29 Things Young Designers Need to Know

In response to how many people liked my last post, I found another list of anecdotes that I got out of a poster from a magazine a few years ago and had on my wall till just recently. I love it, and it contains some great advice.

29 Things Young Designers Need to Know.

1. Sweat the Details
2. Play Nice (Don’t Burn Bridges)
3. Don’t Fear Type (Become it’s master)
4. Define Your Audience (Communicate with purpose)
5. Be Yourself (It’s OK to tell your own story)
6. Learn To Say No (Sometimes you need to walk away)
7. Collect and Share (Anything and everything)
8. Be a Design Author (The opportunities are diverse)
9. Build Your Book (It’s a beast you must feed)
10. Clean Up Your Act (Employers read Twitter too)
11. Re: Search (And Destroy)
12. Observe Trends (Then avoid them)
13. Defend Yourself (Practice makes perfect)
14. Paper Matters (Print lives, Rejoice!)
15. Content is Still King (Design is simply a plan)
16. Reject Personal Style (Difficult, but not impossible)
17. Say No to Spec Work (Avoid it like the plague)
18. Become Indispensable (Expand your Talents)
19. Join AIGA (A No-brainer [or other related professional org])
20. Build (Relationships)
21. Seek Criticism (Accept praise)
22. Never Compromise (We work too hard)
23. Know Your History (Understand design’s cultural past)
24. Value Your Work (This is your livelihood)
25. Make Mistakes (Take some chances)
26. Keep a Sketchbook (In your bag or back-pocket)
27. Your Mac is A Tool (Rock on unplugged)
28. Respect (The environment)
29. Teach Others (Share your knowledge) 

50 Ways to Become a Better Designer

So I’ve been trolling through my huge backlog of articles to read (Literally probably about 500+ articles), and have noticed that lots of them have fallen to the woes of the internet. Site’s gone, Articles lost, URL’s changing etc. So I came across this one, and decided to immortalize it here, with my commentary, because it’s good and you should read it.

https://www.gosquared.com/blog/archives/114

50 Ways to Become a Better Designer

1.  Metaphors- Great ideas can stem from metaphors.
2. Don’t take all day to brainstorm- Short sessions are better than long ones.
3. Get off that computer!- Taking a break is better than getting stale.
4. Join a forum- Talk to other creatives, mix it up.
5. Think brand- Base ideas off simple premises, similar to branding.
6. Use a sketchbook- Duh.
7. Get your specs straight- Don’t design for the wrong situation.
8. Draw a map- Word map of the brief, to pictorialize it, make it easier to think on.
9. Rough it out- Low Res mockups.
10. Take a shower- Non-stinky body (and running water) helps you think better.
11. Stay on top of the latest happenings- Dont fall behind! Keep up with the times.
12. Keep to web standards- Sorry, still have to support IE don’t we.
13. Make a library- Don’t make it hard for yourself. Don’t recreate things, that you can reuse.
14.  Save. Save. Save. Save again- Recent updates to adobe products helps this but still, save early, save often, and keep track of changes that a save might ruin (losing history states etc.
15. Collaborate- Share ideas and give critique between colleagues. It helps.
16. Do it right the first time- test and fix before deployment. Keep the customer happy.
17. Save your repeated actions- similar to keeping a library. Make your work faster.
18. Your assets’ greatest asset- Keep high res and vectors separate from the working folder. 
19. Simplify- Dont distort the message with complexity.
20. Experience is everything- Know your tools. Don’t blame them.
21. Naming Files- Do so semantically, and universally. M\Keep that Hard Drive in ship shape!
22. Gradients in Flash- Shit gradients in everything - Dont use the defaults.
23. Another layer of Photoshop Cake- Use lots of (well named)layers in PS and avoid merging. Be a good Layer Mayor!
24. Use a pen and paper- part of sketching, just do it. Doesn’t matter if you are good at it or not.
25. Play with Color. Like no other- Modify colors even after you think you are done, to see how it looks differently.
26. Buy a new computer- Don’t forget to upgrade that beast.
27. More RAM- New computers need more ram, always. SSD HDD- Get one. Trust me.
28. Get more plug-ins- they help, trust me. Most are free.
29. Gradients in Photoshop- play nice with them. 
30. Learn more- Buy books and read them, learn something new on the internet. Stay off Reddit.
31. Ask a friend- Get feedback before you complete something. Another eye is valuable.
32. Do some Acrobatics- with prints, use acrobat pro. 
33. Add texture- organics improve designs as long as they are subtle.
34. Bring a little shade in- shadows and darker areas can enhance work. Sparingly tho.
35. Take a Break. Then Stare until your eyes hurt- Thorough review after a break works.
36. Stop. STOP!- Knowing when to stop is essential.
37. Print Finishes- for printed designs, the design doesn’t stop once you send it to the printer.
38. Prepare yourself- Don’t compress until final cut, even then keep a HQ version elsewhere.
39. Proof read- Duh.
40. Return to the brief- When you are done, make sure you meet the original goals.
41. Never ever rely on the spell checker- ‘Border’ and ‘Bolder’ are both spelled right, but dont mean the same thing now do they?
42. Work with clients, not against them- End all be all, they sign the checks. MIRITE?
43. Re re read- Double triple check most everything.
44. Stick to the brief like honey on toast- You might want to go above and beyond, but in the end, it might not be what they want, and it wastes your time.
45. Specifics- make sure the client knows what you are doing and what you are capable of. If it is above you, charge more, add more time, hire someone else, or make sure they know it’s going to get left out.
46. Do what you do best- Do what you do, not what they think you should be able to do.
47. Keep a back up of everything- Daily/weekly/monthly backups. Duh
48. Never assume anything- You know the word play.
49. Justify yourself- Backup your work with logical, persuasive, and well thought out responses.
50. Don’t over sell yourself- Again, if you are a designer, design, don’t promise to do animation.

