AADA - Raw, direct and live chats about design and creativity

AADA - Raw, direct and live chats about design and creativity

By Craig BurgessArtsMusicVisual ArtsDesign
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AADA - Raw, direct and live chats about design and creativity episodes

  • 141 - Gaining Respect As A Designer
    How do you gain respect as a designer, especially as a young designer?
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    Music and links from this episode
    Indian Summer by Lobo Loco
    Electric Puppet by Mystery Mammal
    Line-by-line notes
    When you speak to anybody
    In any career really
    And you ask them one question
    What is it you really want from your career?
    People will say surface things
    Like money
    Fame
    Appreciation
    But everybody really wants one thing
    And especially designers
    And that’s respect
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    I remember when I first started out a designer
    And I especially remember this when I first started out as a freelance designer
    I wanted respect
    I wanted clients and peers to respect me as a designer
    I knew I was right about some of the design decisions I’d made
    But why were clients overruling me, or not believing that I was right?
    What was I doing wrong?
    I was like every other young designer
    I wanted my work to be respected 
    And I wanted to be respected as a professional
    It’s hard as a designer, and even more so when you’re a young designer who might lack confidence or conviction
    Designers just starting out usually lack confidence in their skills
    And that’s just natural, it’s normal
    And because they lack confidence
    That shows in meetings with clients and people buying the design
    Then you go in a vicious circle of not being respected as a designer
    And add on top of that a simple fact 
    That lots of people don’t respect design as a profession
    And people just see graphic designers as people who just colour in
    Lots of people don’t respect design as a profession
    Because they don’t see it as a real profession, like a doctor or a lawyer
    The only way to gain respect as a designer
    Is to command respect as a designer
    Don’t be a yes designer
    Don’t just say yes to everybody all the time
    If you know you’ve done something right
    Tell people it’s been done right, and there’s a reason it’s been done that way
    Always command respect for your work
    Command respect by being confident about your work
    And confident that you’ve done your job correctly as a professional
    Respect comes from confidence
    And confidence only comes from experience, and unfortunately, there’s no shortcut to that
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was:
    Indian Summer by Lobo Loco
    Electric Puppet by Mystery Mammal
    For a line by line rundown of this episode go over to …/ep141
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I’m back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    8 min
  • 141 - Gaining Respect As A Designer
    How do you gain respect as a designer, especially as a young designer?
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    Music and links from this episode
    Indian Summer by Lobo Loco
    Electric Puppet by Mystery Mammal
    Line-by-line notes
    When you speak to anybody
    In any career really
    And you ask them one question
    What is it you really want from your career?
    People will say surface things
    Like money
    Fame
    Appreciation
    But everybody really wants one thing
    And especially designers
    And that’s respect
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    I remember when I first started out a designer
    And I especially remember this when I first started out as a freelance designer
    I wanted respect
    I wanted clients and peers to respect me as a designer
    I knew I was right about some of the design decisions I’d made
    But why were clients overruling me, or not believing that I was right?
    What was I doing wrong?
    I was like every other young designer
    I wanted my work to be respected 
    And I wanted to be respected as a professional
    It’s hard as a designer, and even more so when you’re a young designer who might lack confidence or conviction
    Designers just starting out usually lack confidence in their skills
    And that’s just natural, it’s normal
    And because they lack confidence
    That shows in meetings with clients and people buying the design
    Then you go in a vicious circle of not being respected as a designer
    And add on top of that a simple fact 
    That lots of people don’t respect design as a profession
    And people just see graphic designers as people who just colour in
    Lots of people don’t respect design as a profession
    Because they don’t see it as a real profession, like a doctor or a lawyer
    The only way to gain respect as a designer
    Is to command respect as a designer
    Don’t be a yes designer
    Don’t just say yes to everybody all the time
    If you know you’ve done something right
    Tell people it’s been done right, and there’s a reason it’s been done that way
    Always command respect for your work
    Command respect by being confident about your work
    And confident that you’ve done your job correctly as a professional
    Respect comes from confidence
    And confidence only comes from experience, and unfortunately, there’s no shortcut to that
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was:
    Indian Summer by Lobo Loco
    Electric Puppet by Mystery Mammal
    For a line by line rundown of this episode go over to …/ep141
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I’m back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    6 min
  • 140 - Inertia
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    What happens when you do nothing? What really is the effect of inertia?
