Just yesterday a third year design student had contacted me asking for one piece of advice I would provide to her and other fellow graduating students. Here is my response in long form:
In a sea of Designers
It’s almost 2011, the web is crawling with great talent by the day (just check out Dribbble’s Popular page), and both clients and employers are increasingly starting to use such sources to find designers. If that’s not enough, it also seems that everyone and their mother wants to be a designer. Oops, almost forgot about the 12-year old nephew sitting in the basement with a pirated copy of Photoshop making you reconsider changing careers.
So how do you prepare for the dive into the sea of many other designers? Learning, understanding and conveying sense of value to your work.
Learning value
It’s been awhile now since graduating college, however from what I can remember and from talking at conferences and universities with current students, schooling seems to only touch base on the craft and performance of design and designing.
“I worry about the medium, because not enough designers are working in that vast middle ground between eye candy and hardcore usability where most of the web must be built.” – Jeffrey Zeldman
Sure, adding pretty effects is a nice touch of style to a site, but if the website, for example, doesn’t function as intended or you cannot justify the decisions you have made to a client other than the fact that “they look good” you are in danger of failing as a designer and problem solver. Understanding the differences between style and design is the opening of doors to conveying sense of value.
Reading books and thinking about design from an experience and functional standpoint, rather than a stylistic standpoint is a great place to start learning.
Understanding value
Whether you are job seeking and interviewing with potential employers, working in-house and reporting directly to clients or your boss, or running your own independent design business, only half of what we do is actual design work. The other half, well, that folks is called “business”. Love it or hate it, you have to learn how to sell yourself, your services and your value. And you cannot sell any of those without understanding what exactly your value is.
If I was an employer seeking to hire a Designer for my team, I would be more focused on the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how.’ Give me a week with someone and I’m sure I could teach them the basics of Photoshop (ie: that 12-year old nephew I mentioned above), but understanding the basics of Design from a functionality and purpose perspective is what many lack, as did I fresh out of school.
Sidenote:
How incredibly timely of this email. Just as I was in the midst of writing, Mail App goes ‘ding’ and here is what appears:
Well, ‘name blurred by Mosaic filter’, this one goes out to you as well.
Conveying value
My best advice for Designers, future graduates, career seekers, and career changers, and anyone else looking to succeed (and by “success” I mean love doing your job day after day, year after year): convey ‘the’ and your value of design and decision making.
From a person seeking employment’s perspective, understanding and conveying your value and the value of each decision you made for each piece of work will keep you swimming happily on the bottom of the ocean, while the other fish float to the top (one instance where you don’t want to be on top… remember that goldfish you once had?).
Also, at some point while working in-house you will be reporting to either a boss that reports to “the Board of Final Decision Makers” or you might be speaking directly to the client, so having your value guns loaded will save you endless hours of frustration and revisions. Conveying the value to others will assist in them not making decisions based on look but rather other elements such as usability, functionality – you know the valuable things.
From a freelancer’s perspective, conveying the value of your work and decisions will also prevent more headaches throughout the year. Understanding the value will help to keep projects from spiraling out of control, provide confidence in yourself and decisions, and help you better stand up for your work.
Next time someone asks you “why should we hire you?” or “why are we the best match for this project?” you might be a little more prepared for what you can bring to the table.
Even when designing that next project, think about if, for example, adding in that extra visual element is adding to the value or devaluing the task at hand. If great design lies in the details, then working with or for great companies lies in the value.
“Design without meaning or reason is nothing more than a pretty picture” – Unknown (but if you do know, please let me know and I will replace).
Thank you. Exactly what I needed to read today. After posting this comment, I am going to re-read this again. Very good information here that needs to be chewed on by every designer.
Undoubtedly you have provided a lot of us with some truly helpful – and solid – advice Brian.
Reading through this brought up an idea that I think goes even before your advice: defining “designer” and what it means to “design” in a world where, as you stated, everyone wants to be a designer. A clear-cut definition of what it means to be a true designer (not just a decorator) can help immensely for those looking to get started, and even some veterans.
As Jeffrey Veen put it in The Art & Science of Web Design: “I’ve been amazed at how often those outside the discipline of design assume that what designers do is decoration—likely because so much bad design simply is decoration. Good design isn’t. Good design is problem solving.”
That’s a great read Brian and very true. Keep up the good work.
How timely indeed. I am preparing to job search for the first time since obtaining my first job in design four years ago. I’m working up a portfolio site, and trying to nail down the proper verbiage to use and so on. And I keep coming back to what you say about value. Have I had a fancy ad job for a fancy company? No. Am I on dribble? No. Can I show value in my work? I think so. Just get the interview. That’s the first step. Then you can sell yourself. This has been a great “pick-me-up” for my confidence. Thanks Brian.
Great advice, Brian! Definitely college is one step towards becoming a designer, we never stop learning and this is an ever evolving carer. Also, about conveying value I learned the hard way that you should charge for your ideas and not your time.
A good word. Thanks Brian.
Great post, Brian!
Great, thoughtful post, Brian.
In the future, when you folks ask you for tips about entering the design field, I’d recommend you refer them to my blog: http://willsherwood.com. The blog includes interviews with some of the country’s top designers, including their tips as to what it takes to succeed, along with some pretty impressive design inspiration.
If the blog doesn’t deter them, if they listen to the advice, at least when they DO enter the field, they might be decent designers!
Great post, Brian. One thing I might add, from a management perspective, is something you can’t find in a designer’s actual work: accountability. If you can convey the value of your design you’re getting 90% of the way there. If you’re accountable for the decisions you make and can back them up with rationale, you’ll make it even further within your organization and with your clients. At the same time, if you are accountable you’ll be more successful with meeting budgets and deadlines. At the end of the day, that is really important to any business.
Thank you for this! I am currently on the job hunt… will refer to this a lot!
Thanks for this post. As someone who just spoke to her employers to inform them of her intention to go freelance by 2011 (as in, I had a meeting at 11:30am this morning), I found this an encouraging read.
One reason I’m seeking to work for myself is because I feel like it’s time to recognize my value and define who I am as a designer and a maker and a thinker and a doer. It’s somewhat intimidating to have to put that into words without an account manager between myself and a client, but at the same time, I’m totally looking forward to being personal again.
I know that I will have to face some challenges—it’s true that “designers” these days are a dime a dozen. But I’m not one of those dimes … at least, I hope not.
Thanks for your insightful post today Brian. If you don’t mind I’d like to share it wider – and just as others have said, it was timely as I’m looking at my own practice, pricing structure and the value I add and can offer to my clients.
I was thinking exactly about this today!
I posted this on Forrst : http://searchengineland.com/should-you-blame-your-designer-for-poor-conversion-rates-57961
I like the term “conversion designer”, because it implies more than aesthetics, but a purpose for the design which is to create value for the business you are designing for.
In particular, look at the infographic of skills required to be an effective designer.
True! Define yourself as a designer and you will be well on your way to understanding your value. How do you define yourself as a designer? By discovering and cultivating your strengths through constant learning.
The concept which is described by the label “design” or “designer” is still very vague. The world of “design” consists of many disciplines and yes all of them aim to solve problems like Tanner suggests. How much solution you produce to solve a problem is probably a good metric of value.
Brian Hoff Talks quite a bit about value and how it pertains to business and how design education falls short of teaching how to sell yourself. I think what Brian is trying to communicate is this:
Once you have a clear understanding of your value and you decide to make the leap into the business world and sell it, you must be ready to measure that value in terms of ROI. This means that in addition to thinking as a “designer” you have to learn to think as a business person. The comment by Ralph Mason to Brian’s “Project Budgets and Secretes” article is a practical example of this idea.
So I would add to Brian’s advice by saying that “Reading books and thinking about design from an experience and functional standpoint,” is not enough. If you have a tall stack of books about design make sure that your stack of books about business is just as tall if not taller. The variety of your knowledge and your commitment to learning, as well as versatility, will make you a beacon “in a sea of Designers”. Never stop learning.
It’s a great post and I couldn’t agree more with both of you (Brian and Tanner). However, how do we convince hard-nosed skeptics? Clients that, upon you explaining and demonstrating your value + skills will still chuckle and think of our profession as just that, decorators. Many of the people in charge of both big and small corporations still don’t get it. Often times, these people become our clients when you don’t have the luxury to say no.
A great post, put together very well.
But what I wanted to say as an addition to your advice: show your value even when you aren’t applying for a job. Write a blog, share your advice and really be a part of the community.
