I always heard people talking about abilities that are not just accessible to anyone. Apparently, design, like some other areas, demands something called talent, that you are born with or not.
Some people, like Roger Johansson claim not to have “talent” for web design. Roger is an expert in web standards, usability and accessibility and runs a very beautiful blog about these subjects.
Well, I have studied both architecture and computer science, so I think I have a good background of both areas.
Still, I am a little skeptic when it comes to talk about talent.
I do believe some people has some innate aptitude to do things that we may call talent (and this is true for design an computer science as well), but for the most part of it, I think that anyone who is really interested in develop as a designer might eventually do it.
Over the years I gave this subject a though, the greatest doubt I still have is
May it be that ‘talent’ is the name given to the real desire and pleasure of doing that particular thing?
Today, I consider myself a designer, just as much as a software developer, but it haven’t always been like this.
When I entered the architecture school, my visual concepts were quite lousy and starting any piece of desing was really a pain. The more interested in learning the thing, the better I got.
I may not be the setter of new breakpoints in design, but I did learn how to start, continue and finish design pieces in a way that pleases me and my public.
So, could it be that talent is this determination of pursuit a particular knowledge instead of an innate hability, or really all designers and artists in general just were born with this magic on them?
13 Comments
Guilherme, I believe some people born with this kind of magic, sadly or not. Ok, if anyone pursuit a dream with his heart, he will partially succeed, but the true genious is innate. If someone put a gun in my head and tell me “Play piano until the end of a year, or die!”, I will learn how to play piano. But if someone tell me “Play piano like Beethoven in 10 years, or die!”, I will be dead in 10 years!
I see your point Fabio. If I’ve been in your (hopefully hipotetic ;-) situation I’d make plans for next 10 years and not a single day more.
Still, taste is subjective, and Beethoven is a genius only because people say so. Maybe Joey Ramone thought he was just as good as the old Ludwig Van, and a legion of fans would agree.
Could it be that if I was truly interested, I could succeed in producing music? (as oposed to be famous, which is somtehing completely different)
Could it be that lack of talent in music, is another name for lack of true interest in develop it?
Hi Guilherme!
First of all, congrats on your blog design, I think it’s pretty neat! Just added your feed to my news reader. :-)
Back on topic… I think this is a great subject, the question of talent.
In my not so humble opinion, talented or gifted people don’t have anything innate, they weren’t born to do whatever they do so well.
I say that for two reasons: the first is that more and more psychologists, researchers find out that the brain/mind is a lot less hardwired than we originally thought, so probably it’s a long and complicated history and string of influences that leads people to be really good at something, or geniuses. Such history can be traced up to some point, which often shows us incredible amounts of hard work.
This leads to the second reason: it’s very convenient to believe in talent being innate, so you can just say “oh well, I wasn’t born to do that” when you fail and just give up. So I think it’s a very dangerous myth, it stops us from trying harder!
That’s it.
Cheers!
— thiago
Thiago,
that is totally true. AFAIK, neuro-science research is evolving in a way that seems that we can reprogram the brain to whatever we like. Not an easy task though, requires a lot of interest in doing it so.
An unanswered question for all of us (that won’t find its answer on this humble blog) is whether our will to pursuit things as well as our main interests are exclusively cultural or if there is an innate part as well.
Hi all, an interesting topic and warrants much needed discussion.
I want to put a different spin on this and come at from the theory of evolution.
Before I get started, I have to agree with the general comment that we can reprogram ourselves to do almost anything we want given enough time.
Having said that, we can’t ignore that certain people have a quicker and more natural aptitude to grasp something new. This I attribute to evolution. Some people are born with a stronger, leaner, and heavier body and naturally lean towards sports. Other individuals have genetically leaned the other way and delved into more scientific or mathematical endeavors.
Although a bit eccentric, the movie “Unbreakable” by M’Night highlights this interesting point in life. In this movie, we have two characters on the opposite end of the physical spectrum where one character is exceedingly strong and the other prone to physical limitations.
In a more personal example, my youngest brother has already demonstrated that true abilities lean towards the physical side rather than mental. He’s the smallest out of all his friends but has surely beat every one in a arm wrestling contest.