    Music and links from this episode
    Stop to Start Over by Artofescapism
    Some Bad Joke by Monplaisir
    Cherry Dump Cake by half cocked
    Line-by-line notes
    Yesterday’s episode about doing nothing got me thinking
    Funnily enough, about doing nothing
    It got me thinking a little bit deeper about it doing nothing
    The effects of it
    And how it impacts your life
    Or, as the dictionary puts it, inertia.
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    As a designer
    Especially as a young designer, or a learning designer
    Doing just enough isn’t anywhere near enough
    The competition is too large
    The amount of skills you need to learn is too lengthy
    Doing a design course, or just turning up 9-5 at your job
    Isn’t going to cut it if you want to become an amazing designer, or even any more than an average one
    Really early on in my design education I realised this
    I read magazines like Creative Review and Grafik, and every day I was exposed to amazing design work
    I realised if I was going to compete with anybody in those magazines
    I had to work harder than them
    Or at least as hard as them
    And after reading interviews with these designers in those magazines
    I knew that they didn’t turn up on a morning and leave at tea time, and never did anything else
    These people spoke of always thinking about design
    And if they got an idea in their head, no matter what time it was, they’d pursue it, and see where it went
    That’s why inertia is weird to me
    That’s why doing nothing is weird to me
    Doing nothing has been the exact opposite of my personality for the last 12 years
    People might call me a workaholic
    But when you’re a designer, or anything else for that matter
    If you really love what you do, and you do it as a hobby as well, does that make it a job?
    Sometimes I do design work that I don’t like, or that doesn’t turn out like I hoped
    We all have jobs like that, everything you do can’t be a masterpiece after all
    But I’m always working on my masterpiece in my spare time
    My next side project piece of design that will be absolutely amazing, honestly
    And that nobody else has a say in other than me
    I guess you could call that art, but lets not get into that argument today
    Maybe you’re not the same, but I find inertia contagious
    I find if I do nothing for even an hour, I don’t want to do anything for the rest of the day
    If I want to exercise on an evening after work
    And I come home and don’t do it immediately, I won’t do it for the rest of the night either
    If I have an evening off doing work or design or something productive, it stops me doing things the day after
    I think productivity is some kind of weird habit, or a muscle that you train
    If you don’t regularly train yourself to be productive
    You don’t get productive
    If you regularly don’t do anything, you continue not to do anything
    Obviously, not doing things and relaxing is good sometimes, as I spoke about in episode 139
    But to get anything done over a long period of time
    You’ve got to go get things done
    And you’ve got to keep getting lots of things done
    To build up a habit of getting things done
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was:
    Stop to Start Over by Artofescapism
    Some Bad Joke by Monplaisir
    Cherry Dump Cake by half cocked
    For a line by line rundown of this episode go over to …/ep140
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I’m back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    5 min
  • 140 - Inertia
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    What happens when you do nothing? What really is the effect of inertia?
    Music and links from this episode
    Stop to Start Over by Artofescapism
    Some Bad Joke by Monplaisir
    Cherry Dump Cake by half cocked
    Line-by-line notes
    Yesterday’s episode about doing nothing got me thinking
    Funnily enough, about doing nothing
    It got me thinking a little bit deeper about it doing nothing
    The effects of it
    And how it impacts your life
    Or, as the dictionary puts it, inertia.
