Big or Small jobs for all?

Big or Small jobs for all?

I have chosen to talk about this design issue as it relates very well to a company called Fresh who I have recently been in contact with.
Fresh is a design and event company based in Cheadle. They specialise in large corporate functions and events, and are in the process of opening a in house advertising agency as well as the six other existing departments Events, Design, Video, Interactive, Broadcast and Rewards.
Fresh's creative design team are a really good example of a large company who employees al large number specialist people who are particularity skilled in one area of the creative process.
For them this works very well as the creative team deal with a multitude of different requirements, that all differ from on another, therefore requiring specialist skills in lots of different areas. They employ Graphic designers, Web designers, Editors, Illustrators, 3D Designers, Art Directors, and Film-makers all with different areas of expertise within there field. This creates a highly talented and effective team of people that can deal with all manors of requirements.
Another plus point is that working around people with all sorts of skills and different jobs going on creates a buzzing environment of interest for everyone who works there.
I imagine it is not to dissimulator to the way that everyone in my class works on very different things and all have different skills, opening up ideas to you that you wouldn't of usually come across if you hadn't shared your thoughts with someone working in a completely different format to yourself.
In a company one of the downfalls of having lots of people only doing 'their thing' results in periods where there isn't any work for one person but too much for another, as he or she only has the skills to complete that given task. Fresh gets round some of this like a lot of companies, by hiring freelancers to come in for a few days. As a result this cuts down on paying people to wait around for the other person to finish there part of the job before for he or she can do theirs.
Working in a large office for a large company, with a vast variety of talent surrounding you must be very inspiring. However in the case of really big companies such as Double Negative which has in excess of 500 people working there, it is a slightly different state of affairs. They produce special effects for big budget Hollywood blockbusters. The jobs are so enormous that they to to employ teams of people specialised in one area to get through the work load. In this situation I think it maybe a little less inspiring sitting in an office where everybody does the same job, and you have to go next door to find another skill or stage of development with another 10 people in there doing that job.
In contrast to this, a small company in Altrincham called 'The Foundry Communications' (where I had some work experience a few years back) work in a completely different way. They are a Advertising Agency that does a small amount of web work. There clients include, John Smiths, Manchester United, and Scholl. Their way of working is to hire people who have a range of skills under there belt and have worked in various areas of design and web design.
The company employs around 20 people, and they all help out on everything all day. Watching the way they worked was really interesting and after a week there I began to realise why they could do these quick turnarounds and make ridiculous deadlines. It's because they were always helping each other and running round from one part of the office to another, they managed to turn the company in a fast passed machine where somebody always had something to do, or someone was always helping someone else. The environment was very close knit and the staff were more like family than colleges. However this can sometimes result in there not being the skills in house to complete a job, in this case they would hire freelancers. This is costly and in many cases can delay the progression of a job.
In regards to looking at what my preference would be between having a assigned task to do or being in a situation where you get to work on a variety of things, and think id have to opt for the later. I love a lot of different things, and enjoy working in different mediums to achieve different tasks. I'm not sure I like the idea of doing the same job day in day out, even though the brief might be different Id always feel like I have more to offer and more to learn that doing one allocated task very well.