The truth is, there are a million excuses we all can use to avoid making the necessary choices and sacrifices we need to in order to truly succeed. However, sometimes those excuses are actually legitimate.

Sometimes we really do need to figure things out first before we acquire our first clients. And, sometimes we really ought to quit working on an idea that’s clearly going to be a failure.

The trouble is knowing whether our excuse is actually legitimate, or whether we’re just stalling. We’re going to explore some of the ways you can tell the difference, and start finishing everything you start.

Thinking It Over

In almost everything we do, there’s a lot to be gained from having a thought process that’s separate from taking action. Putting effort into the planning stage of a project is essential to ensuring that it will be a success.

Just like you probably wouldn’t just walk onto a stage in front of hundreds of people and start talking without having a speech prepared, it’s rarely a good idea to jump into something feet first and hope you swim instead of sink.

Take the time to really evaluate whether you’re ready to take action. Does your idea seem half-baked? Is it the best solution you can come up with for the problem you’re trying to solve? If you’re the type to act first and think later, make sure to slow down and visualize the actual end of your project. That’s right – pretend that you’ve already achieved your goal.

What, exactly, does that look like? What deliverables have been created? What is the reaction of your client? If the reality doesn’t match up with the hopeful scenario in your head, it’s time to recalibrate what you’ve been doing and start again.

Taking Action

This is where many of us get choked up. You’ve planned and planned for ages, and you’re sure your project is going to be a smashing success. Yet, for some reason, it’s extremely difficult for you to actually get started.

Maybe you’re missing some essential component, or you feel your skills in a certain area aren’t quite up to par. Whatever the excuse, it’s keeping you from actually taking that first step.

Believe it or not, there’s an easy fix to this common problem. It involves setting clear deadlines to action. Even if you haven’t completely thought everything out, it helps to just put something out there and get feedback from others.

If you’re working on a long-term project for a client and you find yourself struggling with making decisions, see if you can communicate with them more regularly and get their input. Or better yet, go find some of your client’s target audience members and ask them what they think of your work so far. Does it resonate with them? Which parts are the most successful?

This kind of “on the job” market testing is a great way to plan your work and take action at the same time. You don’t need to be 100% ready before you release your work to the world for evaluation.

Often, the ideas and suggestions you get from showing people what you have will help make your work even better than it would have been otherwise.

It’s better to do something – anything – that’s “good enough,” than it is to do nothing and wait for absolute perfection. You’ll learn more after you begin than you ever will by research and planning alone.

If You Don’t Succeed, Quit?

In a word, yes. Part of being successful is knowing that, many times, you are going to fail. If you want to succeed on a regular basis, you have to develop the foresight to know when to abandon an idea or project that’s not working.

The reason might be that you ran into complications that you didn’t plan for, or simply that you’re just not interested in making time to complete the project. It’s just as important to figure out what you actually want to work on as it is to make the decision to work on something.

The last thing you want is for a project you only feel so-so about to simply yield mediocre results, resulting in months or years of work for no big payoff. It’s much better to fail at something quickly – recognizing a failure when you see one.

If you’re working on a project and you can’t bring yourself to meet your minimum goals every day (30 minutes of writing, an hour of looking for new clients), perhaps it’s time to admit to yourself that what you thought you wanted to accomplish isn’t really working for you anymore.

Give yourself a hard deadline and evaluate your progress. If you haven’t taken any firm action within two or three weeks, then it’s important to be honest and ask yourself whether you actually want to finish this work.

Sometimes the answer is “no” – and that’s perfectly okay. We all miscalculate our enthusiasm for an idea from time to time, and there’s absolutely no shame in starting over if the interest suddenly evaporates.

Again, set a concrete goal (I’m going to finish this piece in three months, etc.) for taking action. Decide that you’re going to do everything that needs to be done to achieve this goal by your deadline. If it doesn’t happen, then you’ll know it’s time to move on and try something else.

A New View

Sometimes what we need is a new perspective. Determination is important for seeing a project through to the end, especially if it’s a personal project like a side business that no one is paying you to complete (and which may not yield financial results for years).

If you are burnt out on a project, but are absolutely sure you want to do it, it’s probably time to draw back from it a bit and look at it from a different angle.

Maybe all you need is some choice feedback from a trusted friend or mentor. Or perhaps a day spent brainstorming and gathering more inspiration will inject new life and vigor into your work.

The post How to Let Go of That Failing Creative Idea appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

That’s the underlying principle of Apple-style minimal design. Not necessarily to “strip” something down, but to make sure it’s easy to figure out and access with as few distractions as possible.

Here are what I like to call the 10 Golden Rules of Simple, Clean Design. They are based loosely on the 10 Principles of Good Design proposed by master product designer Dieter Rams, but I’ve modified them a bit to fit with a more general goal of design simplicity.

Less, but Better

Dieter Rams said it first, and it’s first on this list for a reason. Simple design isn’t just about subtracting things from a design willy-nilly. It has to improve the design’s overall effectiveness.

Rams’ aim is to strip away the “non-essentials” of a design, to return it to a pure, simple state. However, too many designers seem to think that one has to keep stripping things away even past the point where it’s practical for the design.

To this designer, the goal isn’t complete and utter white space. If something is essential but makes the design look clunky or inelegant, your job as a designer isn’t to eliminate it anyway but to figure out how to “make it work.”

Image Source

Be Neutral

This doesn’t mean your design has to be completely devoid of personality, but if accessibility is your goal, your design should provide an easy way for your viewer to make sense of the content.

Remember, the number one goal of graphic and web design is to present content, to feed people the information they’re looking for in the least headache-producing way possible.

Be Honest

Your design needs to communicate the intent of your content clearly and honestly. If your viewer has the wrong idea of what your content is trying to tell them, your design isn’t honest enough.