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    As a designer
    Especially as a young designer, or a learning designer
    Doing just enough isn’t anywhere near enough
    The competition is too large
    The amount of skills you need to learn is too lengthy
    Doing a design course, or just turning up 9-5 at your job
    Isn’t going to cut it if you want to become an amazing designer, or even any more than an average one
    Really early on in my design education I realised this
    I read magazines like Creative Review and Grafik, and every day I was exposed to amazing design work
    I realised if I was going to compete with anybody in those magazines
    I had to work harder than them
    Or at least as hard as them
    And after reading interviews with these designers in those magazines
    I knew that they didn’t turn up on a morning and leave at tea time, and never did anything else
    These people spoke of always thinking about design
    And if they got an idea in their head, no matter what time it was, they’d pursue it, and see where it went
    That’s why inertia is weird to me
    That’s why doing nothing is weird to me
    Doing nothing has been the exact opposite of my personality for the last 12 years
    People might call me a workaholic
    But when you’re a designer, or anything else for that matter
    If you really love what you do, and you do it as a hobby as well, does that make it a job?
    Sometimes I do design work that I don’t like, or that doesn’t turn out like I hoped
    We all have jobs like that, everything you do can’t be a masterpiece after all
    But I’m always working on my masterpiece in my spare time
    My next side project piece of design that will be absolutely amazing, honestly
    And that nobody else has a say in other than me
    I guess you could call that art, but lets not get into that argument today
    Maybe you’re not the same, but I find inertia contagious
    I find if I do nothing for even an hour, I don’t want to do anything for the rest of the day
    If I want to exercise on an evening after work
    And I come home and don’t do it immediately, I won’t do it for the rest of the night either
    If I have an evening off doing work or design or something productive, it stops me doing things the day after
    I think productivity is some kind of weird habit, or a muscle that you train
    If you don’t regularly train yourself to be productive
    You don’t get productive
    If you regularly don’t do anything, you continue not to do anything
    Obviously, not doing things and relaxing is good sometimes, as I spoke about in episode 139
    But to get anything done over a long period of time
    You’ve got to go get things done
    And you’ve got to keep getting lots of things done
    To build up a habit of getting things done
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was:
    Stop to Start Over by Artofescapism
    Some Bad Joke by Monplaisir
    Cherry Dump Cake by half cocked
    For a line by line rundown of this episode go over to …/ep140
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I’m back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    6 min
  • 137 - Should Developers Design?
    A follow up to yesterday: should developers learn to design things?
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    Music and links from this episode
    Who Is Responsible for Design - Creative Review Article
    Eutrophic by Mystery Mammal
    Cart before the horse by Myriadar
    Where There Is No darkness by Nihilore
    Line-by-line notes
    Quite a few years ago
    I did a talk that was loosely about the designer/developer divide
    I argued that designers should be more developer
    And developers should be more designer
    Today, I’m going to talk about developers being designers
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    I’m a pretty positive person
    But there’s certain things in the design industry that really bug me
    That I try not to let annoy me
    But they do anyway
    One of the big things that bug me
    Is...well…actually two things
    1) When people say that developers aren’t creative
    I’m a designer myself
    But lots of designers like to put the technical people in a box
    As if their creativity is somehow less worthy than their creativity
    Programming is creative
    And it’s problem solving
    In fact, it’s one of the most direct forms of problem solving
    You’re writing code, you’re creating things, you’re creative
    And the second thing that bugs me
    Is that developers either think they can’t design or designers stop them from doing so
    Yesterday’s episode was all about the opposite of this
    I spoke about designers coding, and argued whether they should code or not
    To reiterate, designers should code
    Designers should embrace any opportunity to learn more things and get better at their craft
    And the exact same rules apply to developers
    I hate the whole designer/developer design thing, full stop
    I hate that we feel we need to label ourselves as one or the other
    And we can’t possibly be both
    Because if we’re both people think we’re worse at one of them
    After all, how could we possibly be good at both those things?
