Since 2018, I've been chronicling my journey as a designer, beginning with my design internship here at House of van Schneider. Now, after nearly two years working in an agency, I've grown more confident as a product designer and directly seen the impact I can make on a project. Interestingly, that impact is much different depending on the client.

If you are a designer, you’re most likely working in-house, for a startup, in an agency or as a freelancer. And for those of you just starting your design career, you might be wondering what the differences are between these work environments as you decide where you want to work.

Many designers want to work for an agency at the beginning of their career because it exposes them to a wide range of projects and industries. Here I’ll detail some of my thoughts on the spectrum of work you'll do in this role – and how your impact differs depending on whether your client's an enterprise (a larger, established company) or startup company.

Established processes vs. creating new processes

No matter where you work or who you're working with, you'll quickly learn the agency life revolves around process. It's the regular meetings, specific communication practices with the client and defined timelines that keep the machine moving and the work flowing.

Enterprise: If your client is a larger, more mature company, it will likely already have its own processes in place. For example, one enterprise project I worked on had already defined a thorough process for conducting user testing. The product designer would prepare a prototype and complete a research specification template for the UX researcher, who would conduct user interviews on a specific platform, summarize their findings in a deck, and present the deck to the product designer and team.

Startups: A startup, depending on its stage, might not have a process in place. Recently I worked on a project where we were the first designers to touch the product. In cases like this, it’s important to bring our best practices to the project to help shape it, so we can do the best work possible and provide guidance for the client.

Rigid vs. fluid roadmap

Product roadmaps are a high-level strategic document to help align teams, stakeholders and priorities. Depending on your client, you may be following a structured roadmap or navigating your way through one that's more loosely defined.

Enterprise: Within an enterprise, the product roadmap may be established by management or product owners, and product designers might have little to no influence on shaping the roadmap. Because many teams touch a product, there will be interdependencies; this makes it critical for all teams to adhere to the timeline prescribed in the roadmap. Practically, this means there may be strict deadlines to meet so your work isn’t a blocker for other teams.

Startups: Startups have fewer and smaller teams, or perhaps there isn’t even differentiation between teams within the company. As a result, the roadmap might be more fluid, with the opportunity for a designer at any level to have an influence on the roadmap or timeline. However, because the roadmap is fluid in nature, it may change frequently depending on budget, shifting priorities or investor opinions. So don’t get upset if you spend a month designing a specific feature, only for it to be deprioritized.

Slow and steady vs. busy bee

Businesses are just like school projects; the more people on a team, the longer it takes to get things done.

Enterprise: At bigger businesses, there are more opinions, competing priorities, the usual company politics and processes. This results in a slower pace than that of a startup. Remember, with enterprises, any proposed changes to a product have to be greenlit by the teams it might impact. 

Startups: Startups are able to be more agile because of their size, but this can be a double-edged sword. In cases where a start-up has a short runway, there can be immense pressure on the employees to increase their output so the company doesn't fail. 

User data and feedback

Enterprise: Enterprises are usually of a certain maturity level; they’ve been around the block a few times and have history within their industry. These companies should have data on their user demographics and understand how they use the product. Even better, they have a user research team to handle user testing and data aggregation. Having data to work from is incredibly valuable. It eliminates the guesswork, saving the company time and money.

Startups: On the other hand, a startup in an early stage, without a product on the market, will have no data on their users, what they want or how they will use the product. In fact, they may still be searching to see if there is a product-market fit. For design, it’s difficult to work with a lack of data. Of course, there are general design principles and UX patterns you can follow, but without quantitative data, there will also be a significant amount of guesswork involved. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself having to double back on work once user feedback starts flowing in.

Why work with an enterprise?

The most valuable thing I learned while working with enterprises is how to communicate and collaborate cross-functionally within an organization. This might not be explicitly stated on a job listing, but you can be sure every company will look closely for these soft skills when deciding whether to hire you. It will help you become a designer who others enjoy working with, which can propel your career even more than your technical skills. Through my enterprise clients, I also learned how to cater my design presentations to a wide range of audiences (you won't present to a product manager or engineer the same way you do to another designer).

With an enterprise client, your design work has the potential to make a huge impact. If you help redesign a landing page for a company that operates in multiple countries, your work will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. That’s exciting, and something to be proud of. Just keep in mind that while the potential is great, it will be a large mountain to climb.

Why work with a startup?