Nowadays, and especially if you’re applying for a job in the IT sector, your potential employers are more than likely to type in your name into Google and see what you’ve been doing on line in the past few years. Is that Twitter account up-to-date?
For instance, a search for “Brian Hoff” will more than likely return a few results for this blog. Bam! There is your reason to hire that designer whose resume you found impressive. :)
Excellent writeup. I just tweeted a post similar to the last sentence of your post… “To say that something is designed means it has intentions that go beyond its function. Otherwise it’s just planning.” – Ayse Birsel
Great write up. I was looking for a full time job right around this time last year. I was about six months out of college, so I didn’t have much professional experience besides what I had done freelancing.
I was looking for design jobs, but I ended up getting a front-end development job. I have always done, and enjoyed, doing both design and development. If you do too, try not to limit yourself when looking for jobs. Since I have started with this company, I have done some design work for them as well.
The “Why should we hire you” always kills me. I never know what’s a good line for that other then the usual interview bs you have for any other type of job.
Right on the money, Brain.
I’ve written similar article “Are we adding value or just pixels?” but couldn’t post it yet. Will do it today.
Most of the designers today just get fancy with textures, patterns and other details and forget to care about the usability and overall UX that the site needs to provide. Detailed design is good but that’s is not our customers audience care about much. They want things get done and not to enjoy our designs. Though design is making things beautiful but it’s more about problem solving. So I think it’s better if we give importance to the later along with the former.
Another great article Brian
Nicely put. I really agree that the why is much more important than the how. I’ve had to explain that to quite a few clients that think all they need is a good looking website and they will make millions. It has to work and the design has to (subconsciously) show users how it works.
Good read, thanks Brian!
So true. There’s one “but” though :)
There is such an enormous amount of designers who don’t understand that designing is mostly “problem solving” and they are almost never able to explain why they made their concept the way it is.
Still, somehow they have a certain talent for simply “feeling” if something’s right or not. I’ve worked at several design companies where such a designer was present and often they made something out of the blue because it felt right, and our other designer who made something mostly based on facts and who was able to explain every line they’ve drawn.
In most cases éveryone from the client to the other designers at our company, agreed unanimously that the “feel’s right” design was so much better, simply because it was actually playing with people’s emotions rather then the design that was made with reasoning behind it and was theoretically supposed to play on people’s design.
I think you’re totally right in what you said. But the flipside, i think, is that there are designers who are very capable in designing the way you described, and there are designers who simply live for form in it’s purest sense. Both are good in my opinion :)
The only thing that I believe is important to be good at what you do, which in this case is design, is that you strive to understand whát you’re doing. Actually having a story behind your concept or simply making one up is irrelevant, as long as the factional or fictional reasoning is a true one and your understanding of the basics is solid.
Knowing or feeling that a line has to go “there” is equally as important. Those 12 year old nephews who make pwetty stuff in their basement don’t know the basics of design, and it will usually always be a thorn in the designer’s side ;)
Brian, well said. I’m less than a year out of college, and I certainly resonate with what you’re saying.
One thing that I might add to the mix, from my own limited experience, is that it helps to provide value in conjunction with a range of services (i.e. a brand creator, graphic designer, web developer).
I realize it’s easy to be spread too thin here, so it’s key to maintain the elusive ‘value’ you speak of, despite the medium. But these days it just seems like employers want the “one-stop-shop” person, who is well-versed and successful at mixed media.
Thanks for the great article.
Now that the world is becoming global, a simple mom and pop shop can get their designs from someone thousands of miles away. It’s not a sea anymore, it’s an entire ocean .. Great post btw Brian … thanks — Kathleen :)
I full heartedly agree with this, I remember coming out of college and wanting to make nothing but pretty sites without knowing much about why and how they would work. I think this new age in the web, we must teach ourselves to design in functionality and usability instead of in just visuals and ‘eye candy’. Very good article though, nicely put.
Thanks Brian and other posters. Bringing value, integrity and passion to your projects go a long way in defining your role as a designer.
Remember that in a world that graduates more aspiring designers than the market can use, the ability to sell yourself, meet your clients needs and have fun doing it will help. Never, never stop learning and growing as a professional and as a person! What you do matters!
Thanks a lot for your advice, Brian
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”
~ Jeffrey Zeldman
Thanks you for this inspiring post Brian. Articles like these give a lot of information. Keep them coming.