In the last 2 months, I’ve had a few people question my desire towards tutorials.  There is confusion in the air when mentioning it, and its understandable – most of the time when asked to do something, I know exactly how to do what is being requested and a few ideas will pop into my mind – but I continue to go through tutorials – I wonder: perhaps a stereotype needs to be changed.

When you think of someone going through a tutorial, what do you think?  I’ve posed this question once and… the response was to be expected.  Often, the thought of someone going through a tutorial means that they’re new to something, inexperienced, and/or just getting their feet wet.  But there’s more to it than that.  Even if you’re highly advanced in a set field and the tutorial is well within those boundries, there is much that can be gained from continually going through tutorials.

Sometimes I find that though my methods of doing something are useful and work for what I’m doing, there are easier ways to do something.  I fear that at times I’ll see the more complicated ways of going about doing something before ever even noticing the obvious methods that would get something done more swiftly and efficiently.

In today’s market and especially in the “world of design” its paramount that things are accomplished quickly, efficiently, and with a spark of shine to what is being done (pull out your jazz hands!).  Going through tutorials also can familiarize others on how different people – designers – go about doing the same thing.  Often, I’ll have something that I’m working on that looks quite similar to something else that I’ve done in the past – however, the way that I go about accomplishing that “sameness” might vary depending on the purpose of the item.  By knowing different ways to accomplish similar ends, it gives more diverse skillsets so you can tackle more challenges put in front of you with efficiency and finesse.

And finally – the #1 reason why I continue to push myself through great, good, and horrid tutorials: One can never know everything.  There is SO much out there that even if someone’s been in their specific field for 15 years, it is not possible to know everything.

Perhaps the question should be changed to “Why not a tutorial?”

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