Multimedia: media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactive content forms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia
Multimedia has become a popularized notion for aspect of what designers make. The nomenclature for our craft exists in the many rather then the specific. A designer who applies their craft to a variety of mediums may it be print and animation, photography and interaction, etc etc. could be considered a multimedia designer. The ability for a designer to call themselves multimedia was a distinguishing aspect at one time, this distinction has now become less relevant in a world of ubiquitous computing and homogenized tools for design and media making. A designers ability to use the tools, not the it is not important, becomes background chatter in the face of design thinking, methodology, and creative problem solving. Multimedia has then been wrapped up in design and the distinction of the new role of designer is left open. The question is: what is a designer when everyone knows how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Quark, AfterEffects, Final Cut, etc?
Ubiquitous computing and the rise of the personal computer has dropped the level of entry for design so low that anyone who can buy a computer and software can say they are designers. The creation of the distention of a multimedia designer was to emphasize the ability to perform on multiple platforms of making. The new designer has to be able to move beyond the aspects of designs current roles and place their thinking and process in new and innovative aspects. Designer as curator?, Designer as futurist?, Designer as hybrid-maker? Designer as Creative? Designer as Systems thinker? maybe there isn’t a distinction yet but if multimedia designers continue to see their value as the tools they can access and use they will relegate their role to the spit and polish of industry rather then the innovator of new forms of media and design.
check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook
