How designers communicate a lot with a little — Designers often focus on visual problems, with solutions that are creatively visualized through rapid idea generation. And most of us know that initial ideas are usually anything but simple. The ideation process works best when you let your mind run wild and table judgment for later. But once you’ve had…

Plus 8 tips for making your service design a reality — The Covid-19 pandemic supercharged us through the experience economy and straight into the convenience economy. The modern consumer lives in a world of what I want, when I want it, how I want it. I no longer have to do my own grocery shopping. All I have to do to…

Why designers should ditch Lorem Ipsum and learn to write — Throughout your career, you’ll spend countless hours honing new skills that can help you be a more intelligent or versatile designer. …

The “dos and don’ts” of letting go for designers — Whether you’re a freelancer, an agency vet, or part of an in-house team, building trust with your clients and stakeholders is a key to developing successful business relationships. But there’s a lot to unpack in that process: Open and transparent communication, demonstration of expertise and knowledge, reliability, flexibility, good listening…

Transforming your product demos into experiences that sell — A great demo is a pivotal piece of the puzzle for tech startups, especially in the B2B SaaS sales process. It’s a chance to showcase the worth of your product or service—or both—to potential customers. An effective demo helps prospects understand how your product addresses their pain points, improves the…

It’s more than supplemental income — Graduating design school can leave you with many uncertainties: What are my next steps? Why are job opportunities so limited? How the hell am I supposed to communicate experience with just a student portfolio? These issues are widely recognized, and freelancing—or “going into business for myself”—is often seen as the…

Invoking royalty and fashion across four centuries. — Over the course of roughly 300 years, Roman typefaces transitioned from what we classify as “old style”—as epitomized by the work of Claude Garamond and William Caslon—to the transitional (John Baskerville, etc.) and, finally, the Didone or “modern” face. While transitional typefaces — when compared to their old-style predecessors —…

Every project won’t be valuable, but every experience will be — Many of us come out of design school not knowing what we’ll do next. That post-graduation period can be tough to navigate and is often heightened by the realization that job offers aren’t as plentiful as you expected (or you haven’t looked too hard yet). But most of us faced…

Thoughts on Christoph Niemann’s Abstract-O-Meter and why designers often confuse simple with “minimal” — Here’s a lesson I learned a long time ago from Chip Kidd, the famous book jacket designer: He recalled that — on his first day of design school — his professor walked to the chalkboard and drew a picture of an apple. Then he wrote the word Apple and said…