Ok, so the “yuccie” termonology has been trending all over the internet since the article written by David Infente on Mashable two days ago. For years I’ve been hiring these guys as a creative director and teaching them at an Art college in Nashville. I think I can share a different perspective. Here’s what I see:
From the seat of the Graphic Design Coordinator at Nossi College of Art, I’ve seen the soon to be yuccie come in with a creative mind full of ideas with everything from traditional drawings and Photoshop renderings to graphics created from mobile apps. Still others are already creating timelines, scripting languages and path sequencing for animated graphics. I also see another creative type that’s a different breed altogether–the creative tech. They possess more of an inventor-like mind than that of a conceptual artist. He/she sees the world caught between reality and a more desired non realistic version that travels way faster than the generation right in front of them. Way faster.
When it comes to how they create, the ends don’t always justify the means. Their attention span is so short that they’re more comfortable creating multiple inventions at the same time without really finishing any of them. To them, the idea started is better than the idea finished. They’re deliberate procrastinators who are patient in their impatience to invent. Add to that the desire to develop a more interesting story around the process than the creative invention itself and you have the millennial designer who’s more creatively dangerous in the middle of creation than anything else.
Curriculums and degree options to satisfy the demand for creative tech skills in the creative industry are evolving fast. So fast most universities and colleges can’t stay on pace. The ones that are succeeding are winning the battle of “what you learned your freshman year will be outdated by the time you graduate”. That means evolving curriculums and degrees while the student is in the middle of their educational journey. Nossi even offers alumni the ability to audit future classes after graduation–for free!
From the Creative Director’s seat and with an ad agency perspective, everyone is trying to adapt to the yuccie’s lifestyle of convenience. Freelancing and flexible onsite hours for team collaboration is becoming the new norm. Continued professional education is also a must as technologies for consumers and brands are evolving rapidly. And just any job won’t do. It’s “the one they’ve been holding out for” and employers are racing to their best fishing holes to catch them.
To the millennial designer, being creative is the convenient sharing of ideas. Technology is so second nature that teaching them how to use their creative talents for anything other than narcissistically sharing with a selfie-stick is more about diversion than training. Keeping them focussed on how to use their creative story-telling inventions towards brands and employers that comfortably match their convenient technology savvy lifestyles will be the success of not just today’s companies, but newer ways to communicate brand messages for the future.