Startups test your grit and design competence. You likely won’t have access to the design support you’d find at an enterprise, but you will have an opportunity to take the lead and bring your expertise to the table. Given the high stakes for a fledgling business, you'll likely feel more skin in the game and personal satisfaction from its success. Plus, you’ll have more of what all designers covet – creative freedom. 

Your work for a startup can contribute to its success or failure, which can be thrilling (you may be the only designer on the project, so anything user-facing was created by you!). But due to the fast-paced nature of startups, there’s a chance it could be easily overhauled in a short time frame. 

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These are of course generalizations based on my personal experience working with these types of companies as an agency designer. It’s completely possible that an enterprise might have no design processes in place, or that a startup doesn’t need much from your design team. Whatever project you work on, take the challenges in stride, and try to capitalize on the unique opportunities you have in your situation. 

As a junior designer who struggled to find confidence in my work, I’d often ask my peers or managers for their feedback, either hoping to gain more direction, or for confirmation that I was on the right track.

Aside from mustering up the confidence to ask someone for their time and mentally preparing myself to take what I hear gracefully, asking for feedback is relatively easy.

What’s not easy is giving feedback.

When I was studying UX design, my course taught me how to conduct competitive analysis and user testing, design user flows and wireframes, and myriad topics. But there was never a heavy emphasis on how to provide good feedback, and I would argue this is one of the most important soft skills to have to be a successful designer and teammate.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how much I appreciate those who have given me quality feedback. I’ve been on the receiving end of these fortunate relationships for a while now, and I’ve made it one of my personal goals for 2020 to get better at providing feedback. This is where I’m starting.

Ask “What feedback are you looking for?”

It took me a while to unpack why I had such a difficult time providing feedback. At times I would be so underwhelmed by my own responses to my peers that I began to question if I was really a competent designer.

I started looking at what helped me most when I was on the receiving end of feedback. One mistake I made early in my career was presenting my design and then asking, “Does anyone have any feedback?” Such a broad question makes it difficult for anyone to provide a specific response that helps drive the design forward.

So about half a year ago, I created a rule for myself: I must always specify what type of feedback I’m looking for, and ask the same of someone who wants my feedback. The goal is clarity. The more specific I can be, the better my teammates can help me, and vice versa. It’s small, but following this rule has helped me grow tremendously as a designer and has also improved my relationship with my teammates.

"By sharing my thought process rather than offering immediate solutions, I am giving someone advice they can apply again in the future."

Aim to give guidance, not answers

I attend multiple design reviews a week at my agency. When I first started, I felt scared to give feedback to my peers; what could I spot that they hadn’t already? They’re more senior than I am! But I needed to participate, so my approach would usually look something like this: Identify the part of the design I liked the least, phrase my thoughts nicely to the designer and offer a suggestion. For example, “The type in the header looks a little big. Maybe you can knock it down a little?”

This isn’t a terrible approach to giving feedback, but I soon realized I was giving prescriptive suggestions, instead of taking a step back and digging deeper to explain why I thought XYZ part of the design could be improved.

Telling someone “I don’t like the colors here,” or “This just doesn’t work” doesn’t give them useful information to extrapolate from. The only next steps from there are to ask someone else for their feedback or to take a shot in the dark with a new design.

There is a time and place for prescriptive feedback – say a tight deadline around the corner or if an element doesn’t align with the design system. But I’ve found in most cases, prescriptive feedback is less valuable than offering a nudge in the right direction and the reasoning for it. Also, people just usually don’t like being told what to do.

Instead of saying, “The type in the header looks too big” I could instead say, “The hierarchy on this page seems off. Have you considered reassessing the type sizes?” By sharing my thought process rather than offering immediate solutions, I am giving someone advice they can apply again in the future.

We all know the saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” That same philosophy applies here. Many of the guiding principles I use when designing have come from the good feedback I’ve received from others, and I want to pass that on the further I grow in my career.

When in doubt, refer back to the strategy

One challenging aspect of giving feedback is looking at the design objectively. Do I really think the CTA should have an outline, or do I just not like the current style?

To avoid imposing my subjective opinions on the design, I like to reference any guiding design principles written up at the start of the project.

Let’s say I’m looking at a design for a product detail page which includes an image, title, and descriptive copy. My team and I are discussing whether we should list out the features of this product below the description (Design A), or if we should hide the information behind a modal (Design B). Both options probably work, but I remember that one of our design principles is to progressively disclose information. Now, I can argue that hiding the features behind a link is more in line with our guiding principles and move forward with Design B.

Referencing the project’s strategy when providing feedback creates a neat system of checks and balances. It allows me to steer the design toward alignment with the brief while validating the design system, rather than struggling to articulate my subjective opinion in a persuasive manner.

"Sugar-coating your critique dilutes the message and deludes the designer."

Always follow up

Following up after you give feedback is important for three reasons: You stay in the loop with the how and why behind your team's design decisions (important if our work has interdependencies); it helps you become better at giving feedback; and it strengthens your team dynamic as a whole.

The follow-up allows me to see how the designer applied my feedback. Maybe they applied my feedback differently than I envisioned. In that case, there’s a chance I communicated my feedback poorly, or it was bad feedback. Or perhaps they iterated off my feedback and the design is even better than I imagined — then I learn something new! Understanding how my message was perceived allows me to improve for the next time around.

Personally, I’m still working on getting better at this. It’s easy to mark following up as a low priority task in comparison to my other to-dos, but when I do it helps build a community and culture that I want to work in.

Be intentional about positive feedback

There are times when I get so focused on how to deliver my feedback that I forget to celebrate all the work the designer has already done. The tricky part is balancing positive feedback with constructive criticism.

In an effort to spare someone’s feelings or avoid a tough conversation, we often default to the “feedback sandwich,” i.e. leading with positive feedback (to soften the blow), followed by critique, ending with more positive feedback. I try to avoid this approach because it’s rarely the most helpful or applicable.

I believe in direct and succinct communication, especially when giving feedback. Sugar-coating your critique dilutes the message and deludes the designer. Honest feedback is important for growth, and at some point, all designers need to learn how to accept feedback without taking it personally.

This is why taking little steps to build a positive team dynamic (see above) is so important. If your teammate already trusts you, difficult conversations become much easier. So celebrate their successes and give them all the clapping hand emojis when the work deserves it, and you’ll pave the way for productive feedback later when it needs improvement.

A plane ticket to Miami with a free place to stay, a train ticket to London, ten days accommodation in New York, a sustainable clutch made from recycled leather, beautiful bracelets with rare gemstones and beads. This year, I have (re)discovered the art of bartering.

Bartering or Barter Work is trading goods or services for other goods or services, without exchanging money. The barter system has been around since the old days, when people in small villages would exchange agricultural goods or services with their neighbors so they all could provide for their simple livelihood.

First, I know that being in the position to barter could be seen as a privilege since it doesn’t pay the rent, and I understand that you should focus on making a living first. But I'd like to argue that bartering could bring many possibilities to your doorstep and enrich your life with wonderful experiences, even when you are low on cash funds. You just have to be thoughtful about how you do it. These are the rules and the philosophy I abide by when designing for trade.

"Nothing is free, and especially not your time and skills. So make sure that whatever you trade is valuable to you and also valuable to your client."

Always exchange equal value

An important one: You should never exchange your services for things like prestige or exposure. This should never be part of any contract with a client. Nothing is free, and especially not your time and skills. So make sure that whatever you trade is valuable to you and also valuable to your client. Both parties need to get something from the exchange and "pay" for it in some way or form. It is often best to calculate your hours in real cash value, so you have a ballpark figure in mind and clear terms for your trade.

Trading for invaluable experiences

Sometimes the value cannot be measured – for example, when you exchange your services for an experience or a place to stay in another country. I’ve done trades where I didn’t count the hours because I knew the experience would enrich my life in ways that don't have a cash value. This was the case when I traded my design work for free stays in New York and Miami. I likely couldn't have taken these trips this quickly as it’s so expensive to stay there, but thanks to bartering projects I was able to enjoy both cities to the fullest and at a low cost.

Trading for cost reduction

One bartering opportunity is entrepreneurs or small companies that have no big cash flow yet, but make beautiful products or offer services that you find interesting. These start-ups or small businesses are always looking to reduce costs and for them, it's much cheaper to trade one of their already-made products than to pay for your services in full.

This shouldn’t mean that your part of the deal is cheaper or less professional, so make sure the products are of good quality and/or that the person is experienced in the services they provide. Even though no money is involved, bartering should be seen as a professional business relationship and exchange.

"Not all things worth counting are countable."

Trade only with those you trust

There should always be a level of trust between the two parties when doing work for trade. I have personally only done trades with family or friends. If you want to trade with another business, I would approach it as any other project. Consider setting up a little contract so both parties are one hundred percent clear on the trade, the deadlines and the deliverables.

Be aware of The Taxman

Another reason to keep bartering between friends and family is the tax implications. I’ve done some research and it seems that both in The Netherlands (I live in Amsterdam) and in the United States, bartering goods and services is seen as taxable income.

When you trade between people close to you, however, the rules become a bit blurred. Say your friend in Miami has a problem with her website and you fix the issue. Because she is so happy, she invites you to come to Miami and offers to pay for your plane ticket. The plane ticket can be seen as a gift from her to you, which means no tax has to be paid. But if you trade with a company that offers to make you a promotional video in exchange for a website design, the costs become higher and the taxman more interested.

So keep the bartering to a few fun projects, and only do it when you are happy with the trade and know you are getting some valuable experiences from it. And don’t let your barter projects eat away your time for paid jobs. I don’t know your landlord, but I’m guessing he wouldn't be too happy with a sustainable clutch made from recycled leather. Get your rent money first!

I am fairly new at design. After several years working in customer service and other various industries, I decided to pursue a new career. That began with an internship at House of van Schneider, much of which I documented here on the blog. And I haven’t stopped since.

The last week of my internship, I accepted a contracted position as a junior designer at a unique and forward-thinking design agency here in Austin. Now, six months later, I am officially an associate product designer. I have experienced a lot of firsts over the last year and working at a design agency was a big one. I haven’t stopped learning since my internship and I certainly don’t expect to. In that spirit, here are a few insights from my first six months into agency life.

Understanding lingo and asking questions

I have found that one of the more difficult aspects of starting a job in a new industry is getting accustomed to industry-specific lingo. There are many ways to say the same thing when it comes to product design. For example, some people might call the little window that pops up when you click a link a “modal” while others might call it a “pop-over” or a “pop-up.” Now let’s look at the software we use to create designs: What one software calls a symbol, another calls a component. An “artboard” in one software is called a  “document,” “page,” or “frame” in other software. And we haven’t even gotten to the general industry terminology yet. Words such as “ship,” “backlog,” “kanban,” and “standup” are thrown around on a daily basis. For someone who doesn’t come from a design background, all of this can be very overwhelming.

I wish I was given a little handbook on my first day defining all the industry jargon, but of course nobody is. I was thrown into a sea of unfamiliar words and processes. In these situations, I believe in the importance of asking questions and that it is always better to be open, honest, curious, and communicative.

My first day at work, I asked my design director and the CEO what a “standup” was. It’s been six months since that first day and it sounds like such a silly question to me now, but I’m glad I got clarification on day one so I wasn’t left wondering and hoping the definition I had created from context clues was correct.

"I soon realized that formal presentations aren’t the only times I’m actually presenting my work."

Your design is only as good as your presentation

Tobias once told me that your presentation of a design is half the battle. When I first heard that, it was difficult for me to apply that to my work; I didn’t give many formal presentations during bootcamp or my internship. So I just kept that tip neatly stored away in the back of my mind. I soon realized that formal presentations aren’t the only times I’m actually presenting my work.

Often, I am presenting on a much more casual basis to my peers, my design lead, and to designers, engineers and project managers on the client’s side. Presentations aren’t limited to long slide decks; they include times when I’m sharing a small design update with my team during an internal 15-minute standup, or when I’m showing the work I did over the past week in response to a project manager’s request.

Any time I’m sharing my work with someone, I’m giving a presentation. At these times, it’s important to go into the meeting with intention. If I’m presenting work to a client with the intention of shipping my design, I need to be able to defend my design decisions no matter how big or small they are. Explaining why I made my decisions is crucial to building trust and a healthy relationship with the client. Although we work as a team with developers, project managers, etc. to create a product, they look to me as an expert in the field of design.

When presenting a design internally, I need to be clear on my position on the design and where I’m looking for feedback. This approach gives me practice presenting (in a casual, less-judgmental setting), helps me develop a rapport with my teammates and teaches me how to take constructive feedback.

"I’m never going to have everything laid out nicely and neatly for me exactly as I’d like."

Learning on the fly and adapting

The digital design industry, or more broadly the tech industry, is relatively new and is evolving rapidly. With all the new design software, news, trends, gossip, etc. that circulate the design community every day, it’s just impossible for anyone – no matter how experienced – to be on top of everything design. I worked very hard to change careers this past year and one attribute I can credit my relative “success” to is the ability and willingness to learn things on the fly.

When joining a new project, there will always be something new to learn and adjust to. Some of these variables may include how the design and development teams work together, what the client’s preferred method of communication is, internal and external management styles, and relationships working with different teammates. The list goes on, but the point is that I’m never going to have everything laid out nicely and neatly for me exactly as I’d like. Having the expectation that I need to “understand everything” before I start working can be seriously detrimental to the project health and my own growth as a designer.

Learning on the fly is a normal (and for me, very fun) part of the process! I’m of the mindset that the best way to grow is to dive straight into the work, make mistakes and learn. People I work with will respect me as long as they see the effort I put into my work, but if I let my fear dictate my approach to work, I rob myself of that opportunity.

Pushing back and problem-solving

I love being a designer, two reasons being that my job lends me more creative freedom than many others and, at its core, design is about problem-solving. At my previous non-design jobs, the work dynamic was as follows: boss or client tells me to do something and I do it. There usually wasn’t room for discussion, questioning or pushback. Luckily, I’ve found that this largely isn’t the case in design.

The majority of my tasks or requests come from a PM, and I have to remind myself that a PM is not a designer. People speak in ideas, so if a PM tells me I need to add some helper text on the screen, that might be his way of expressing that this design needs to be more clear or intuitive. As a designer, my job is to uncover the deeper problem underlying this ask. My job isn’t just to take the request as a prescriptive task, but rather to find the best solution to the problem behind the request.

By not assuming constraints and seeking to problem-solve, I am pushing the project design forward and advocating for the product and its users. I have learned that, in many cases, product “requirements” are in fact flexible and subject to change – as long as you make a good case for your design and know how to present it.

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I hope some of these learnings can help some new designers out there, or even serve as a nice reminder for the seasoned designers reading this. I feel so lucky that I can share my experience here and am looking forward to what all I’ll learn over the next few months as an official associate product designer!

This is a three-month series chronicling my internship with House of van Schneider. If you haven't already, catch up and read about my first and second months.

I’m done with my design internship! It’s been a busy three months working with Tobias and the Semplice team, but I sure had a lot of fun. Reflecting on my time, I’m quite impressed with what I have accomplished and how much ground I was able to cover in three months.

My overall design skills (layout, typography, color theory, etc.) have improved, I’m comfortable using a variety of design software and I have real-world experience working on a super cool product. I know I have a lot more to learn, but this internship taught me invaluable lessons for the design career ahead of me. Here are just a few.

Get to know your team.

We all know the importance of designers and developers working well together. But it’s also valuable for designers to develop a healthy working relationship with people outside of their immediate circle — like marketing managers, copywriters and sales associates.

Working with a fully remote team spread across several time zones meant it took extra effort to create and grow my work relationships. I only really needed to communicate with 1-2 other team members on a daily basis, but I’m glad I spent the time and effort getting to know everyone and their different roles. By doing this I was able to integrate with the team faster and become a more well-rounded designer. But most importantly, it made me more cognizant of the role my work plays in the overall operation of things.

For example, I worked closely with Lizzy (the editor of this blog) who writes the majority of the copy on the Semplice website. She recently told me how much she appreciates that I write my own copy when designing pages, instead of using Lorem Ipsum or placeholder copy. Writing my own copy helps to sort out the story of the page. It shows how everything should be lining up visually and makes it easier to know how much room to allocate for final copy. If I use Lorem Ipsum, I may be limiting the potential of the final product or worse, have to redesign it later.

Being aware of my role as a designer within a company is crucial. It helps eliminate unnecessary back and forth and increases productivity. Plus it’s just a considerate, thoughtful approach to have as an employee and peer.

"I can’t count the number of times I asked silly little questions like 'Why did you choose that color?' or 'How did you create that shadow?'"

It’s all about the process – at least for now.

To me, what makes someone a good designer isn’t how much formal training they have, what big-name clients they’ve worked with or how much money they make. A good designer is someone who has a solid design process that enables them to produce creative solutions to problems.

I’ve had the opportunity to interact with senior designers and developers during my internship, and one key thing I always try to do is understand the process behind their work by asking lots of “why” and “how” questions. There’s really no better way to get insight (and inspiration!) than by asking successful professionals in the industry. If I’m not proactively trying to pick their brains, I’m not making the most of my time.

One of many graphics I created for Semplice.com during my internship. Artwork by Pawel Nolbert.

Don’t shy away from the small questions either. I can’t count the number of times I asked silly little questions like “Why did you choose that color?” or “How did you create that shadow?” It only takes a few seconds or minutes out of their day to answer my question, but their answers might propel me forward a big step.

