The expanding role of the designer.

Only recently I've been confronted with the question of whether or not I consider myself a designer. Now, that's quite a tricky one.

Ever since I left University I've never had the term 'designer' anywhere imaginably close to my job title. Although I hold diplomas that will assure you that I'm a reasonably skilled designer for fashion communication and interior architecture, I've never designed a product since I graduated.

In the old terms, you'd describe a designer as someone who creates products. In the new age – the age that makes physical objects somehow obsolete – the role of  a designer has evolved. There are so many other fields acquiring trained designers. As the world has become virtually connected, many new roles and job titles have evolved along the way: roles for which no official training has yet been defined.

To get back to the title of this blog post, I'd like to share the suggested roles that were presented at the last Service Design Meet-Up in Berlin. One of the main topics was the definition of common or new work fields designers have nowadays.

The team around Martin Jordan presented these seven roles:

• Designer as co-creator

• Designer as researcher

• Designer as communicator

• Designer as entrepreneur

• Designer as capability builder

• Designer as facilitator

• Designer as strategist

Seems like I am a designer after all. How about you? Any thoughts?