.
At first, I thought it was hilarious. Like, what am I? A design Swiss Army knife now? Then I realised I’ve actually ended up somewhere near that mythical thing myself. Over the last couple of years I adapted because, let’s be honest, the market demands it. I learned motion design because every job started asking for it, Figma design because everyone wants Figma suddenly, and AI outputs because if you’re behind that curve you might as well quit now. That’s the thing about being a designer in 2026 and beyond: ADAPT OR DIE.
But here’s the gritty part: expecting one designer to be the best possible version of every creative specialty is just mental. It’s like asking Michael Jordan to be a basketball player, but also be good at rugby, tennis, with some experience in fucking ice hockey while you're at it. I'm not denying that Michael Jordan could probably be great in all those things, but would we be getting the best version of him and his primary talents? Absolutely not. There’s some truth to the idea that having breadth is valuable, but most people calling for “jack of all trades” really mean “you better be able to do everything well, and for peanuts”. And that? It devalues the craft.
Real specialist talent, the people who have dedicated years to mastering motion, or UI, or other disciplines bring something different. You don’t want mediocre everything just because your budget got halved and you decided you’d rather hire one over five specialists. That mindset hurts outcomes, lowers quality, and frankly makes designers miserable after month three of doing graphic briefs, animation, HTML, social scheduling, KPI reporting and whatever new buzzword they want you to handle this month.
I honestly don’t know what the solution is. Maybe we get better at saying “no” without sounding like entitled bellends, or companies start respecting specialisation again. But right now? It’s not sustainable. You can be a versatile creative, sure. But asking someone to excel at everything without paying them like they do is just a trap. Design careers used to be about doing great work. Now sometimes it feels like an endurance test of how many tools, titles and tasks you can juggle before you crack.
Sources: Linkedin, Medium, Solo Work, Reddit
Author:
Alex Edwards
Designer & Art Director
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