At Say we dive into magazine after magazine relating to our industry every month. One of our favoured for a bit of light reading in the morning is the staple designer page turner Computer Arts (http://www.computerarts.co.uk/). Within the March edition a column was written by the designer credited in the title of the post. The article he wrote caused much musing in the Say office so both Angelo and myself wanted to open his points up to a wider audience to see what people thought, both those is the design industry and those not… I may summarise.
1. Love the Process. Daniel does not agree that designing is dull or uncool until you work for Coke or Nike. Be part of the moment, get involved in the process and the more you will love the result. In short: you have to like what you are doing to do it well.
2. Forget about your own taste. Every designer should know this. Love the premise that you are working under, the brief and your client’s needs. When you forget about your own taste, you can start making great designs.
3. Everybody is creative right? Learn to argue you design decisions. Go crazy and experiement, but ensure to bring it all back together at the end. During the process remember to identify what it’s teaching you about your client and product.
4. Don’t hold yourself back. Make sure you know how to play, even though you’re grown up – if you don’t know how, you need to learn – otherwise you’ll be holding yourself back.
5. Learn to give and receive feedback. We agree with Daniel on this point, it is a lifelong learning process. You have to conceptualise the design, place it in the bigger context and explain what is working with it and what is not. Receiving feedback is just as hard, but given in the correct way, it is a bit of a blessing.
6. We are creative and creativity is about inventing. Try to be aware of the culture and the physical environment that exists at your workplace and try not to get carried away with routines.
7. Learn how to write. You need to be able to show off your ideas in text as well. You may begin work on a project before the copy has arrived so you may need to create a context as it is a huge aid in any design process.
8. !!Controversial!! Don’t pitch. I’m well aware that this can lead to a massive discussion so Daniel makes it short. Don’t pitch.
9. Be cool. Creative people often, by nature, reject discipline and set surroundings. They are absent-minded, starry-eyed and they hate systems. But no matter, make your appointments, respect your company and its ways of handling things, such as filing and registering time.
10. Enjoy the ride. You ought to.
Thought provoking.
