Hello Blogging World!
Writing my thoughts on Design, Strategy and UX
“Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.”
– Brain Tracy
In the beginning, when I thought of “design” and wanting to pursue a career in it, writing never came up in my mind as an important skill for a designer. However, throughout my career and education as a Designer, writing has cropped up in all sorts of facets; documenting, emailing, and reporting, is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, writing goes beyond the admin side of a design role; whether it’s in the form of personas, storyboards, journey maps or even a plain old written narrative, great designers start with clear, compelling narratives about the context of the customer’s problem they’re solving for. As creative professional we must be able to express our design ideas/plan to clients and stakeholders, as well as in understanding the content and narrative that will be relayed to consumers and users, and so being able to write academically about solutions, as well as in a way that someone who’s not a designer can understand is crucial. So, from that point of view writing is really important for communication and to be able to convince the investor that your design solution will work for the company.
It was whilst studying for my BA (Hons) in Graphic Design where I found how much writing helped my career and skills to develop massively. I found myself more actively engaged with consuming information and processing it, rather than just consuming and forgetting. In turn, this encouraged me to be more actively involved in the design community, attending seminars, conferences, and similar industry gatherings as well as new studies and findings in industry.
Although I don’t expect a large number of industry professionals to care to read the writings of a 24 year old designer, I hope that if nothing else having a space to write will help me to continually learn and push grow my skills through seeking out new inspiration and thoughts. And as Saul Bass says, it’s worth it to me.
“I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.” – Saul Bass
A few reasons why I’ve decided to start regularly writing about my life and career in design:
- I’m trying to challenge myself
Reading and writing has never come entirely naturally to me, in fact I’ve had several teachers throughout HighSchool and College tell me they think I’m dyslexic. Starting regularly writing allows me to home my skills and my personal methods to better explain my ideas and thoughts. I plan to take a Masters in design later in life so let’s call this pre-planning…far, far in advance - Putting back into the creative community
The idea of helping other creatives and designers has always been really important to me. Despite studying at University, I spent a lot of time reading, watching and engaging with other designers who put resources out there and shared knowledge. Their content was super important to my progression and in pushing me into a career I love. My aim is to help other young designers who are unsure about which route they want to go down, and to contribute to the academic studies of design principles and ethics.
- Prompts me to read
When I have a purpose behind reading (i.e. actively researching or gathering citations for an essay or post) I find myself more engaged with what I’m reading and in taking a lot of interesting tangents in my studies. I try to regularly read regardless, but without a purpose for the information I’m taking in, I don’t digest and retain as much of it. Having only started writing posts two weeks ago, I’ve found myself consuming and understanding a much larger amount of varied content around design and UX. This has fed directly into my research for projects, allowing me to give better advice to clients and driving better solutions.
“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.
– Anthony J. D’Angelo