    On most projects, developers do way more design than you probably realise
    When designers design 3 pages of a website and none of the interactions
    The gap is left for the developer to fill in
    You could argue that in terms of websites, when a developer is building the website they design most of the website
    And developers are becoming more design savvy
    Because they have to
    There's too many new startups and not enough designers, so developers need to learn to design
    Even if you’re not in that situation as a developer, and you’re lucky to have a good design team
    When working in a team its always a good idea to get a better picture of how everybody’s job works
    And as a developer, learning how to design only makes you better at your job
    It’s not as a if as a developer, if you start to learn some design stuff
    the programming languages will fall out of the other side of your brain
    Developers learning to design
    Helps to close that divide between designers and developers
    When I did that talk a few years ago that I mentioned at the beginning
    I spoke about designers and developers needing to get along better
    We needed to stop picking holes in each other
    And start working better
    Designers need to start coding
    And developers need to start designing
    I ended the talk by getting a designer and developer to hug
    But this is a podcast… so that isn’t going to work
    If you’re a designer or a developer
    When you get into work tomorrow,
    Go hug a developer or a designer
    And learn to appreciate each other’s jobs a bit more
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was:
    Eutrophic by Mystery Mammal
    La Besitos by Ryan Little
    Jam With Me by Monplaisir
    For a line by line rundown of this episode go over to …/ep137
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I’m back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    7 min
  • 136 - Should Designers Code?
    Should designers code?
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    Music and links from this episode
    Who Is Responsible for Design - Creative Review Article
    Eutrophic by Mystery Mammal
    Cart before the horse by Myriadar
    Where There Is No darkness by Nihilore
    Line-by-line notes
    There's several debates that are forever recurring in the design and tech worlds
    Is design art?
    Or is art design?
    Should a designer do multiple things?
    And the hottest topic and that comes around every week
    Should designers code?
    I probably going to get a bit offensive to designers in this episode.
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    Over the years I've lost count of how many times I've had this argument
    But I'm going to go at it again, becaause I like causing controversy
    And amazingly, I've not discussed it on this podcast before
    Let me lay out my stance straight away
    I have a dim view of designers who choose not to bother learning to code
    It's not just about designers though
    I have a dim view of anybody who actively chooses to stop learning things
    When it comes to designers, they actively choose not to bother learning how to code, or any of the technical side
    I'll try learning anything, because I love learning things
    And we should all love learning things, because it's the only way to grow as human beings, not just at our craft
    So I find it fascinating and maddening when I see anybody putting up a barrier to themselves and saying
    "No, I don't want to learn that and I don't want to know anymore about that"
    Knowing more about something makes you design it better, that is just a fact
    Not even technical stuff, the more you know about anything the better you'll design it
    So when it comes to websites, and especially now with responsive websites and there being so much changing so quickly
    You have to know how to build websites, to a point
    HTML and CSS isn't difficult to learn for anybody
    And I can't see a logical reason why somebody wouldn't want to learn it, or can't learn it
    The reasons for a designer designing websites to learn it are nothing but positive
    It helps you understand websites more
    It helps you design and make better websites
    And it makes you a better designer
    Why on earth would you not want those things?
    Who could argue against those points?
    We get too bogged down with titles 
    And too caught up with labels
    I'm a designer, therefore I can't be anything else
    I'm a developer, so that means the design is left to somebody else
    These titles aren't useful for anybody, because having knowledge about all those things only serves to make you better at everything
    People always come back to the phrases like
    Jack of all trades, master of none
    But I wholeheartedly disagree with that phrase
    The modern world is making jack of all trades out of us all
    Especially in design
    In design alone, we no longer have typesetters, typographers, and reprographics
     A designer is usually expected to be all of those things, as well as a proofreader, a photo retouched, an art worker, a account manager, an illustrator, the list goes on
    So even in design, we aren't specialists anymore
    So if we're not even specialists in our specialist area, why do some designers get so angry and against learning just one more thing?
    And especially when that one more thing will have such a positive impact on making everything else that designer designs even better
    As you can tell, I'm passionate about designers knowing as much as possible
    My one viewpoint isn't the correct one, it's just my viewpoint
    But I would passionately argue with anybody
    That a designer who designs websites should know HTML and CSS, minimum
    And if they don't, they're just lazy.
    As a follow up to this episode, there's an interesting article on Creative Review's website about who is responsible for design. There's a link in my show notes for you to check it out
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I’m Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was:...
