Specialize or Generalize - Niche or Broad - What to do when picking a field

Do you want to be a Generalist or a Specialist?

Not since the days of debating the Chicken and Egg have people struggled with what steps to take first in order to develop a successful career. In this clip, Chris settles once and for all whether you should have a well rounded set of skills or a small highly specialized focus in a specific area. And his answer might surprise you.

===

Want a deeper dive? Typography, Lettering, Sales & Marketing, Social Media and The Business of Design courses available here:

—
Love the content? Become a sustaining member for $5/mo today.

BOOKLIST –

Kits & Proposals:

Visit our website:

FREE resources:

Mandarin (Chinese) Subtitles on UiiUii

—
We love getting your letters. Send it here:
Not sure if there's an advantage to being a generalist vs. specialist? Should you specialize? What are you giving up by choosing one area of focus?

The Futur
c/o Chris Do
1702 Olympic Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
USA

—
AFFILIATE LINKS*

🙏 Support The Futur by purchasing through our affiliate links:

✍️ Sharpen your skills by taking a course, using our affiliate links:

🎧 Do you like the music? Check out the music libraries we use in our affiliate links below:

*By making a purchase through any of our affiliate links, we receive a very small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps us on our mission to provide quality education to you. Thank you.

—
Host– Chris Do
Cinematography– Ricky Lucas, Jona Garcia
Live Editor– Jona Garcia
Editor– Eric Sweet Oxygen - Ricky Lucas
Social Team: Elle Money, Alex Burlui
Typefaces: Futura, DIN, Helvetica Now, Calibre, Knockout, Champion Gothic
Futur theme song— Adam Sanborne

[brainkideous]

I believe the Quote "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one." will help clarify and put things in perspective.

[didnt_ask_for_handle]

People may be confused by how he means to specialize. To specialize doesn't mean going into one thing and ignoring everything else. That actually would be pretty much impossible. Could you imagine if all typography was black and white because no one who knows typography knows good color theory? Your niche is like a tree. People are looking for that great big oak! But you need roots to support that tree. And if those roots are big and strong it can even be a selling point for the tree. Have you ever went "Wow this tree has some cool looking roots. All twisty and woven together"?

[bliond]

The perfect balance is be a T person, wide knowledge through different topics and one deep specialization

[pushkar-tiwari-]

Yesterday I got a phone call for my first job and before discuss anything I told them x amount of money per year I am looking for if you can pay then we discuss my skills and job roles otherwise I don't want to waste mine and your time...then they told me to come for an interview and I did my interview and today I got my joining letter and a msg from HR " I like your confidence in my 10 years of the selection process I never see a fresher candidate who told me first about how much money he is looking for and everything after that"


and I was like FULL CREDIT GOES TO THE FUTUR
Thank You (Sorry for my English)

[dedikSKB]

generalist is like having a lockpick, specialist is having the key

[barbiefigueroa]

You’re such an amazing teacher Chris! When you said Creatives are addicted to ‘New’ so true! It took years for me to narrow down into a niche and I’m still refining as I go. Love your teaching style. It just ‘clicks’ in my brain.

[MattSaundersCoach]

This is really interesting. I am 100% sold on niching, I think it's inevitable if you want to build a sustainable business. But I've never seen the external/internal comparison before. This should totally put to bed the concerns people have about niching down. Stay curious and try new things, but only sell the ONE thing. Use all your learnings on the stuff you do behind the scenes to make the ONE thing even better. Very inspiring!

[artbonita]

OK. I now realize that we have a love-hate relationship: I love what you’re teaching and I hate that you’re right!
All this time as a freelance artist, I believed that being a generalist, promoting my “diverse skill sets”, as I like to say, was helping me get noticed. Though, this mindset has actually been crippling my art biz because I am all over the place. It’s no wonder I attract very few high-end jobs. Thx for your help!

[sei]

This is so timely. I've been procrastinating on redoing my portfolio and finding my niche because I just feel so lost. The more I researched..the more I get confused. After watching this everything finally made sense! Thank you! 🥺

[KhenpoDub]

Great content, and don't forget, there are many ways to specialize. You can either specialize by
· What you know (logo design, website design, accountant)
· Who you work with (restaurants, ecommerces, hospitality businesses)

You can obviously combine both (for example, I am a marketing mentor for ecommerces), but be carefull to not super limit your potential audience

[fahadahmed]

This is the question I've been looking for answer for past 6 months and by watching this video it helped me in figuring it out in someway

[GermaineThompson]

Your analogy of specialist and generalist makes me smile, so mind-blowing. You are so amazing.

[CarlosBido]

This is one of the best arguments I've heard for specializing. The halo bias really puts it into perspective. TY!

[ricflomusic]

I came out of Uni a generalist Graphic Designer in 2009, I felt my way through industry jobs to see how they 'valued' me. Most of that value seemed to be from Motion Graphics. So I doubled down on Motion Graphics the following year.. plus it was double the pay as a junior graphic designer. Feel your way through your industry to know the most value you can bring to people than double down.

[AhmedMohamed-qmwd]

Ironically been watching this scene in loop for the past couple of days. Like you guys read my mind 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[markochopsticks]

Your video content is plucked straight from the questions I ask myself. Best channel out there

[AnjuliD]

And suddenly it 'clicked', big thank you for this explanation! As someone who always seemed to search for the exact answer on what to choose, being a specialist or generalist, this video finally gave me the needed insights. This video also confirmed that I'm doing great and that I subconsciouly already chose that exact path without even knowing it.

[divyaakashdutta]

5:53 "God he's ugly, he must be bad at everything."


Damn that hurt.

[gusteixeira]

The best piece of advice for me right now, as in career and Individual

Its so ironic that a lot of people struggle in life (we all do) bumping into many obstacles not knowing what they're doing and some 10min can change radically the way you look at things and help you move towards the direction you want.

Keep at it guys, I've been watching your content since last summer (or even before) really good!

[larrymannino]

As always, time well spent. Love the internal/external solution, and halo bias - good stuff.