Things I’ll Do Differently If I Had To Restart My Design Career
source link: https://uxplanet.org/things-ill-do-differently-if-i-had-to-restart-my-design-career-d5146dd1df93
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
Things I’ll Do Differently If I Had To Restart My Design Career
Learn from me, to speedrun your way through
Thumbnail by author
I started off as an animator back in early 2020, making rotoscoped videos on my phone.
I then saved some money and upskilled to become an illustrator in 2021 but decided to learn another skill, which happens to be my main gig now.
Since late 2021 when I bought my first laptop, I started offering UI/UX services from day one itself.
I was a no-bullshit person at that time and wanted to climb the ladders of design and create my dream freelance career.
But with more time and experience, I now realize that I could’ve done a lot of things in a more efficient way and avoided some so I won’t get derailed.
Here’s my list, if I were to start from scratch again, considering I get to keep my current knowledge with me :p …
Master Figma First
Sounds very counter-intuitive but it isn’t.
Until you know “how to design” in a software properly, none of the brilliant ideas in your head can see the light of day.
I’ll choose to go ahead with Figma first instead of learning other softwares because it’s the industry standard with all the required features.
Create “My” Design Process
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to a designer’s creative process.
Everyone builds their own with time and practice, and to succeed quickly I’d go through several attempts of trial and error to find my own process.
Pay To Learn
I am yet to pay a single penny to learn design, everything I know is from YouTube and free content online.
But it’s extremely time consuming to find anything valuable online, and even after that, there’s no guarantee that I’ll find the exact thing I was looking for.
I’d much rather pay for sessions with a trusted mentor who can help me fix my skill issues and save time.
Take More Breaks
I hit burnouts frequently because of how indisciplined I am with my daily routine.
I was working for 3 clients at the same time last month, now I can’t get off my bed to send a proposal because of how exhausted I am.
I’ll most likely take Wednesdays off and travel outside, weekends are generally very crowded.
Get Better At UX Writing
Words are going to be the majority of your UI screens.
Even buttons will have a single word, that could impact your KPIs more than you think.
Having a basic understanding of product copy and human psychology will only unlock the hidden potential within me so that I never touch lorem ipsum ever again.
Create Content Earlier
I started writing here around 7 months ago and regret not posting regularly earlier.
Since then I have received freelance gigs, product sales, and overall recognition in the design community.
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I wasn’t this late to join the party, but hey, better late than never.
Try A New Design Style Each Week
As someone who plans to switch to a proper visual design career path, it’s important to know how to design in as many styles as possible.
There are so many of them that I can’t even put a finger on, but if your source of inspiration is Dribbble then you’ll probably only know 3–4 of them.
So browse through the internet and pick one that looks beautiful and replicate them with your own twist!
Find The Balance Between Business & Design
As a freelancer, a sad realization is that I design for the client first and then the user.
This means that I need to serve the business first and everything else follows. But good design can’t exist without any empathy towards the user.
This is where I need to find the perfect balance, and convince my clients of difficult decisions that are better for the app but might not make sense monetarily.
Deliver for both clients and users.
Recommend
-
16
Three reasons why people looking at one thing can see something differently1) Cone sensitivity differs between peopleCones are the cells on your retina sensing light in one of three color ranges. These ranges overlap, with
-
8
ProductThis VP is Doing Things Differently in the Product Org — Here’s His PlaybookLate last year,
-
7
How to build tech that does things differentlyData ethics principles and processes are useful, but they are often of limited use when it comes to addressing the social and environmental harms of the data economy....
-
7
1 July 2021IntroEveryone 1 and their dog 2 loves Git. I know I do. It works, it’s...
-
9
8 ridiculous things my husband had to endure for Android Police By Rita El Khoury Published 1 day ago It’s not all gadgets and roses
-
7
Collaboration and teams 5 Things High-Performing Teams Do Differently October 21, 20...
-
6
way0utwest 🎙️ (He/Him/His) on Twitter: "@sql_williamd @MJSwart @Kendra_Little The good thing is you can be like Microsoft and name things differently in each database and create the same type of consistency as we have with datetime and int."
-
3
Things high-performing teams do differently
-
6
In the fast-paced world of mobile app development, standing out in a crowded marketplace requires careful attention to user experience and design. If you take the t...
About Joyk
Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK