What's that one thing that turns a bad designer into a good one?

Music and links from this episode

No More Truth by ROZKOL

Sacred Motion by staRpauSe

End of the Line by H-LR

Line-by-line notes

INTRO

When you talk about what separates a great designer from a bad one

There’s lots of things that tend to come up

Passion

Intelligence

Talent

Location

Desire

But the biggest thing I think

And one that some people don’t appreciate

Is learning

And committing to a lifetime of learning

This is AADA and I’m Craig Burgess

PLAY MID SONG

Being a designer isn’t easy

It’s so important to keep up with so many things, and lots of these change A LOT

You’ve got to keep up with culture, to make sure the work you’re doing is relevant

You’ve got to keep up with the news and current events, to make sure you can ground your work in reality

And you’ve got to keep up with trends

Trends can be one the hardest to keep up with, and one of the most time consuming

Because trends are fickle

I’m not saying that designers should make trendy design

I’m the last person on earth to suggest that

But it’s important to understand current trends

To either implement them in your work

Or completely avoid them

So you can make your work look timeless but not old fashioned

There’s something else though that’s really important to a designer

And that’s technology

Technology changes so quickly

And designers need to keep up with it

It’s revolutionised and some may say democratised the world of design once before

With the introduction of the Macintosh

And I think we’re currently experiencing a similar thing again

With the rise of tablet devices

And the potential that a tablet device opens up for all kinds of design work

And rapid prototyping, just all sorts

But to make sure we keep up with all this stuff

We have to make sure we’re always learning

In another way, you could call it curiosity

Curiosity feeds a lot into this

And to be an amazing designer

Curiosity is really important

The best designers I know are perpetually curious about the world they live in

They don’t take anything at face value

They don’t see a news story and think that’s the full story

I think this is a thing of—and as much as I hate to say the term—being in marketing

Because we’re used to working for companies and—let’s face it—manipulating the public image of companies

We know and understand how easy it is to manipulate the public image of everything

That leads most designers to be generally cynical of most things they see

And that leads them to being curious to find out the truth

Also, when designers see a new style of work or a new website or a new thing they’ve never seen before

They want to know how to create it, and replicate it

Staying curious is so important, because if you don’t, you fall behind, and slowly become a worse designer

A designer’s journey is one that never ends

Because a designer is always trying to improve

And a designer is always trying to fill up their bank of ideas, and inspiration, and ways to solve problems

Part of a designer’s curiosity and passion for learning

Comes from this

They know they need to keep seeking, keep learning, and keep wondering how things work

Because it’ll make them a better designer.

If you as a designer stay the same as the day you came out of college

Over the years, you’ll just slowly shrivel up and die as a designer

Staying curious

And committing to a lifetime of learning

Is the only way to stay relevant

OUTRO 

This was AADA. I’m Craig Burgess.

Music featured in this episode was

No More Truth by ROZKOL

Sacred Motion by star pause

End of the Line by H-LR

For a line-by-line run down of this episode, go to askadesignernaything.com/ep104

I’m back tomorrow for another episode of AADA

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