Name another industry whose "Designers" are programmers?

GameDev.net · 2009-05-03T12:23:55

Hi all, Subject matter says it all. I come from a long career in graphic design where of course designers are trained for around 4 years in the faculty of arts. When I first got into the games industry I was shocked to find that games designers, possibly the most important creative role for the team, come from programming courses or are ex-programmers. It lead me to wonder if there are any other industries where the title "designer" is given to someone from a science or engineering background. Product designers, fashion designers, magazine designers, set designers, graphic designers, I can't think of one? Architects learn a mixture of science and art but the emphasis is on art and they're not called "designers". Is it healthy for the creativity of our industry that game play design is being done by people trained to think logically and not creatively? Of those of you who are working in companies commercially, are your game designers from creative or engineering backgrounds? I'm sure the results will make interesting reading. Cheers all.