Dear Reader,
What are 21st-century skills?
21st-century skills are the skills that will keep you competitive in our global, interconnected world, but do you have them?
There are lots of frameworks for understanding these crucial skills, but I like The Four C's of 21st-Century Skills because it's easy to remember:
- Critical Thinking - looking at problems in a new way, and linking learning across subjects and disciplines
- Communication - sharing thoughts, questions, ideas, and solutions
- Collaboration - working together to reach a goal; putting talent, expertise, and smarts to work
- Creativity - innovation + invention, trying new approaches to get things done
Which of these skills do you have?
When I look at this list, I see the faces of designers I know.
I think about the head start that designers already have in this century.
I think about all the designers with these skills that couldn't truly thrive in the 20th century.
As a designer, you should take pride in being geared up with the right skills for this century.
Elon Musk crowdsourced a new logo for Twitter on Tuesday. He picked a design from Twitter user @SawyerMerrit. Sawyer didin't design the logo himself but added some video effects to a previous graphic designer's work. Musk loved it and instantly switched the new x logo with the old bird. After receiving criticism, Musk said that the logo will "evolve in time."
Source
This sort of CEO behavior of going around internal processes sounds like my first job in tech. It's always a bad sign when leaders work around the very processes they establish, but it honestly isn't suprising with Musk's bad boy businessman persona. I can't help but think of the designers at Twitter updating their resumés after this PR move.
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Source, shared by Linus Mimetz in the Guild
Have a great week, y'all!
Jeff Humble
Designer & Co-Founder
The Fountain Institute
P.S. For those who didn't know, we have a free Slack group called the Guild of Working Designers at the Fountain Institute. Join us here!