5 Things Aspirants Pursuing A Career In Design Must Know About

‘Everything is design. Everything!’ the famous Paul Rand, 20th century graphic designer tries to convey all that he could in this four worded sentence about the world of design.

When we talk about a career in design, it might not be the right way to put it. Here, the conversation is not just about a career, it becomes a constant way of living, since it has a lot to do with your individuality, you as a person, your experiences, the stories you have to tell.

If you look around for a second, the chair you are sitting on, the fan above your head, the laptop or any screen you are using to access this information each and everything has a thought put in to solve a purpose which seems mostly effortless to the user, but look a bit closely and you’ll realise how and why it is the way it is.

Design has a lot to do with putting in questions sensible or not so sensible ones. Right from – Why does the chair have four legs? Why does the fan have three blades? Why are the chapatis rolled in a round shape?

The fact that we human beings are so into this autopilot mechanism of believing, assuming, or considering certain things that we often take our senses for granted.

When we can observe, we choose to just see. When we have the ability to listen we choose to just hear there is a lot of difference between two when you think deeper.

Like these, there are many more virtues the design life has and this magical profession can change your perception towards life in all good ways, let’s look at them closely in the below mentioned points.

Acknowledging Your Senses

It is beautiful how human beings are equipped with five senses that we can use to perceive the world around us. But again that is a conscious choice we need to make on how to really put them to use.

We were probably taught about these five senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing early on in our schools and since then we have been using it on auto pilot and not really paying attention to how these senses create experiences which ultimately help us have an interpretation of the world around us.

How can sight be used as observation and a tool for understanding another major personality shift that happens when you are good at observation you impetuously are a curious person which is all you need to be a good designer.

For example the idea of “Voice Search” has made it so simple for a person to just speak into the phone while driving to search for a particular location minimising the hassle of typing. So this design is a result of a good observation.

Communication

You might have brilliant ideas, but it is absolutely of no use if you fail at communicating them. First step for any design idea is visualisation, and now for that either you can share it verbally or put pen to paper, obviously a sketch or doodle will be more convincing in order to give a fair idea of what you have in your head, that happens through the most important and basic design communication tool i.e. sketching and doodling. Hence, it becomes very important to have good motor skills, for instance, you get a project to design a storage space for a baby’s room. Whatever research you do and ideas you come up with you will have to illustrate to depict the ideas .

Once you decide to take up design as your career, enrol yourself in a good art academy and practise a lot of sketching, because before you know this skill will top all others and will also help you in enriching your portfolio.

Tip: As soon as you embark on this journey, you must maintain a visual diary (a small sketchbook) and start recording things in your everyday surroundings, which will help you improve your observation skills and also help you improve your eye-hand coordination.

Creativity And Curiosity

This one is a bit obvious but holds for the major chunk in the design career. Creativity isn’t a mysterious trait, or passed on through genetics ,It is a process that can be learned, honed and mastered over time.

Creativity is often assumed as a very hazy unachievable trait that few people are inherently blessed with, but the truth is that each one of us is born creative, as Picasso very rightly said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain one once he/she grows up.” It has to be tapped and worked on at the right age and then enhancing it over time only takes time and patience.

Design is a process that you learn and understand with practice, experience and application.

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However, once you choose a career in design with every project or assignment you will feel the stress on your creative brain which widens your range of expression and innovation.

The idea here is to look at the things the way they are and to add something you already know to make it more effective than it already is.

Design Is Not Just Creating Things

Let me give you an example for this. You are in a design institute working on a project where you are supposed to design a lamp. Now when you start you break it down into small, easy to handle stages. An ideal one would be Defining the brief - Researching – Brainstorming - Prototyping and a few more finally leading to product development.

No matter what field of design you choose, all of these individual stages you will need some tools that come handy and assist you at the time of working on a project. For that matter, design education encompasses a lot of different small modules like 3D Drawings, Photography, Branding, Software Study, Business Management. It is a good idea to be prepared for all of this beforehand. And you never know you might end up taking any of these auxiliaries as your career.

No matter where you go in life all of these skills sow the seed and makes design communication absolutely seamless.

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Accept Criticism

Understand that at work, there will be a spectrum of opinions and people who will resonate with your work and people who will not. Doesn’t matter how good a designer you are, you will eventually have to learn how to take or dish out criticism.

Regular, candid and critical feedback will always push you to explore more ideas and have a look at different perspectives. Feedback is supremely important when you design something, be it that of a potential user, an expert or a classmate for that matter.

However as designers we learn to be empathetic and subtle for the reason we get better at our jobs of designing for people. These skills sometimes make us terrible at receiving feedback.

For that matter you need to trust yourself and your work and be all ears while listening to constructive feedback. Remember, critics make you all the more stronger, all the more better!

Design is a process that you learn and understand with practice, experience and application. No matter how much an expert prepares you beforehand there will always be a new learning that will happen on the field.

My advice to all the aspirants is to start living a mindful life, where you take nothing for granted and start observing around.

Maintain a visual diary, document your surroundings, your emotions, your mood and see how you will start developing a visual language which strengthens your roots and prepares you for the design life ahead.