    7 min
  • 134 - Haters
    In this episode, I say "haters gonna hate" quite a few times.
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    Music and links from this episode
    So What by Soft and Furious
    Unity by Kevin MacLeod
    5 Piece by Black Ant
    Line-by-line notes
    I think the biggest thing
    That stops anybody from doing anything
    Is people being afraid of what other people will think of them
    We’re pack animals, and we want to please everybody
    Because of that, we’re afraid that people will hate us
    But, sometimes, people like to hate people
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    As you can probably imagine
    Since I decided to start a podcast on January 1st
    I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about podcasts
    They’ve been varied
    Some people love podcasts
    Some people hate them
    And some people have never heard of them
    But inevitably, I always say to them
    “Why don’t you start a podcast?”
    And they usually say
    “ooo no, I couldn’t do that”
    At this point, I always love digging a bit deeper and finding out why
    Some people think they haven’t got the ability to do one, which is understandable
    Some people think they aren’t interesting enough
    But a lot of people just don’t want to put themselves out there
    They’re scared of what people will think of them
    And they’re scared of the haters
    I always try to explain to them at this point that “haters gonna hate”
    That no matter what you do
    If somebody doesn’t like you
    Or doesn’t like what you’re doing
    People will hate you no matter what
    You can’t please everybody
    It’s just impossible
    And if you try to please everybody, you just turn into somebody that nobody likes
    It took me a long time to appreciate this
    I’ve always been a pretty outspoken kind of person
    But I do like pleasing people
    I don’t want anybody to hate me
    I try to get on with everybody, and I’m nice to anybody
    Because of that, I don’t like thinking that there’s people out there that just won’t like me
    Just my personality, just me being me, will annoy some people, and there’s nothing I can do about that
    That’s exactly the same with starting a podcast, making videos, writing blog posts, or designing something
    Everything you do will not please everybody, and there’s going to be haters out there
    There’s people out there right now who hate you
    For no real reason, they just can’t stand you for being you
    And there’s nothing you’ll ever be able to do about that
    So what do you do about that?
    If you’re designing something new, and that person hates everything you do
    It’s not your fault, it’s theirs. Unless your work is rubbish of course, but I’m hoping you can work that one out.
    Your work will not please everybody
    And the sooner you find out what your work is, and what you want to do
    The better your work will get, because you’ll stop trying to produce work that everybody will like
    You’ve got to stop caring about everybody, and start just doing what you what to do
    Do what pleases you
    Do what interests you
    And ignore everybody else
    Haters gonna hate anyway.
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I'm Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was
    So What by Soft and Furious
    Unity by Kevin MacLeod
    5 Piece by Black Ant
    For a line by line rundown... /ep134
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I'm back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    7 min
  • 132 - Saying Yes
    What does saying yes too often really lead to?
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    Music and links from this episode
    Too Far Gone by Ryan Little
    Interstellar Export by The Insider
    Calm The Fuck Down by Broke For Free
    Line-by-line notes
    Over the next two episodes
    I want to present two sides of the coin as a designer
    There’s the saying yes side
    That’s saying yes to amends, or things you think you shouldn’t say yes to
    Then there’s the other side
    The saying no side
    The standing your ground, and not budging side
    Today is saying yes
    Let’s explore saying yes
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    I’ve said many times before
    Design is a weird profession
    There’s no formal education required
    Every agency works differently
    And every designer works differently
    We all work with clients differently as well
    And say yes or no to different things
    When you first start out as a designer
    You say yes a lot
    When a client asks you to change something
    You just do it
    Often you don’t even question it, because you don’t know any better
    Or you might not have the confidence or the experience yet to say otherwise
    I think there’s actually two types of designers
    There’s the Yes Designers
    These kinds of designers will always do whatever the client wants to please them
    Clients like these kinds of designers for obvious reasons
    And some designers would argue that as a designer you should always be like this
    After all, the customer is always right, right?
