The shape of a designer

Qualities that ensure a long, successful, and happy life as a product designer – and maybe even just as a person.

In my 15 year career as a designer, I’ve crossed paths with a lot of people. If you looked at my resume, for better or worse I suppose, one might say I’ve ‘jumped around a lot’. One of the natural byproducts is that I’ve experienced, witnessed, and worked with all types of personalities. There is so much unique about us – the creative industry is a melting pot of unique personalities of all shapes, sizes, eccentricities, personal histories, and demeanors. In all of the things individually unique, of course there are some commonalities (or personality themes?) too.

Recently, I’ve thought a lot about what conditions and personality aspects there seem to be common in good design work. I’ve looked back the earlier stages in my career and asked, “how was my own behavior when I started?” “How has my personality – then and now – affected my work?”

And finally, who do I think as “successful” in the design discipline? Goodness — there are a lot of ways to measure success– but what characteristics do those who seemingly ‘do good work’ commonly express? When I think of those people I realize that there are at least a few common themes easy to appreciate at the surface and deeply rooted in their personalties. The ones that rise to the top for me are:

1. They have a child-like sense of inquisition – and are never entirely satisfied with the answer.
2. They are patient ninjas. They have their eyes on the horizon, ever-patient — but when lightning strikes, they don’t sit idle — they’ll move through like Silver-Surfer. Their focus is deep in the moment, concentrated on the thing and hand — and yet still can be fleeting, excited for the next thing.
3. They love the hunt for underlying, hard data or information that makes clear or supports and emphasizes the right course of action.
4. In a marathon, they run 28 miles. They’re really. Hard. Working. (Duh). If they only worked a 40 hr week, it’d be because they were sick for a few of those days.
5. They’re every-forward looking. They don’t dwell on the losses or miscues— they revel in and share/celebrate the victories.
6. Their hobbies outside of work are design – or some exercise that has some sort of creativity/design aspect inherently embedded (they don’t garden — they do landscape architecture). Their afterwork drug of choice is soaking in the fulfillment of a good day’s work as a designer.
7. They hone their craft, or understanding through reading, writing, and speaking at events/conferences about design as a matter of routine. They never get too comfortable with their own ideas.
8. A savvy diplomat of the people involved in the project. They’re able to understand the nuances of every participants interests, challenges, personal complications, implementation obstacles ect. — and they find hierarchy, order in all of this.
9. Listeners. They are social and empathetic. The are able to genuinely bond with their peers and be sympathetic to everyone’s individual ambitions and hardships. Design is a practice of making people happy (or our lives easier)— and they love people. They love to listen, observe people.
10. They aren’t just good communicator, they’re orators.
11. Able to rally everyone towards the same goal, and communicate everyone’s value and role.
12. Detailed oriented. Super-doooper detail oriented.
13. They think in holistic systems. How does consequence to “A” affect “Z” in 6 months from now?
14. Humble – endearingly so. In a world where many of us are our own best public relations agent, they remain modest in spite of their success.
15. They are a genuine optimist. I saved the best for last because it really is the most important thing in my opinion. To these people, literally nothing gets them down — it’s annoying how upbeat they always seem to be ;) This seems really simple — but it can take many of us (I’m including me here) years of personal work to get to this point (and I’m still working on it). If you’re constantly frustrated and outwardly expressing it, you can become a cancer to the rest of the team. Instead of focusing on how to tackle the problem, everyone is distracted by how to work with you — this is no good. Wether you’re a designer or not, we all just need to be more (practically) optimistic, and kinder to one another. We’re alive, and there is so much to do, and be appreciative of.

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Please tweet me at @crosspike if you have some more you think should be here!