5 Reasons Why You Need to Practice Your Craft
A very smart someone once said that an ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory. For many of us, there are so many excuses for why we aren’t able to take this great piece of advice and apply it to our lives and businesses.
There’s the full-time job for some — the 9–5 that keeps the rent paid while we figure out ways to make more time to do what we love or personal projects that take up more time than they should; and for others its the pressure of school — as Africans we can all unanimously agree that the pursuit of education trumps many other things in our communities and families.
However, regardless of what your reasons might be, as a budding (or experienced) designer it is necessary to regularly practice the craft of design. In this post, I’ll share 5 reasons why you need to practice designing regularly.
Growth
This first one may seem obvious but it is always a nice reminder to receive. As Will Smith said, “You don’t set out to build a wall. You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid’. You do that every single day and soon you have a wall”. With practice, you get a chance to see the theory in action, hone the skill and build the muscle till it becomes second nature, and then you get really good at it.
Discovery
When you practice your design, you get an opportunity to try doing the same things in different ways. You get to discover what works for a particular type of user group, for example, or you discover that video prototyping will not work for a certain kind of product. Then you discover other new areas that these rules and conventions apply to outside the contexts and constraints you had previously designed within.
Flexibility
Ever heard the phrase “You need to know the rules to break the rules”? Yes, well, it’s a very true saying. You need to master the rules of design and practice until you understand the different dimensions of applications. Only when this is done will you be able to creatively break rules that have existed for decades in design. Practice empowers you with the kind of intellectual flexibility required to think outside the box and create new solutions to problems or improve upon existing ones.
Discipline
I saw a hilarious infographic on Instagram that perfectly describes this. It charts the “Creative Process” of a designer and sees a very small portion of the process spent on work — while crying of course — while the rest of the time is spent lazing about and procrastinating. I am sure you can relate because I can!
Setting time aside on my calendar for practice and making an effort to make that practice time work for me has been helpful with developing the kind of discipline required to prioritise my design work. This practice has made it much easier to get started and put in the work required for projects that I am working on to avoid the tears and rushed work at the end.
Opportunities for Mentorship
With practice, you become a great designer and a resource to newer designers who are starting out and attempting to understand the way things work. Working on several design projects allows you to identify patterns and context-specific nuances. Although there are certain rules and theories that apply to all user groups across the world, there are nuances that require re-engineering and reworking of some of these concepts to suit the current context.
With the wealth of knowledge and the multiple points of view acquired from practising, you become an open book or a walking encyclopedia and can share this with another person who is also on the journey.
In conclusion, there’s a lot to be said for practice as a general concept and practice as it pertains to designing. This article will hopefully provide you with reasons to go over your new year’s resolutions and include practice to the list if it wasn’t already there or create tangible strategies to make time for it if it was already included on your list previously.
