Why design gets crowdsourced, but surgery doesn’t

Crowdsourcing is the messiah. Crowdsourcing is Satan’s scat. There are piles of debates and declarations about it on the web, and I’m not going to add my own styrofoam cup to that ever-growing heap of opinion. But I want to know why the heap is there in the first place. Why is it that graphic design is beset by crowdsourcing while other professions are not?

Is it the availability of tools? Anyone with a computer and Adobe CSx can perform the activity of graphic design. I imagine that plays a big part. What about subjectivity — who’s to say the design by the trained professional is better than that of the self-taught hack? Then there’s the cool factor. It’s hip to be geek. Designers are cutting-edge thinkers working with the baddest toys on the sickest projects. Who wouldn’t want to be one? Well, there’s nothing that can be done about the availability of tools or the popularity of the profession, but I think there’s something that can be done about the subjectivity.

If you want be a doctor, there is a defined process. It involves lots of school, tons of tests, what amounts to an apprenticeship, and a licensing procedure. It’s rigorous and rigid. Nobody can just buy a scalpel & stethoscope and start practicing. Aside from being dangerous, it’s illegal. Compare this to graphic design. There are schools and degrees, but there is no license to practice and there are no standards. Sure, there are membership associations, but they don’t really mean anything to anyone who isn’t a designer, and most aren’t very picky about who they’ll allow in.

We could change this. If graphic designers united, formed a governing body, devised tests and standards for licensing, and lobbied for enforcement, then over time the profession of graphic design could change. It wouldn’t be a playground for curious children; rather, it would be a respected, exclusive, and highly-organized profession. There would be general practitioners of graphic design, web design specialists, animation specialists, etc. Everyone would have their niche role and would stick to it.

You don’t like this? Medicine is science, you say, but graphic design is subjective. Is medicine really science? Many discoveries in medicine are accidents. The way that many drugs work is just plain unknown; their usage was discovered serendipitously. And is graphic design really subjective? There are principles and rules that good designers use every day as they create. So it could be regulated, right?

But can you imagine a world in which design is regulated? Everyone would follow the same procedures and rules. Where would the creativity be? Would there be a committee to decide if it is okay to break the rules in specific situations? Maybe the creativity would still be there, but I can only imagine that it would be much more quiet and demure, much in the way that creativity in medicine is careful and subtle.

I see this as the crux — the point at which creativity enters into graphic design is the same point at which its unregulatable nature blossoms. You can’t effectively regulate creativity. And if you can’t regulate it, you can crowdsource it.

How to deal with crowdsourcing as a design professional is another question…