I’m just beginning my career and paying my dues to make sure I have a solid foundation to build on for the years to come. But once I become a more mature designer and have my own process down, I'll be able to break the rules and trust my intuition more. And while the process is important, I try not to obsess over it. Design is flexible. It’s not made up of only hard and fast rules. I don’t want all the tools and processes to become a distraction from actually doing the work.

Progress is progress.

As designers (or really, whatever your profession may be) we’re often our own harshest critic. This can be a great source of motivation, but when things go awry, it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of insecurity. There are many times I feel as though I won’t ever reach the level of the designers I look up to, but when I take a step back (or when I’m forced to), I can see that my skills really have grown.

I recently took a look at some work I created a few months back and compared it to my more recent work. There was only a difference of a few months, but I still noticed little improvements and that’s reason enough for celebration. Even though I’m still new to this whole thing, I’ve found it essential to take that step back from my daily hustle and celebrate the progress I’ve made. Progress is progress no matter how little or big, and I deserve to be proud of myself.

One of a series of posters I've created over the past few months – a fun creative exercise to balance my everyday work.

Have fun!

Every day, I try to be a better designer than I was the day before. I do my best to stay motivated and inspired. I ask questions, I work extra hours if needed and I always put my best foot forward. But I try not to take myself or my work too seriously 100% of the time, or it can become overwhelming.

I decided to pursue a career in design because I thought I’d be good at it, it seemed interesting and it looked like fun. I try not to forget that when I get stressed out over my work. Having a positive attitude and taking time to work on personal projects helps me keep my excitement level up and also acts as a little recharge for my creativity.

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I’m sad that the end of my internship is here, but I’m grateful for everything I’ve learned and the fantastic team I got to work alongside. I really hope that some of the lessons I’ve learned working here will be encouraging to other new designers out there. Keep at it, work hard and do what you can to stay inspired. I know I’ll be taking all these lessons along with me to my next position, wherever that may be. I just hope the next crew I work with is half as great as the team here. Work doesn’t really seem like work when you have good company.

This is a three-month series chronicling my internship with House of van Schneider. You can read about my first month here.

These past two months have allowed me to flex my creative muscles, especially when it comes to visual design. The bulk of my work still consists of creating graphics and designing pages for Semplice, but I’ve also been exploring some more personal projects and playing with new software (hi, Figma!).

Now that I’m fully acclimated to working with the team and have a strong grasp on the different brand styles I work with, I’ve been refining my work process. That includes learning to think critically and have a smart approach to design.

Consistency is key

In my last blog post, I wrote about how design is all about communicating a message, and how keeping that message in the forefront of my mind helps me design better. The thing is, sometimes that message can have many layers. The difficult part is prioritizing what (and how) I want to communicate.

When I first started designing web pages, I thought as long as I checked off all the items on my list (nice layout, beautiful images, consistent typography and UI elements), the page was good to go. Sometimes I’d even finish a design, look at it and think, "Well, it’s not great, but it’s good enough and I don’t know how to make it better – I’m tapped out!" Luckily, my team is great at seeing where my weaknesses lie and always comes in clutch with just the right advice.

I’ve learned that I need to start thinking about my designs from a larger perspective. It’s important that each individual element (typography, graphics, images) looks beautiful, but it’s also important that these elements work well together – that they all live in the same world. There needs to be some type of consistency between elements in a design for everything to make sense on a micro and macro level. That means if I’m going to use sophisticated, elegant images in one part of my design, I can’t be using colorful, playful images in another part. All the images need to have a cohesive tone and feel for the overall design to work. Put simply, I learned about art direction and its role in design of all forms.

Nobody’s asking you to reinvent the wheel

When I’m told to “be creative,” and “try something new,” my mind tends to translate that to “DESIGN SOMETHING CRAZY WE’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!” As you can imagine, the designs I churn out from that mentality usually aren’t great. I’m still learning and training myself on how to be more creative, and most of the time the process doesn’t include reinventing the wheel. It just means experimenting a bit more and getting inspired by other designs. Since I’ve been doing a lot of work for Semplice, that might mean taking a look at some other pages on the site and grabbing ideas from there to use in my designs.

This also applies to the UX and UI work I do. Take a look at the money management apps on your phone – don’t they all look kind of similar? Now take a look at your photo editing apps. These too look similar to one another. That’s because all these apps all utilize design patterns. After all, design patterns exist because they work. It’s okay to recycle ideas and re-use elements when designing. Often, creativity just means finding a different (sometimes new) interpretation of something else.

