Engineers need to complete a certain amount of schooling, coupled with applied practice, before earning their “ticket.” After doing so, they gain increased responsibility as they’ve worked through a structured and rigorous training process. I want to make the case for similar training and accreditation for designers.

Uh-oh… I feel a rant coming on, and it’s not one of those brief ones either. It’s long and full of my own custom brand of “bitchiness”. I typically don’t address the issue of “spec”. It’s a boring topic that has been debated on countless occasions. Something recently arose, however, that demanded a response.

When I talk to companies about what we do at smashLAB, I often use a simple analogy. I note that for as good as I am at helping my wife find flattering clothing, I struggle with what to wear almost every day. It seems that no matter how strong our judgment may be, it becomes less clear when looking at ourselves.

Last fall I was commissioned by Oliver Lindberg and the folks at .net to write a feature on “getting unstuck”. (You can read it here if you’d like.) During the process, I contacted a number of designers at various stages of their careers, asking them to share their thoughts on the topic. Most were gracious and responsive, but one made me want to heave.

The invasion of design has begun, fueled by an army of talented newcomers and low-cost offshore services. This new breed trades methodology for mimicry and by doing so radically undercuts pricing, sometimes even working for free. Like it or not, supply and demand in the design industry is undergoing upheaval. Worse yet, for design buyers it’s getting harder to differentiate between good and bad design.

From 12 to 30 I utilized the same general approach when it came to trying to get a date. I’d meet someone great, get awfully excited, and then make a bumbling request to get together. It rarely worked out very well, and upon being rejected I would retreat, deciding that it was easier to sit on the sidelines than hear a “no”.

For as much as I make fun of them, I’m in fact a believer in online ads. They’re largely a mess right now, but this will change. In contemplating the future, three factors need to be considered: First, AdSense has completely buggered the market. Second, the death of mainstream media will create a vacuum of content. Third, this shortcoming will result in real revenue for quality content providers, regardless of delivery device.

I have a theory. It could prove incorrect or even shortsighted, nevertheless, it’s a bet I’m willing to make. I think businesses on the web are going to get a lot smaller. In the web world, we’re currently experiencing the fallout of the second of two tidal waves. The next one, however, will be slower, more distributed, and come with far less of a shock.

I bought a house in 1995 for $98,500. I was 22, and living in my hometown, Prince George. In my mind it was an investment; strangely, however, it never struck me that there was any possibility of not making money from the purchase. In the years that followed I decided that I wanted to move somewhere more metropolitan and I learned just what an anchor a house could be. The market was flat, and no one wanted to buy a home.

I’m a big believer in design firms taking on self-directed projects. They are a wonderful outlet and afford designers the opportunity to “own” something, which is rather rare in most client-driven projects. In fact, I presented a Thinkshop on this topic at the Y Conference in lovely San Diego last spring.