Use Your Telescope

Telescoping is the process of actively switching between high level thought and the details of execution. Think of it as zooming in and out of your work. At the zoomed out view think about high level project goals: who is the audience, what is the hierarachy, am I working within or breaking existing conventions, etc. Zoomed in you can work out the specifics of execution: adding layers of polish and resolving outstanding questions.

If I notice myself getting fixated on details sometimes I'll physically step away from my computer and look at a work-in-progress from 4-6 feet away so I have to shift focus back to a zoomed-out perspective. 

• Plan and lay down the structure.
• Don’t spend all your time focusing on the details.
• Step back and evaluate.
• Repeat this process constantly.

Get your gut checked regularly

Gut checks are frequent, quick, focused tests of your ideas. Invite someone to give you a quick, gut-level reaction to a work-in-progress. You want an emotional or intuitive reaction that helps you clarify any bias you have as the creator. Go ahead and tell them you're just doing a gut check. The shorter their response, the better. It's not a brainstorm, it’s a fast tool to check your assumptions.

Ask a question so the feedback is focused. Use simple, direct questions and insist on simple, direct answers. 

Example questions:

• What’s the first thing you notice?
• What is the most important thing on the screen?
• What’s the first emotion that comes to mind when you see this?
• Would you trust this?
• Is this funny?

Don't hold back. Use your best ideas.

There is no better time than now for your best ideas. Use them, there will be more. Don’t save them for a better project or a better client because good ideas breed more good ideas.

When we become stingy with our concepts we get attached to them and when we get attached to an idea it becomes the thing that is always pushed to another day because we think it has to be perfect. It's easy to put off the perfect idea because it'll take too much time.

Additionally, the more things you try the more likely you’ll find something that works and when you do find something that works don't be afraid to repeat yourself.

You don't have to reinvent yourself on every project. And repetition is the thing that all your favorite artists are known for. Repetition is style and style is the thing that reputations are built upon.

Would your manager fight to keep you?

A few years ago Netflix released to the public a presentation about their company culture and one of the themes is effective hiring. They focus on superstars and everyone else is let go. It sounds harsh but I love this idea, particularly if everyone is aware of this standard.

Here’s the test the Netflix managers use to determine whether someone should remain or be cut from the payroll: Which of my people, if they told me they were leaving, for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep at Netflix?

Now flip that around: Would your manager fight to keep you?

If the answer is no you need to ask yourself 'why not?'. Either you aren't aware of your managers expectations, you aren't personally driven for excellence, you aren't qualified for your position or you should be doing something else that does inspire you. Which is it?

Develop a daily habit

When I started studying music my teacher said the secret to practice is doing a little bit every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s only 5-10 minutes because the regularity is better than one or two longer practice sessions per week.

He was right. It’s about developing momentum and making sure the last thing you did is at the surface of your thoughts and easily accessible. The skills we don't practice atrophy over time. How long is too long? It's a matter of degrees but every bit counts when you're trying to improve.

You might have heard that doing something 21 days consecutively forms a habit. Maybe, but it doesn’t mean the your body will go on autopilot. On day 22 and every day thereafter you still need to make the decision: am I going to maintain my momentum? 

Regular practice leads to mastery. There is no other way.

If an email is 50+ words, have a conversation instead

Email has been replaced by social networks as the de facto time waster but that doesn’t mean we're using email any more efficiently. It’s amazing for some things: memorializing the details of a meeting, sharing the details of plan, exchanging information, describing goals. Notice the focus on quantitative exchange.

Here’s what email sucks at: creative dialog. Both words are important there: Creative, meaning there's subjectivity and lots of influences at work and dialog, because you anticipate going back and forth. If you ever feel the need to start brainstorming via email consider stopping and actually talking to someone.

Here’s a rule of thumb that I try to follow (as with all rules of thumb it’s flexible): if an email is more than 50 words consider having a conversation, either face-to-face or on the phone.

How to find your creative voice: Do your thing. Alot.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a baker, a sculptor, a dancer, a designer an illustrator or any other kind of creative explorer - if you want to develop a recognizable vision, a creative voice, you need to maintain an output of finished pieces. Keeping a log of ideas like a sketchbook is great but you need to produce final work. Do this and patterns, themes and details of execution will emerge.

Imitating others is a great tool and I recommend working in other styles to develop a deeper experience and set of tools to work with, but if you truly want to express your identity through your creative output it’s simple: do the thing you love. 

You can always become a chameleon and match styles to insure a paycheck but as you spend time deveoping your personal style don't worry about the end product. Focus on making stuff. Make it a daily habit and allow yourself to evolve over time. 

Keep asking Why

Wikipedia calls The 5 Whys “...an iterative question-asking technique.” The idea is that you repeatedly ask yourself, or your client/partner/product owner ‘Why?’ as a way to better understand the issue you are addressing. It’s a useful skill when interviewing clients about their feedback or goals for a design.

Example...
I don’t like this logo.

1. Why? I can’t read what it says.
2. Why? Actually it’s okay at some sizes but doesn’t read when small.
3. Why? The font closes up.
4. Why? The icon overwhelms the name.
5. Why? The icon is too big and has too much detail.

Action: Select a new font, simplify the icon and rebalance the hierarchy between the icon and the name.

How to kill an idea: write it down and call it a rule

Be wary of rules. They are often well-intentioned but they don’t respect context. They are, by their nature, inflexible. In contrast, a designer needs to be flexible and have room to explore. Constraints are the fuel for a designers creativity while rules are the box that seals in a singular vision. A constraint describes a goal, a rule describes a solution.

That’s not to say rules don’t have their place. They’re wonderful for describing processes that have been reached through the creative process.

Rules represent values from a specific moment in time and, once you document an idea as a rule, it stops responding to the world around it. It becomes a rule and rules, by their nature, are rigid. They’re meant to protect us, to keep us from doing the wrong thing, to make sure we play well together. Think about the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the NFL rule book and the U.S. Constitution. All of them are powerful documents but once they’re written down people become attached to their interpretation of the text and the principles described become a subject of debate. A distraction from the original idea. Convert an idea into a rule and it will cease to grow. If it evolves that growth will be slow and painful.

Try new things and develop your own tools. Unexpected input from outside our systems is what forces us out of our routines and produces results. View rules as guidelines and tools, use the ones that work for you, discard the rest or save them for another day when they might be relevant.

Share more, learn more

I've been illustrated and designing for over 20 years and during that time I've developed a number methodolgies, and a mindset, that help me make creative stuff. For the past five years I've been taking notes and documenting these ideas so I can better teach the artists that work with me. Not surprisingly, the more I teach the more I learn. And the more I teach the more I realize I have to offer.

I realized my notes currently would make over a years of daily design-related posts and I figure this information is meant to be shared. Your time is precious so I'll strive to be concise and focus on usable ideas. Ideally you can read a post and apply what you learned immediately. 

Please feel free to comment on these posts. I'll be sharing my ideas but I don't expect they work for everyone and other people may have better versions of the ideas I express. If you do, let me know.