    Well, wrong
    In the design world, the client is often wrong
    And it’s our duty as a designer to make the client aware of that
    We should tell them when they’re wrong, always
    Not in a nasty way
    And not in a combative way that ruins relationships
    And not even in a difficult way
    I just believe that before we say yes, it’s our duty to explore the reasons behind a change
    If the changes that a client is asking for are sensible, go nuts. Just change it
    But if a client is suggesting stupid things
    Or things that will make your design work worse
    Challenge the request
    And don’t automatically say yes
    Try and find out the underlying reasons for these changes
    Sometimes they’re silly, and purely because a client wants to put their stamp on a project
    This is OK to a point
    But when those pointless changes start to affect the end product
    It isn’t OK anymore, and you should start raising your concerns
    Automatically saying yes to a client on everything sets up a weird unbalanced relationship too
    People come to us as designers because we know about design
    We’re professional designers
    That means they want out opinions on stuff, and want to know if it’s best for them
    If we’re so eager to please all the time and just say yes, we don’t show our value as a designer
    When we’re really against some change further down the line too, we’ve already shown we’re a pushover
    I’m not saying it’s wrong to say yes to clients, I do that all the time
    But you do have to be very careful when you do say yes
    And consider all the implications that decision has on your relationship
    You owe it to your client to make sure you don’t say yes just to please them
    They’ve hired you as a professional, and they want your professional opinion
    That doesn’t work if you’re a Yes Designer
    So stop just saying yes
    And start considering the power of the word Yes a little bit more carefully.
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I'm Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was
    Too Far Gone by Ryan Little
    Interstellar Export by The Insider
    Calm The Fuck Down by Broke For Free
    For a line by line rundown of this episode... /ep132
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I'm back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
    Ask a Designer Anything Website
    Twitter (@craigburgess)
    Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook
    Leave me a review on iTunes
    7 min
  • 132 - Saying Yes
    What does saying yes too often really lead to?
    Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED
    Music and links from this episode
    Too Far Gone by Ryan Little
    Interstellar Export by The Insider
    Calm The Fuck Down by Broke For Free
    Line-by-line notes
    Over the next two episodes
    I want to present two sides of the coin as a designer
    There’s the saying yes side
    That’s saying yes to amends, or things you think you shouldn’t say yes to
    Then there’s the other side
    The saying no side
    The standing your ground, and not budging side
    Today is saying yes
    Let’s explore saying yes
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    I’ve said many times before
    Design is a weird profession
    There’s no formal education required
    Every agency works differently
    And every designer works differently
    We all work with clients differently as well
    And say yes or no to different things
    When you first start out as a designer
    You say yes a lot
    When a client asks you to change something
    You just do it
    Often you don’t even question it, because you don’t know any better
    Or you might not have the confidence or the experience yet to say otherwise
    I think there’s actually two types of designers
    There’s the Yes Designers
    These kinds of designers will always do whatever the client wants to please them
    Clients like these kinds of designers for obvious reasons
    And some designers would argue that as a designer you should always be like this
    After all, the customer is always right, right?
    Well, wrong
    In the design world, the client is often wrong
    And it’s our duty as a designer to make the client aware of that
    We should tell them when they’re wrong, always
    Not in a nasty way
    And not in a combative way that ruins relationships
    And not even in a difficult way
    I just believe that before we say yes, it’s our duty to explore the reasons behind a change
    If the changes that a client is asking for are sensible, go nuts. Just change it
    But if a client is suggesting stupid things
    Or things that will make your design work worse
    Challenge the request
    And don’t automatically say yes
    Try and find out the underlying reasons for these changes
    Sometimes they’re silly, and purely because a client wants to put their stamp on a project
    This is OK to a point
    But when those pointless changes start to affect the end product
    It isn’t OK anymore, and you should start raising your concerns
    Automatically saying yes to a client on everything sets up a weird unbalanced relationship too
    People come to us as designers because we know about design
    We’re professional designers
    That means they want out opinions on stuff, and want to know if it’s best for them
    If we’re so eager to please all the time and just say yes, we don’t show our value as a designer
    When we’re really against some change further down the line too, we’ve already shown we’re a pushover
    I’m not saying it’s wrong to say yes to clients, I do that all the time
    But you do have to be very careful when you do say yes
    And consider all the implications that decision has on your relationship
    You owe it to your client to make sure you don’t say yes just to please them
    They’ve hired you as a professional, and they want your professional opinion
    That doesn’t work if you’re a Yes Designer
    So stop just saying yes
    And start considering the power of the word Yes a little bit more carefully.