Theres the list, not bad.

Get my smokey on? Really? I’d rather not smoke, thanks. I’m good.

Just watched the new Captain America trailer, and noticed that Chris Evans tends to change size before he even gets the treatment. Lol.

alanvanroemburg:

Apple iCloud icon golden ratio

Alan van Roemburg thanks to Takamasa!

Not going to lie, this is prolly my favorite video of the week…but i was so disappointed when it turned out to be an advertisement. 

I want to say something about this. I used to say this. Then I realized that the only one stopping me getting “Experience” was myself. Just because you don’t have a client doesn’t mean you can’t spend time doing conceptual client work. A future employer would rather hire someone who has been busting their ass improving their craft then someone who just sits around and complains they can’t get a job while they bus tables. I was a member of the latter, I know I could of done more, but I was a fool, Luckily I got a job. To those having trouble….DO ALL YOU CAN to improve your craft. Sketch, do concept work, Do work for companies that don’t know they need work done, then try to sell it to them, you never know what may happen!

(Source: kellitoris)

My Response to “The “Content is King” Myth Debunked”

Read the article I commented on HERE written by Derek Halpern.

I wouldn’t say Content, OR Design is king. The USER is King. The saying ‘Content is King’ is twofold in meaning. One: Do not let your design distract from the content. Two: Your content must shape your design. You have to deliver a cogent diatribe between content and user, aesthetically, coherently, and comprehensibly.

You CAN clearly, create a design without knowing any/referencing any content that will be therein, but then your design lacks the soul of the piece. At it’s simplest form, it’s like painting the baby’s room hot pink without knowing the sex, or even knowing you are pregnant yet.

Content(or I could go as abstracted to say, the ‘expected content’) needs to be present in your mind whilst you design, otherwise as I’ve said, the design will be ultimately lack-luster to the users. Take another for-instance. Say you believe that the Flickr site is a good design. Now take that site, but feed it different content, say the content from the New York Times. Sure it might WORK but it won’t FEEL or READ right, thus hindering the trust between the user and your site.

I agree that Design is greatly important at many different levels depending on the execution (aka whether or not you are designing for something as well known as Drudge or Craigs), but overall, Content needs is the x to the x+y formula.

Content + Design = Usable, trustworthy websites. It’s a symbiotic relationship, neither is more important.

What do you think?

Playing around with a 1 page site design for fundraising. Here’s a sample. What do you think? Organization of my sections and overlaying stuff is tough, but I’m loving the fonts im using thru google fonts. ‘Candal’ and ‘Arvo’. Not quite finished. A few more small tweaks and it’ll go live, I’ll be sure to link it here.

F*ck you, Pay me. Posting this so I remember to watch it later.

(Source: vimeo.com)