The question here is not whether we have the ability to learn new talents but are certain talents innate. If we define innate talent has our natural ability to grasp something quickly and perform it well, then we all have innate talents due to evolution and genetic makeup.
To take another view, pick a skill, any skill. Let’s just pick drawing. To be more specific, let’s pick realistic drawing. In addition, imagine a scale or spectrum from 1 to 100, where one means you suck bad and 100 says you’re a genius. Everyone initially judged will fall somewhere in between this spectrum depending on their current skill level.
Let’s say my skill level was 45. Now, the amount of talent you have depends on your learning curve. If my innate talent is high, I can advance my skills relatively quickly. In addition, my talent not only determines how fast I can learn but also how high I can go. My ability may cap at 95 or less, which depends on my talent.
Think about it…
-Illy
Hi Illusive, and thanks for joining our discussion.
I think it is unquestionable that, for some reason or the other, some people are able to do things that other won’t.
That said, we can really call this talent, and if we stop the discussion here we can just use this word and everyone will understand, in an intuitive way, what talent is.
Thiago raised the point that, in theory, you would be able to entirely reprogram yourself to do whatever you want with enough time, but since we are all mortals, a timeframe is required, what takes us to the second point: really wanting is enough?
My simple answer would be: no!
I have seen many people in my life that really wanted to do something and they only succeded, as Fabio said, partially.
But then you have to put the cultural background as a parameter as well. If I’m not mistaken, scientific research is going in a direction that shows that reprogramming the brain in much harder that programming it on the first place (correct me if I’m wrong).
Now, I think you are totally right in what you say about the speed on the learning curve, but I’d not take for guaranteed that the amount is really capped. At least if we don’t consider a limited amount of time, which would rely again on speed, instead of capping.
Talent is a strange thing we humans have. Certain things are surely innate. Like our physical construction. Why are some people more beautiful than others? They simply have a better working defense system, so genetically they are better suited to survive the first years of life. Pity for them, that they will die earlier, because their biological defense mechanism also kills them earlier. So if you wish to live long, you are better of with a mediocre defense system.
However that is not what I would call talent. Born biological abilities are just basic tools to survive in this life.
So talent should be a mental ability. But then which mental ability. Because many abilities we call talents, can be decomposed to smaller parts. A good musician needs a good ear. Needs an ability to translate sound into motion. Or he or she needs the ability to learn a strange language and translate its words into movement. But what if you have perfect hearing, you have a perfect ability to learn languages, but you do not have an instrument to play on. Or you lack the hands to hold an instrument?
So talent in reality does not exist. It is a combination of abilities. And probably the coming together of abilities is dependent on the culture you live in. A culture that throwns on music will not create many great musicians. A culture that lacks the instrument to build tall buildings, will not get architects that create beauty.
So in the end great things are only achieved if the right combination of factors come together. And to achieve that coming together of factors, one must be able to dream and realize that dream against all odds.
@guioconnor: Hope your move went good, and that you are enjoying the new place.
The immune system is a rather strange self deviating system. The healthier you the stronger the system reacts to foreign entities entering your body. But it also reacts to your own body cells that do no look healthy. So in keeping your body healthy it also destroys unhealthy cells. In doing so it shortens you life span, because cells can only divide a certain amount of times before they start to mutate. So the better your immune system works, the sooner it starts to destroy sick cells and the less cells you are left with to build a healthy body. At a certain moment in time you are out of healthy body cells, because your immune system worked so well.
@Norman – Everything went fine with the move, thanks.
Now, that is an amazing thing to know, I did know that cells can only divide a certain number of times, I forgot the name of this phenomenon, but I know that, roughly speaking, this is why we get old and die. But I did not know that a good immune system killed us sooner. Thanks for the explanation.
I did not know that either until I read an interview with a Dutch researcher of geriatrics. He told that research had shown that most people who get older than 80, were sickly in there childhood. That could even be proved for people living several centuries back, through their written family history. And as with everything biological there are exceptions to the rule. Of course their will be people with perfect working immune systems that grow to be ninety or older, but not so many as those who where sickly as a child. Although you would expect the opposite.
Whether you have in-born talent or not, it doesn’t matter much. If you have the passion and practice then you can even exceed the expectation of a talented person.
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