Designer tips: How to get better everyday
5 tips to be a great designer
It’s obvious to all of us, as a human-being that we only can get better if we get ourselves out of our comfort zone. The knowledge base level increases every time we focus our energy on it, writing whatever we’ve learned and then share it with our mates increases by 80% our sense of knowledge.
Bearing this in mind, I want to share some tips on how you can keep pushing your skills hard and get even better results every day in your job.
1. Look for inspiration often
Do more whatever works for you, what inspires you. Do more and more of what you really love. Your mind will be stimulated and your body and soul will be comfortable to get you out of the box. This have a big impact on the issues you approach, how you see challenges.
Schedule in your calendar, on a daily basis, a “must” look for inspiration, read your feeds or magazines, an article, news or whatever make you feel inspired. Below you have some sources that I follow over time.
- 1stwebdesigner.com
- smashingmagazine.com
- webdesignledger.com
- webdesignerdepot.com
- designer-daily.com
- webdesignernews.com
- thinkdesignblog.com
- abduzeedo.com
- designboom.com
2. Getting out of the box
Approach the projects, thinking as it a last chance to do something big or something even better since last one.
You are good at your comfort zone, but amazing things doesn’t happen there. Make sure you are available, physically and mentally, to give more 5% of you during your next project. You will just need 5% more inspiration, motivation, believe in yourself and work… work, work hard. Challenge yourself and I’m pretty sure that amazing things will start to happen.
3. Ask for feedback and take it as an advantage
Feedback is one of the best techniques that designers have to improve their work and keep what have learned as an advantage to the next project.
I know most of us fears the feedbacks, from customers, from our peers or stakeholders, just because we are not seeing at the right perspective. we’re only seeing the present and worried about tight deadlines.
But at the end of the day, it’s the feedback from other people that increases the quality of our final work.
4. Sketch everything
Sketching should be your lifestyle, your best friend, your second mind in case of failure. Get a notebook, a nice one preferably — that you will carry it on everywhere — and a good writing and drawing instrument, I use a Caran d’Ache for example.
Don’t try to cut off the road when starting a new project. Sometimes, we believe that will be quick, but most of the times we don’t, and final result could be much better if we take the right way, use this process — always:
- Grab the notes you take from the client briefing
- Write or sketch some ideas you had during or right after the meeting
- Leafing through your notebook to get extra ideas
- Sketch your wireframes
- Sketch and take notes of ideas for user interactions
You will be amazed by your performance along the years with this notebook tip. Reviewing past ideas and laugh on some others, I’m sure that it will bringing you to a better level than when you start it — you will be able to develop your own techniques, drawing and thinking process.
5. Share your work
Expose your work to your pairs, share your likes, your knowledge, your vision… share everything! When you share it, you grow!
Good design is all about sharing, sharing sketches, different perspectives, sharing ideas, ideas that growth every second you think on them, ideas that generate even better ideas and that can be transformed in great and memorable experiences to your audience.
Conclusion
If you really love what you do, you certainly will feel inspired and motivated on keeping some of these tips. You will be so much better and successfully in your role when you do those naturally and in a consistent way. Cheers to you and good luck.
About the author
Pedro M. S. Duarte passioned designer and front-end developer from Lisbon, Portugal. Almost 20 years experience in the design field going from editorial to graphic and then to digital, since 2009 has been designing high impact websites for the hotel industry with +100 awards won. Has an observable desire to question and challenge design, trends and technology. Loves diving into usability research, evaluations and testing. Design and develop for multiple devices using responsive design principals, user-focus design and accessibility.
