A 4-step workshop to help marketers grow their graphic design skills

Lacey Selvagn
Sep 7, 2018 · 5 min read

How I designed a workshop to help our marketing specialists grow their design skillset and be more self-sufficient in their daily work.

In our marketing department, marketing specialists without design backgrounds are expected to design collateral for the field (essentially, our local branches). They often ask how they can be better designers, which in the past has been tricky, since it’s not always easy to teach design in conversation. Our VP of Operations (my manager) wanted to try a new way to solve the problem, so he came to me with some rough ideas for a design critique that would help the marketers get feedback on their work, collaborate with the creative team, and improve their design skillset.

So, we planned a workshop.

I used a story arc to plan a workshop that would advance the learning and understanding of the concept throughout the day, ending with a clear exercise to meet the original goals.

At this point, if you are not familiar with the basics of crafting story arcs, check out this article for a great primer (and then buy Donna Lichaw’s book for an excellent explanation of using story in UX and beyond).

Our main goals

  1. Ensure marketing specialists are more capable and feel more confident and in their design skills
  2. Leave participants with a better understanding of how to solve the most common design challenges
  3. Foster good working relationships between the marketing specialists and the designers on the creative team.

Here’s how you can run your own 4-part Design Workshop to improve the design skills of your team’s non-designers:

1. Start with a functional icebreaker | 15 mins

I modified a popular problem-solving tool called “Draw How to Make Toast”. For this exercise, ask everyone to take one sheet of paper and a sharpie and simply tell them “Draw out how to make toast, using no words.” Set a timer for 3 minutes and let everyone figure it out on their own.

After the time is up, collect the papers and set them aside. Thank everybody for their participation and immediately move on to the next task, which will amuse and confuse everybody—trust me, it’ll be great.

One of the drawings from Draw How to Make Toast

Why does this work?

At this point in the workshop, you are simply using the exercise as an icebreaker. You’ll revisit the drawings during the last phase of the workshop so that everything comes full circle, wrapping up a nice story to the day. For now, though, everyone has a good laugh, has their creative juices flowing, and is ready to open up for a design critique.

2. Host a design critique | 1 hour

Before the workshop, ask your non-designer participants to each send 5 recent files that they have designed. Print these out and hang them up on a large wall for a design critique. Going through each participant’s work one at a time, have them give a little background about their piece, what the request was, why they designed it that way, etc. Then have the design team critique the work just as they would in a regular design crit. They should point out what’s working, what’s not working, what could be done differently, etc. Keep the conversation focused.

Starting the design critique

Why does this work?

This works the same way any design critique works, except the non-designers haven’t experience before. Often, it’s the first time they will get a chance to stand back from their work and get some insight and feedback to help them improve. It also helps them see things from the perspective of a designer, including what it’s like to stand up there and have your work gently picked apart. Next time the non-designer wants feedback, it’s guaranteed to be a lot less painful to ask a designer for their opinion.

3. Hold a design challenge | 1.5 hours

Come up with a design challenge that is very similar to your non-designers’ regular work. We decided to give our participants a very sparse brief that asked them to design a postcard for an event in California. We included what we wanted to advertise, the specific event details, and what we wanted the card to look like, but no other info. This intentional lack of details helped the non-designer empathize with what designers are often give to work with (incomplete requirements and/or missing info).

We paired up each marketing specialist with a designer from the creative team and gave them one hour to work together to complete the request. The marketing specialist needed to be the sole designer, using their partner only for feedback and suggestions. After an hour, we threw the designs up on a screen and had a mini critique for each postcard.

The teams working on their designs

Why does this work?

This is simply learning by doing. By designing next to a designer, your participant can get real-time feedback on every decision they make. This strengthens the working relationship between the non-designer and the designer, making everyone more comfortable asking for and giving feedback in the future. It also helps the marketing specialist see a request from the designer’s point of view, including the types of questions designers should ask when starting a new project.

4. Bring back the toast! | 30 mins

You’ll definitely want to brush up on your knowledge of Tom Wujec’s “How to Draw Toast” for this part. Put all of the toast drawings from the morning up on the wall and spend a few minutes having a good laugh and critique. Use Tom’s framework as a guide for what you can discuss.

Next, have everyone draw how to make toast together as one group. For our workshop, I let the team get started for a few minutes, then told them they could no longer talk to each other and had to work in silence. After 10–15 minutes, stop the exercise and debrief on their process. Tie this discussion back into everything else that happened today, such as different ways of accomplishing the same thing, how to work together, how to gather feedback and advice, etc.

Pro tip: get a good facilitator who is experienced with pushing the discussion where you would like it to go.

The final debrief

Why does this work?

Having this exercise at the end of the day wraps up the story the workshop is telling: first you improve the confidence and skills of the marketing specialists, then have them experience by doing, then you debrief on the day with the final toast exercise. In the end, your workshop will educate non-designers in a fun, respectful way and foster good relationships and a shared sense of understanding with the rest of your team.

Lacey Selvagn

Written by

UX and Design Leader, seeking new opportunities in the Bay Area | www.laceyselvagn.com

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