"Sometimes I’ll spend two hours working on a graphic and all I can come up with is something that looks like it could have been made in Microsoft Paint."

Don’t be ashamed of your work

This is for all the newbies and aspiring designers out there like me. Don’t be ashamed of your work. It’s OK (and even good) to fail because that means there’s room for improvement. Sometimes I’ll spend two hours working on a graphic and all I can come up with is something that looks like it could have been made in Microsoft Paint. So what do I do when I have to submit my graphic knowing I’m going to have to rework it? I’m honest about the thought process behind my design. I explain what I was trying to achieve, why I included what I did, what I think can be improved, and ask for feedback.

I’m lucky to work with the best team who recognizes my effort and always provides great feedback to help me and my designs become better. If it’s technical skills I need help with, they’ll give me tips or a little tutorial on how to do something in Illustrator or Photoshop. Other times they’ll give me some more creative direction if I’m lacking in that aspect. The point is, the more honest and communicative I am with my team, the more they can help me, and the better the end product turns out. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

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I’ve been working on some fun projects that I can’t wait to debut in a few weeks on my portfolio. Speaking of, my portfolio’s going to get a nice new look soon too. For the last few weeks of my internship, my focuses will be maximizing the time I have with my team and continuing to get inspired so I can implement new ideas into my designs.

It takes both the creative and technical part to successfully build and ship digital projects like websites or apps.

Having worked on the design and development side in the past years, I’d like to share a few simple principles that will hopefully make you more productive as a team and prevent failure and frustration.

1. Define a common goal

At the very beginning identify, phrase and agree on a tangible goal. This can be something like "we need to sell more products" or "users need to be able to easily find information about a certain thing." When in doubt or discussion at any moment further on, ask yourself as a team "does this action bring us further toward the goal that we defined and agreed upon at the beginning?"

2. Be as soon as possible, as specific as possible

This means: Placeholder content like the infamous Lorem Ipsum is forbidden. Use real content instead of dummy or placeholder content at every stage of your project. If no copy is available, come up with a best guess. Entering real content at the very last minute can cause situations like "Oh, actually there’s not enough space for that text" or "This page looks pretty lame with real content."

“By adding Lorem Ipsum to the design you are essentially dressing your king before you know his size.”

3. Talk early, regularly and about all the details

Discuss designs and features early-on in terms of feasibility so that everyone knows what is going to be built. This way, you avoid estimations and misunderstandings that can cost you and your team valuable time. Of course, be open to changes throughout the project as you might iterate and refine, but always keep your end goal in mind.

4. Sit next to each other

Don’t let unanswered questions trick you into making assumptions. By sitting next to each other you make communication a lot easier and can make decisions on the spot. If this is not an option, make sure you check in at least once a day for a few minutes to talk about your progress via Slack. Sitting next to each other may also increase the risk of learning from each other. Which brings me to my next point.

5. Learn from each other

Try to put yourself in the situation of your counterpart to understand what challenges they are facing. As a developer, try to "see" things more like a designer to get type sizes, spacings and layouts right. Pro tip: Hand-off tools like Zeplin make it easy for developers to scan exact measurements from designs.

On the other hand, as a designer try to have at least some sort of system behind the essential elements of your designs like type sizes, paddings and spacings, so that developers can leverage these rules in their code.

6. Give dead-honest feedback

The sooner the better. Being critical and calling out things that are not ideal is not always comfortable but may help you avoid frustration afterward. In every discussion, opinions are equally valuable. Be respectful and don’t dictate, because you need both strengths to reach your goal. Also, never take work-related critique personally. See it as a way to advance in your profession.

7. Get out of your comfort zone

Try to avoid the early use of phrases like "Nah, we can’t do this because it won't work." When in doubt, find an example where that one specific feature you wanted works in reality, and investigate until you find out how it was done. Don’t be afraid to ask for outside help. Nobody is perfect. Every one of us learns something new every day.

8. Find out what workflow works for you

This might sound obvious, but it’s important that you as a team find out how you work together in the best and most efficient way. Clarify how you hand-off designs, how you annotate functionality, what time(s) during the day you regularly check-in, etc. Keep in mind that working together for the first time might come with some overhead as you still have to get to know each other‘s way of working. However, your following projects together will be way faster since you already know how you play as a team.

