Me, Myself & Design
Some of my thoughts on how my values empower teams and elevate client work. Plus a little about why I love design, and how it drives me.
You can think of it like two magnets spinning around, sometimes attracting, sometimes repelling.
It’s a weird juxtaposition to exist and work in - and even stranger to communicate to others. You kind of have to get comfortable with both sides of your brain wandering down different paths at the same time.
How is anyone meant to make sense of that, and avoid self doubt? I loved my education - but it was no real preparation for the commercial reality of being a designer.
The more you experience this paradox though - the more it starts to be your superpower. When the art gets confusing, you learn to use the science to bring back order and reason. When the science get’s boring - use the art to bring back the emotion.
Everyone’s fulcrum where those things switch is different - but there’s no arguing it’s a challenge every designer faces. Especially with competing client requests (whilst also always wanting “the wow factor”).
I’ve found that one of the best things you can do as a design leader is to just be a north pole for this stuff, watch your team grow through their own experiences but always have a bit of advice or an anecdote that guides people to their own solutions and outcomes.
Good design teams need diverse voices - merit comes from teaching methods and tools - not forcing perspectives.
Design Thinking
Design Thinking is the (terribly named*) ideology I try to adhere to as often as I can.
The reality is that project budgets often don't have time for a fully scheduled loop of iteration, ideation and testing - but the beauty of it is you can boil it down into how you approach even minor design artifacts. After all, we’re all users, why not take 5 minutes to test that CTA block with a peer. Or just see which logomark option your mum prefers?
You can’t insulate anyone from mistakes - but you can encourage team growth by removing fear of making them. Crucially, adapting a Design Thinking methodology provides safe spaces to fail in the ideation stage - probably one of the most important things you need as a leader.
*Anyone can do it and everyone who deals with users probably should do it. The name just turns other professions away at the door.
Kitchen, Architectural, Service, Sales, Educational - you can stick the word Designer at the end of any of those words (and many more) and it carries weight. Far too many designers forget it doesn't just belong to words like graphic, print and web.
I want my teams, and as many of my colleagues as possible to look at the world around them as something that was designed. Not every client issue is going to be solved with another set of creative assets, but you can Design your way out of any problem.
Be a generalist first, an expert second.
Or, how new experiences strengthen teams.
We all need space to generalise, so that we can recognise the areas where we're becoming an expert.
In a commercial environment, it's all too easy to get pigeonholed as the "insert ability here person". When time and money is short - you need someone who can do the job. The long term damage this has on design teams is massive.
You have to find a balance - you'll always have specialists, and you'll always need them - but design itself is the skill you should be nurturing. For designers to become tool agnostic they need space to learn how to learn, being kept in a narrow lane kills that momentum.
I've been guilty of this myself when the pressure is on - but I've found that the key to getting teams out of that trap is utilising seasonal downtime and finding non-intrusive training methods that fit into a normal day (Uxcel is great, you should try it).
Outside of the normal 9 to 5 - If you've got the opportunity for teambuilding then get to a museum and see some art, maybe check out some engineering.
Challenging your teams perspectives with outside influences can unlock new ways of problem solving.
Before you go...
Just a little about me
I think i've been some sort of designer ever since watching my grandad and auntie paint landscapes from thin air.
It looked like magic to me.
