The Hierarchy of Design

Design Discussions general design discussion
1

I’m curious to know what people think the hierarchy is for design jobs. I know that if you ask most people they would say that transportation is probably tops but how does it decend from there?

If car design is number one then is point of puchase design on the opposite end of the spectrum? What do you guys think?

2

I once read a full-time gig at the Vatican used to pay well with high visibility and some interesting political benefits. :exclamation:

3

How are you defining ‘tops’? salary?
I’d be interested to know who gets the most patents…

4

if you concerned with status, then you can easily find the answer by persuing a career as a designer. your own skill and personality will put you in a place wether you like it or not.

There is no ranking. go do the kind of design you want to do, it might teach you somehting about yourself.

5

I would say that the top design jobs would be:

  1. God
  2. The Pope (job opening soon)
  3. Jonathan Ive (as old as god himself)
  4. that guy down the steet at the pizza place… whats his name?
6

Frank Goldstein

7

Frank Goldstien is next in line for the position of Pope, as reported by CNN this afternoon.

8

I think the top deisgn job is that motorcycle mechanic/ inventor dude on the TV show CHiPs

9

There are many pyramids. One would be about corporations and brands, the other would be about industry. One would be about consumer impact, the other about global impact. etc.

What puts something near the top of the pyramid? How about:
Limited jobs
Highly competitive
High visibility
High relevancy/global impact/volume
High regard for the design trade
Highly influential
High benefit to society

Many of these are mutually exclusive! A product that has a high benefit to society via design may not be highly influential. A product that has no visibility to the mass-market may be highly influential to other designers.

That said, I’d tend to want to put “the influencers” at the very top of the pyramid, but I’m not sure if that would give you an accurate reflection of the most desireable design jobs, because many designers judge things like “influence” on volume/impact etc.

If you had to pick between Ferrari and BMW, who would rank higher on the pyramid? Who is actually more influential on other brands?

10

I pick… Ferrari!

11

Frank Goldstein is much higher on any pyramid than Enzo Ferrari or Chris Bangle. I mean look at Hyundai’s turnaround. thats Frank all the way.