knowing the affordances of the medium is key, but the industrial designer example is illustrative - while an industrial designer might make a working prototype together with an engineer for certain aspects (electronic prototyping, powertrain, tensile structing, wind-tunnel testing), they wouldn't do it alone.
And once they'd finished their role, a second set of engineers would focus on how to build it with the appropriate material constraints (material, strength, safety, etc). And then a third set of engineers would focus on building the factory line to actually produce it. A fourth set would focus on quality testing, etc.
It is possible to design, create and sell things direct to market - that's the Etsy model, it works for a certain scale. But the larger the scale you work on, the more sense it makes to leverage specialists working together. At a certain point it creates something bigger than the sum of its parts.
It's not that one person can't know everything, it's that above a certain point it's inefficient to have them do everything - and you can't get the benefits of collaboration when you're working alone.
knowing the affordances of the medium is key, but the industrial designer example is illustrative - while an industrial designer might make a working prototype together with an engineer for certain aspects (electronic prototyping, powertrain, tensile structing, wind-tunnel testing), they wouldn't do it alone.
And once they'd finished their role, a second set of engineers would focus on how to build it with the appropriate material constraints (material, strength, safety, etc). And then a third set of engineers would focus on building the factory line to actually produce it. A fourth set would focus on quality testing, etc.
It is possible to design, create and sell things direct to market - that's the Etsy model, it works for a certain scale. But the larger the scale you work on, the more sense it makes to leverage specialists working together. At a certain point it creates something bigger than the sum of its parts.
It's not that one person can't know everything, it's that above a certain point it's inefficient to have them do everything - and you can't get the benefits of collaboration when you're working alone.