I know the adage is because a master is supposed to be focused exclusively on their chosen skill, but why not be a Jack-of-some-trades and a master of two or three? In today's world of ever-increasing specialization, it can lead to surprising solutions for everyday problems.
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I love this subculture, mostly because of all the brass and wood contraptions people make, and also the word 'aether'. I'm intrigued by the philosophy of the Victorian scientists -- they're all about self-reliance, discovery, and observing nature. The Victorian scientist was expected to be a renaissance man of sorts, part artist, part engineer, and part inventor. It's Leonardo da Vinci in coattails, and now wearing telescoping goggles.
In my line of work, I've picked up skills from widely divergent fields. My clients generally know that I do all the designs and concepts as well as writing the code and database structure, as well as a fair bit of marketing plan analysis. It's not often that you find an excellent designer who is also an excellent programmer, and I am no exception (here comes that Radical Transparency we blogged about last time): I've always been an artist who programmed as a hobby and I'm pretty good at it, yet I know too many excellent programmers to count myself among them.
However, I think there's tremendous value in knowing what goes on behind the scenes. When I'm creating a web design I'm always thinking about how to implement it. There are cross-browser issues, file size issues, and SEO (search engine optimization--I'll write about that soon) to think about, in addition to defining my client's marketing message clearly in the design. Knowing the flaming hoops I have to jump through later will affect my design choices, and speeds development time immensely. If all I knew was the design side, things could go pear-shaped pretty quickly when it came time to code.
I'm the first to admit that I'm not a master programmer, but I don't have to be. I just have to be good enough to know that if I'm designing a database application it has to scale to 10,000 users because that's what my client's business plan calls for, or how I can use a programming trick to make a page full of graphics load faster. Most designers don't know anything about the back end at all, and I think they're hobbled by that lack of knowledge.
If the project needs perfect code I have a ton of resources I can call on to get the perfect code. Most of the types of projects I handle don't need much programming, though, and I can stick to the areas where I am an expert -- design, CSS and Flash. That doesn't mean I can't code up an extranet, blog or forum, it just means that if that's all you want then I'll help you find a master programmer instead. It does mean that I can help you figure out your marketing plan and how solid graphic design is a necessary part of it, and I can charge less because I don't have the overhead of employees and subcontractors.
Beyond being skilled in related fields, I think there's value in expanding your knowledge to include areas outside your field of expertise, because you never know when it will come in handy. My weird hobbies have included electronics and circuit design, music, Unix server administration, urban fishing, and writing. Sometimes those things will inform a project I'm working on, so I find myself learning new things constantly. That leads to approaching problems from an unusual direction, and creating unique solutions for design challenges.
Take Ian's website, for example. How do you make a rookie science fiction author stand out from the crowd? Use elements from a not-yet trendy and up and coming science fiction genre like steampunk, and apply a liberal dose of equal parts creativity and coding. Most of the left bar graphics are interactive in weird steampunk ways, which adds to the atmosphere of the site. Everyone he talks to now remarks on how cool his website is, and he ends up looking like an old pro.