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I'm Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was
    Too Far Gone by Ryan Little
    Interstellar Export by The Insider
    Calm The Fuck Down by Broke For Free
    For a line by line rundown of this episode... /ep132
    If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess
    I'm back tomorrow
    Support Ask a Designer Anything
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    9 min
  • 131 - Designing For Designers
    Is all designers really just for designers?
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    Music and links from this episode
    Outsiders in Nome by Mystery Mammal
    Route of the Old West Convicts by Fields Ohio
    Arrythmia/ a lost battalion of conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off Empire State out of the moon into vacant Ohio factories by The Fucked Up Beat
    Line-by-line notes
    You've already seen the title of this episode
    Design isn't for designers
    It's a controversial viewpoint
    And one I want to explore in a little more depth
    Designers deep down know that design not only isn't for designers
    It SHOULDN'T be for designers
    But still, we design things that only designers would get
    This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
    MUSIC
    As I said
    I'm presenting a controversial topic
    I think lots of designers will see this episode and think
    Well, I don't design things for designers
    But, I think you're wrong
    Often we all design clever logos
    Clever websites or clever bits of design
    And all that stuff, the majority of it only designers will get or appreciate
    Take the classic example, the FedEx logo
    How many times have you explained this logo to a non designer to show how clever and deep design can be?
    Non designers don't look at things like we do
    They don't look at the leading of a paragraph
    Or the kerning in a word
    They don't look at something and think it could have done with more space
    Or the colours are wrong
    Or even that the apostrophe is used incorrectly
    These are all things we care about as designers
    And rightly so, of course rightly so
    But the point I'm getting to
    Is that lots of this extra detail
    Beyond the stuff like proper spacing, leading and kerning
    Is all stuff a non designer won't even comprehend
    So why do we bother?
    If 90% of the intended target audience won't get that clever thing you did with that logo,
    Why did you bother?
    Now this is as much of a question directed at myself as it is at you
    Designers bother with those extra bits for lots of reasons
    But the main reason I think is pride
    It's my job as a designer to do the best job I can possibly do
    And that often means going far and above what a normal person would to care about something that most people won't see or even appreciate
    It's a little bit like Steve Job's stories about his dad, Paul Jobs
    He tells stories of his dad being a craftsman. And having the ability to make anything
    But no matter what he made, he never cut any corners
    Even when he made a chest of drawers, he refused to use a poorer quality wood for the back of the drawers that nobody would ever see
    And he'd always pay as much attention to the back of a fence as he did the front, the bit that most people would see
    That's a desire to do a good job
    It's a pride in your work
    And that's why designers do what they do, and why I do what I do
    It's why most of my work never gets seen by anybody,
    And why I draw 300 logos in my sketchbook before I even get to a computer
    Designing those little bits for designers is exactly the same thing
    It's build in little Easter eggs into my design work, especially branding and logo work
    It's something fun to discover
    And it's like painting the back of a cabinet
    Most people will never ever see it
    But that's ok, im cool with that
    I do it for that one person
    That one person who stumbles across that little nice touch
    And when they spot it
    They smile
    And they feel a little bit warm inside
    Because they discovered something most people won't discover.
    That's what those extras are for
    And I live for those
    MUSIC
    This was AADA and I'm Craig Burgess
    Music featured in this episode was
    Outsiders in Nome by Mystery Mammal
    Route of the Old West Convicts by Fields Ohio
    Arrythmia/ a lost battalion of conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off Empire State out of the moon into vacant Ohio factories by The Fucked Up Beat
    For a line by line rundown... /ep131
    If you want more...
    8 min

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