Designing had never been a passion of mine, it started with storytelling. I wrote about 8 books since I was 17 and then published one at 21.
Over a period of time, I realised there was another field where I could apply my creativity along with my storytelling skills. I merged my skillset and it boggled me as I was introduced to the world of UX/UI design.
I am a completely self-taught person. I was lucky that my first job allowed me to learn on the fly and gave me the opportunity to learn and observe under one of the best UX/UI designers in India. I learnt and created tons of designs over a period of time and here I am on my journey of building an inclusive design community by creating revolutionary designs by Pineapple studio.
Here are 5 learnings from my carrier in UX/UI designing which have always kept me motivated and determined.
Trust yourself
When you are young, you are naive and it always shows. People around you would probably speak to you about it followed by some mocking, which tends to make you feel agitated and upset, probably angry too.
My first advice is to let go of negative thoughts and charge yourself with a clear focus towards your goal, both, short term and long term.
Trust yourself and be determined to achieve. We are in a creative field where nobody is the best or a winner. Every day a new idea wins, and trusting yourself creates exceptional ideas.
Go ahead, create your own design with all the knowledge you have. Release it, take feedback and repeat. Trust this process and you are bound to be better every day.
Don’t let anything limit you
Everything seems to be difficult at first and we tend to find multiple hindrances that aim at ceasing our growth, this is where you take the hard call to upskilling and not letting these obstacles limit you.
“Motion graphic seems to be really difficult, I’ll figure it out later.” or “How do I shift to a new design software, it involves so much effort, I’ll make do with the older one” These are certain thoughts that every designer has to fight but the one who takes a stab at it and has the grit to upskill will emerge to be successful.
There is NOTHING in this world that you cannot do if another human being has already done it. You are made of the same substance. You just need to be more patient and fight the factors that are limiting you.
I learned photoshop in 7 days by watching other designers, followed by youtube tutorials and experimenting. It looked impossible at the start but once I tried it out, it was easy, really easy.
Time is your friend
A quote that applies for every designer, “Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy”
A quote that was typically meant for the financial markets, applies to every designer as well.
There will be days where you will struggle constantly in trying to learn something new or making something work, which doesn’t mean that the struggle will go on forever.
Time management is something that successful designers excel at and it is a skill that should be inculcated since the beginning of your design career.
Time will be limited and using the time wisely will help you create impactful designs. Impulsive decisions due to a time crunch will always lead to poor quality of designs. Create realistic deadlines and work towards them by making time your friend and not a foe.
Practice will never make you perfect; just permanent
Designs are created in the world of creativity and endless ideas. Nobody has found the right parameters to judge creativity and quote it to be “perfect”.
The aim isn’t to practice to create the perfect outcome but to create a permanent outcome. Perfection is a conclusion and it is important to understand that this conclusion is not achievable, not just by you, by anyone. If there was a single person who created the perfect design, there would just be one person creating designs. Every design you create has to be aimed towards other parameters; sustainability, efficiency and dependency are some of them.
Perfection is a myth; progress is everlasting
Observe, observe and observe
As I mentioned before, a core skill that helped me gain effectiveness in design is observing everything that interested me. Observing strangers, friends, colleagues, nature and even things around you will enhance your creativity and help you listen to more than you speak. Being a brilliant observer also makes you an amazing user experience researcher. You learn to understand human behaviour and pick up on cues that help you apply them to the designs you create. These activities and the skill of observation might seem naive and trivial but the most successful designers do it all. The law of observing in design enhances your personal life as well, leading to twice the benefit.
These were the 5 important takeaways which will help improve a designers perspective towards design in every stage of their designing carrier.
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