A month in nudenotes: Nov 2018
A monthly round-up of Dean O’Callaghan’s #nudenotes
Over at Night Sky Creative, I post a weekly roundup of all things nudenotes.
If you’re wondering what nudenotes are, everything you need to know is right here:
In this new series of Medium articles, I compile a monthly summary of all things nudenotes, alongside my insights and some key takeaways.
Every Monday on my Instagram feed, I start the week by sharing some sketchquotes, to help us get over that bad case of the Mondays:
The first of these photos is a sketchquote of one of my favourite Simon Sinek quotes:
“Don’t show up to prove, show up to improve”
This should be the mantra of all designers — remove your ego and personal biases from your creative process so that your design solutions resonate with your target audience, not just with yourself.
How to Look Confident… Even When You Are Not
(From creativecommons.org)
All creative people struggle with confidence at times.
It’s part of doing work in what’s perceived as a subjective industry.
The best policy is to be open, willing to share and feedback, improving the design and ourselves with it.
Key takeaway: Fake it till you make it!
No one thinks as much about you as you do.
Don’t second guess yourself — stand up tall and trust in yourself to become more confident.
Multipotentialite
inspired by Emilie Wapnik’s Ted Talk and Tanmay Vora’s Blog Article
A multipotentialite is someone with many interests and creative pursuits.
As soon as I read those words, I realised: that’s me!
I’m sure there are many other creatives that feel the same, but this goes against my instinct to niche-down my content.
Luckily for me, I’ve discovered a balance of niching-down in my 9-to-5 and keep exploring ideas and creative pursuits through my nudenotes.
Key takeaway: Innovation happens at the intersections.
The best thing about having many creative interests and pursuits is that you’re able to make more connections — you can see more intersections and overlaps in the world.
These are the connections where ideas are born.
It’s great to have a deep skill or understanding, but you still need a broad knowledge of many areas to enrich and empower your deeper skill.
7 Ways to Be a More Put-Together Person and Make Life MoreSeamless and Less Chaotic
from figuringoutnow.com
Plan; Routines; Signature Style; Keep in Contact; The Details; Neat Home; and Believe it.
These are the seven principles to make anyone win at life, based on the idea that we’re all aiming to reach that flawless Truman Show-like existence.
Well, maybe not everyone, but these principles really appeal to my super-organised personality.
There’s always room for a little improvement, though!
Key takeaway: Believe it!
“Fake it until you make it. Eventually it will become a habit, and eventually [that will] become the truth”
Habits take time and effort to become a reality.
Stick with it and you will reap the rewards.
The goal is to live a more efficient and easy life — we can do it!
Real Branding
Inspired by a quote from business guru Tom Peters.
It’s necessary for successful branding to be ‘real’, not fake, and not just pandering to the masses.
Features Vs. Benefits
This month marked a nudenotes first — an original piece of content, as promised.
I have spent a great deal of time gathering research from various sources and distilled it into these two glorious sketchnote spreads.
Customers don’t understand or care about all the time and effort that we, as designers and engineers, spend on crafting a new feature.
They just want solutions to their problems.
Customers don’t relate to facts and features they relate to story and emotions or benefits — they simply aren’t supposed to.
Understanding these principles is key to:
a) understanding your consumers better;
b) creating better design briefs;
c) more empathic communications; and, ultimately,
d) increasing sales.
Sell with benefits. Support with features.
I really enjoyed making these self-directed notes, so I will definitely be working on more in the future.
Key takeaway: There is a lot of information crammed into this spread of nudenotes, but don’t panic!
I have written a more in-depth article about Features Vs. Benefits which you can read here.
Ways To Become a More Effective Learner
Inspired by an article by Laura Entis I discovered on Tanmay Vora’s website.
The article discusses how many of us have developed ‘bad’ or ‘faulty’ habits and techniques that are damaging to the overall effectiveness of learning.
Key takeaway: Make connections!
The true value in learning comes in the application of that learning.
This comes from contextualising what you read and making a connection with your reality.
Psst… nudenotes are a great way to give your brain time to process your learning and develop ways to make new connections filled with new ideas and possibilities.
Just sayin’.
Expert’s Guide to Body Language in Public Speaking
Inspired by an infographic created by London Speaking Bureau
I am by no means an expert public speaker, and I’m not even sure that it’s actually something you can ‘learn’ how to do.
However, practice makes perfect, and I hope that these nudenotes will be a nudge in the right direction.
If not, fake it till you make it.
Key takeaway: Take your time!
When you’re nervous when speaking in public, most people tend to speed up to get it over and done with, when what you really need to be doing is s-l-o-w-i-n-g down.
Take a deep breath…
Gather your thoughts.
Then start speaking.
This works really well in a variety of situations, even meetings, critiques and chatting with friends.
Try it out, you’ll be amazed at the results.
nudenotes as wallpaper?
I had a message from Laura Martin (@baberham.lincoln_) on Instagram saying “I want to see a whole wall of your sketchbooks”.
I probably have enough pages to wallpaper an entire house!
Although it would probably end up looking like an evidence pinboard from one of those gritty Scandinavian crime dramas…
Nonetheless, I had to mock it up to see what it would look like, using my book notes on Bigger Than This.
I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it, but let me know what you think in the comments.
How To Achieve Design Clarity: LISTEN
Written by Matthew Encina from The Futur on Medium.
There are too many knowledge bombs to count in these nudenotes — how to use questions to gain clarity and get closer to a solution.
Decoding coded language is such an interesting crossroads between psychology and design.
I honestly can’t wait to learn more and put this into practice.
Hopefully, these notes will start me on a journey to become a master design-code-breaker!
Key takeaway: Clarity. Clarity. Clarity.
As Mathew says in his article: “The job of a designer is listen, identify and decode.”
The best way to do this is to actively listen and ask questions that uncover new or hidden insights.
These new clues will build creative parameters that will guide and focus your creative towards a clear goal.
Leadership 7
Inspired by an article by Nicholas Bate from Tanmay Vora’s website.
The article discusses how many of us have developed ‘bad’ or ‘faulty’ habits and techniques that are damaging to the overall effectiveness of learning.
Key takeaway: Model the behaviours you want.
This is how humans learn — by copying something someones else does.
It’s also how master craftsman and artists of old use to teach others their skills and craft.
Don’t be afraid to use the same technique, it’s really very effective.
It also allows you to focus in on the content of what you learn, rather than how you are going to but your own ‘spin’ on it.
That was a month in nudenotes — stay tuned for more articles like this in the future.
Feel free to DM me on Instagram or post a response with any new topics you’d like me to create nudenotes for, and look into.
Until next time… In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good morning and good night.
Can’t wait until next time?
Then head over to Instagram and follow me @deanoj312.
Or head over to nightskycreative.org for weekly updates on everything in the world of nudenotes!
