The Divers, the Dabblers and the Dispossessed

As graphic designers, artists and makers, it seems important to examine the ways in which we embrace creative learning. Some makers seem to focus on a particular area and learn everything there is to know about one specific technique, tool or discipline, becoming deeply knowledgeable about all the details related to to that topic. Their devotion to their discipline allows them to separate themselves from the crowd. They are specialists with a great deal of technical knowledge and a particular focus: watercolour illustrators for whimsical children's books, arctic photographers of northern lights, newspaper typographers for digital editions, steampunk knit designers or Civil War fabric historians. I think of them as "deep divers".

Others, like myself, have a more multidisciplinary approach, gathering a variety of skills and abilities across a broad spectrum of interests. Cross-pollination and lateral thinking offer a rich source of inspiration and ideas. Like an octopus, we have many arms waving in different directions at once.  (On the downside, our immediate vicinity may become dark and cloudy when we feel threatened by the single-minded focus of the divers.) We are the "dabblers", extending our tentacles into many different ponds and oceans.

And then there are the dispossessed, those who can never settle to any particular discipline for long, who barely dip a toe in the water and never learn to swim. They cast their nets wide as they skim across the surface, pick up a few items here and there, look them over and throw them back... and then move on, restless and dissatisfied, leaving nothing but flotsam and jetsam in their wake... never truly appreciating the wild beauty of the world that lies just beneath the surface.