9. Recap and celebrate

At the end of a project or big milestone, take some time as a team to recap everything from start to end and with all honesty. For example, have a nice team lunch or dinner out and cheers over some good drinks. If things went well, awesome! If something sucked, well even better, so you can improve next time.

10. Always make time for some fun

I really mean this one. Have a good time and enjoy what you do. At the end of the day, we all spend a fair amount of our day at work, so why not make it a good time? Leave some time for fun activities like a hard-fought duel at Mario Kart 64, a game of ping pong or spamming your teammates with funny GIFs.

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I hope you can use these tips to save yourself some time and improve your workflow and team spirit. Personally, these tips help me a lot to stay focused and ahead of things during critical phases of projects. I’d be glad to receive your feedback by shooting me a tweet at @skaltenegger.

Have a productive day!

In late July, I accepted an offer for a three-month interactive design internship with House of van Schneider. Tobias was one of the first designers I started following on social media when I decided to pursue design as a career. I loved how personable he comes across on Twitter and ate up all the knowledge and resources in this blog when I was starting out.

It’s weird to go from following your role model on social media one day to working with them the next, but I’m super grateful for this opportunity and couldn’t be enjoying my time more.

As of last week, I’m nearly one-third of the way done with my internship! I’m fortunate to have a patient team guiding me through it, who seem to be available on Slack 24/7. Since I am still quite fresh in the field of design, this first month has allowed me to learn a lot of basic hard skills and soft skills.

Photoshop isn’t just for photo editing

I know, some (or most) of y’all are in disbelief that I didn’t know this before but hey, I’m new. Since I picked up graphic design mainly through watching YouTube videos and asking designer friends to show me the ropes, I had worked primarily with Illustrator and had limited knowledge of other software. Photoshop had a pretty steep learning curve for me, but it’s proven to be great for creating quick mockups and manipulating graphics. Also, a personal win is that I finally understand how to use masks in Photoshop!

Since so many tools are available to designers now and it can get quite confusing, I’m still getting familiar with programs like Sketch or Adobe XD at this point. But the beauty of Photoshop is that it's incredibly versatile without any barriers to creativity. Even if the workflow isn't always ideal for digital design, it's a good tool to let your ideas run wild.

Contrast, hierarchy, and negative space can make or break a design

One of the hardest things I’m trying to overcome is filling up space with elements because I don’t know what else to do. I've learned that every design element should have a purpose, and yes, that includes the negative space. I’m learning that adding elements to a design with no purpose in mind usually means I’m not thinking about the visual hierarchy of elements in that graphic. A lack of visual hierarchy can make a design feel crowded, chaotic and confusing for the user.

As a designer, it’s my job to guide the user and help them easily understand the main message I want to communicate. Visual hierarchy, contrast and negative space help do this, but it’s deceptively difficult. I’ve had to hammer these principles into my head every day because it’s much harder to execute than it is to simply understand the principle.

"I’ve come to realize that I was limiting my creative potential with constraints I had unknowingly given myself."

Use feedback as momentum

It’s not easy to hear that my design missed the mark or that I need to give something a second try. Sometimes it’s also hard to not take feedback personally, especially if I spent hours working on a graphic only to have to redo it. But honest feedback (from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about) is one of the best ways to quickly learn how to get better at designing.

It’s been important to remind myself that sometimes my designs are going to be shitty, but that’s OK. I’m doing this internship so I can learn and become a better designer. I’d much rather receive honest and constructive feedback than hear I got it spot on with my first try. I’m here to grow, so instead of feeling stuck or defeated when I’m told to redo a task, I do my best to take the feedback and use it as momentum to make my next iteration better.

Working within constraints is a skill – just be sure you’re not making those constraints up.

I’ve been creating a lot of graphics for Semplice which has not only been fun, but practical as it’s teaching me how to work within the brand style. For example, even if I design a visually stunning and creative graphic, I may be told to rework it if it doesn’t fit in with the rest of Semplice’s graphics. The more I work with the team, the more I understand the Semplice style and how to deliver to that style rather than my own.

However, I’ve also come to realize that I was limiting my creative potential with constraints I had unknowingly given myself. Nobody told me I couldn’t manipulate that graphic or shorten that copy. I had just assumed I wasn’t allowed to. So to foster creativity and exploration, maybe the best approach is to create first and apologize later.

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With the first month of my internship under my belt, I’m looking forward to getting faster and more efficient with my workflow, continuing to push my creative boundaries, and becoming more involved in the overall design process from conception to delivery.