Becoming a visual design guru… but not quite yet!
Jasmine Friedl, Product designer at Facebook, in her article titled “How To Make Your Not-So-Great Visual Design Better” tries to answer a question that every designer has pondered upon at some point in their career... “How do I get better at visual design”.
The article primarily focuses on the perspective differences that exist between students and industry professionals, in terms of visual design and aesthetics. Professionals, having had years of experience and practice studying interaction patterns, are well acquainted with the importance of things like visual consistency, type hierarchy, margin and padding rules, iconography and personal visual style. The newbies, however, are not, and therefore it is reflected in the designs that they make. The problem she describes can be easily summed up as overconfidence, or rather not being able to admit that their designs just aren’t at that level yet. There is potential, but they’re just not there yet. Plain and simple.
In the first section of the article, she shares three screens designed by a student from Cornell, Jon Lee, which was critiqued at Facebook. This was one of Jon's early attempts at visual design, and right from the get go one is able to see the many problems with the layout.
The various problems she points out are:
Inconsistent type: Inconsistent font casing, sizes, colors and alignment.
Inconsistent iconography: Varying thickness, colors and resolution.
Inconsistent patterns: Buttons with varying text case, heights, colors and sizes. Inconsistent list types.
Inconsistent spacing: Padding rules are not clearly defined. The type is congested and cramped and has no room to breathe, making it harder to read.
Unnecessary elements: She argues the necessity of the “Apply” and “Cancel” buttons, the similarity between buttons and the list, which could be confusing to the user.
Jasmine argues that, the answer to the question “How do I get better at visual design” lies in questioning your design decisions at every step of the way. Humility is another important trait that a designer needs to have. The ability to accept the faults in one’s design, and accept critique in a constructive and positive way is what will eventually lead to good design! Observing existing established design patterns, forming your own opinions, and most important of all, Practice!! these are the keystones for improving upon visual design. Everyone starts out as a novice, and it’s only through making mistakes do we figure out how to avoid them in the future! Good design isn’t something that one is born with, It’s an acquired art, and it takes practice.
Most of what she said hits home for me. When I had started out as a UX Designer, I always thought my designs were good! But now that I look back, I can see all the problems she described in her article in my own designs. I can see all the problems with visual hierarchy, consistency, type, colors.. the works! Thankfully I had a mentor who would bring be back to earth, point out the mistakes in my designs, and then encourage me to think of the mistakes and how they can be avoided or fixed. Just as she describes in her article, his mentorship was directive instead of prescriptive. That, and that alone, has helped me reach where I am at right now, and yet, I know…. I’m still not there yet!
There is a quote she cites in her article, originally by Ira Glass, and I cannot find a better way to sum up the article, so i’ll just leave it here:
Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
