If you want a career in design making digital products, then you should do whatever you can to train up in the art of code. Further you’ll enjoy it in ways you cannot possibly imagine until you have some of that knowledge under your belt. Knowledge that gives you the power to make things with your own two hands. And isn’t that one of the reasons why you became a designer? To bring into creation that which was not there before?
If there’s any kind of addiction you’ll experience as a designer, I guarantee it’s the rush you’ll get after making something with your own two hands that didn’t exist in the universe until you made it. Getting someone else to make it for you is certainly rewarding, but it’s not nearly the same experience.
Making something with your own two hands is a super power. Why on earth would you willingly rob yourself of it?
Andrei Herasimchuk.
Design means a lot of things; there are so many possible definitions of designer. And I think that’s a good thing. Alexa Andrzejewski.
Designers need to be polymaths now; in addition to being able to design, they need to be able to write, draw, code, and market, position and brand themselves. It is so much more competitive than ever, and employers and clients want to work with designers that can do way more than design. In many ways I think being a good designer is now table stakes for a career as a designer. Debbie Millman.
Busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is just shorthand for «not important enough» or «not a priority.» Busy is not a badge. You don’t «find» the time to make things, as Maria Popova says, «You make the time to do things.» If you want to do something, don’t let busy stand in the way. Make the time to do it. Debbie Millman.
Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. In order to strive for a remarkable life, you have to decide that you want one. Start now. Debbie Millman.
Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. In order to strive for a remarkable life, you have to decide that you want one. Start now. Debbie Millman.
Clear content helps readers understand what they can do on your website and guides them through those tasks. For example, if I was preordering a book, clear content would explain how to order it, what it costs, and when to expect the book. Those details clear up confusion and help your customers feel comfortable. The web is full of mixed messages and bad content, but if you take the time to set clear expectations, that will help you stand out.
Useful content shows readers you’re paying attention to their needs. It solves problems. It supports your goals and your readers’ goals—and that builds trust, while supporting your broader mission. When content is useful, it gives people a reason to come back to your website or pass your content along to a friend.
Friendly content sets the tone for how you interact with customers. Being kind and showing your empathy is the best way to let readers know you’re not a creepy robot or an insensitive monolith. When you meet readers where they are, you show signs of being human and caring—and that makes difficult situations less frustrating.
Nicole Fenton.
Google is right to rebrand: they are marking a period of maturity for the company, an embrace of the wider range of modes that people interact with its services, and a promise of expansion into new areas of activity. But by which criteria is reheated European modernism from the 1920s a good answer to this brief? Are there no shapes other than the most obvious geometric cliches to support a rich visual language and a compelling narrative? In 2015, I cannot imagine that monoline circles are the ultimate representation of pervasive, transformative innovation. Gerry Leonidas.
All great design is effective, but not all effective design is great.
You’re more likely to achieve great design if you work harder and longer. A great graphic designer keeps moving little things around on the page, even after a lesser graphic designer would say «the design is done.» The same is true for interaction design.
The beauty of interaction design versus graphic design is that you can keep testing your work on new people, and improving it over time.
At a certain point the graphic designer ships. Web and interaction designers never really ship; we’re always somewhere in the middle of a process, learning from the people who interact with what we make.
Jeffrey Zeldman.
When I was in high school my science teacher began growing a beard. Then one day he cut it off. When he came to the school that day all clean–shaven, everyone asked about his beard and why he had cut it. After we all settled down he informed us that he had been dying his hair black, and we’d never noticed.
He was a gray–haired man when he began growing the beard. Slowly he began coloring his hair in sections, while growing this very strong beard. We were so taken with the beard we didn’t notice that he was subtly and slowly changing his hair color. On the day he chopped off his beard, his hair went fully black—but not one kid in that classroom noticed. We wouldn’t have known at all if he hadn’t explained it to us after the fact. He had deliberately focused our attention on the wrong problem in order to achieve his real goal.
I never forgot that story, and it still shapes the way I think about interaction design.
Jeffrey Zeldman.