No tricks are necessary here – everything about the design of your website, flyer, brochure, or poster, from the graphics down to the colors, should be suggestive of the product being sold or the information being conveyed.

Image Source

Go For Timelessness

Of course, it’s not for us to say, right now, what will become timeless and what will fade into obscurity. But there are certain rules you can follow to make sure your designs steer clear of fads and trends which will destroy their longevity.

First of all, if something feels like a trend, it probably is. The thing that will help you most here is reading. I’m not talking about design blogs and websites either, though those are great resources for keeping up to speed with your fellow designers.

But certain design fundamentals are basic and important enough to be printed in a book and referred to over and over in your permanent library. The closer you stick to those fundamentals, the more classic your designs will be.

Braun Speaker by Andrew McClintock

Don’t think that just because something is “classic” that it has to be boring, either. It’s true that certain approaches work better than others when creating designs that will speak to both present and future audiences, but keep in mind that classic work is being produced every day by creative professionals.

It may be “contemporary” today, but give it a decade or two. It’ll be right alongside the greats in design libraries the world over.

Less “Design”

If you mention the word “design” in just the wrong context, some people will get a mental picture of something fussy and overdone. That’s not what you want. Your job as a designer is to get out of the way of the content.

Yes, design can be beautiful and an art form and all that warm, fuzzy stuff. However, the priority is always the content.

A helpful way to think of it is “assembly” versus “ornamentation.” Sushi, with its clear, separate components – each important to the whole in its own way – is a perfect example of an assembly type of design.

The fish, rice, wasabi, Japanese mayonnaise (if you’re into that), and seaweed are like blocks of content in a design, which must be arranged to form a complete, concise, delicious bite.

There are endless ways a skilled sushi chef can assemble and arrange these blocks of content, and this same type of creativity can serve you as well in the creation of a clean design.

Ornamentation, on the other hand, is like the sprinkles on a cupcake. Or, to keep with the sushi theme (because I love sushi), it’s the little bowl of soy sauce or the leaf used to hold the extra wasabi on the side.

Nice to have, but essential? Unless you’re extra-hardcore about little wasabi leaves, I think not.

Be Thorough

Just because your design is simple, doesn’t mean you can get sloppy with the details. Remember that, in a minimal design, the end result your viewer will be seeing will highlight all flaws in your work.

Quite mercilessly, I might add. When most of your design is white space, there are very few places to “hide” bad composition or an unfortunate typography choice.

Be Conservative

I don’t mean your design has to look like a frumpy, old librarian (apologies to any frumpy and/or old librarians out there), but it should be conservative in terms of the resources it uses.

“Green” design is all the rage these days, but conserving your resources as a designer goes much deeper than that. It’s also about your personal resources – your time, your manual effort, your hard drive space.

A note I should make here is that when you’re striving to create a simple, minimalist design, the majority of your resources should be spent in the beginning stages.

Think of it like baking a cake, since my favorite kinds of analogies involve baked goods of some sort. When you lay out all the ingredients on your kitchen counter, it can be messy and confusing at first.

Then, once you slowly begin to combine things in the proper order, and the batter comes together in a single bowl that you can then transfer to the cake pan, you know that all that energy you spent in the preparation stages was worth it.

You won’t see all that early work in the finished product, of course, but you’ll know it’s there.

Design is the same way. When you make your initial plans, sketches, and studies, you’re just like the baker in the kitchen, producing a clean, simple, singular design that reveals very little about the work that went into it.

Take Your Time

To give the details of your designs your full attention, you need to take your time and get them just right. This may seem like common sense, but I’m always surprised at the opinion many designers seem to have that simple design is somehow “easier,” or that it takes less time.

Braun AW20 Watch by Barry Lachapelle

Minimalist design is like an optical illusion. The result might look clean and simple, but that’s the point. It’s like ballet – the whole intent is to trick the viewer into thinking they’re seeing something effortless.

If you do, then the ruse was successful. But don’t think that it takes less time or effort to achieve those results. If anything, it takes more time.

Be Understood

Good design doesn’t need to be explained. You know this, even if you’ve never consciously thought about it before. Think of all the items you use daily. The odds are good that you didn’t have to read a manual to learn how to use them.

Your designs can be that straightforward as well. Note that I didn’t say they “will” be that straightforward – only that they “can” be.

It takes work to arrive at a place of such simplicity, but one way to approach it is to make a note of exactly what appeals to you about your favorite simple designs. Is it the ease of use? The approachability? The absence of clutter? The chances are good that straightforwardness has something to do with what makes these designs work.

Make It Pretty

Dieter Rams says that good design must be beautiful as well as useful. Why? Because “the aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being.” That means the more you look at something, the more of an impact it has on your senses.

If you’re looking at a hideous design day in and day out, you’re going to internalize some of that hideousness, and it’s going to affect your interaction with the world in some way.

Maybe you’ll be a little more irritable to the barista at the coffee shop in the morning, or you’ll frown a little deeper and grip your steering wheel a little tighter when you’re stuck in traffic.

If you’re a designer, that ugliness might affect you in even worse ways (well, worse for designers at least). If all you’re looking at is bad design, your taste – or what Rams calls the “aesthetic” – will reflect that, and it will skew your perception of what “good” design looks like.

After an onslaught of crappy designs, your own output will suffer, and pretty soon you might catch yourself actually contributing to the crap pile instead of fighting against it.

Don’t do this to your fellow designers. Take care with your aesthetics and inspire others to be and produce their best as well.

Simple is a lifestyle. You have to think very hard about what you’re going to leave out of a design, and how you’re going to go about it.

It’s not an easy process, but the more you attempt it, the more you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t.

The post The 10 Golden Rules of Simple, Clean Design appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Not getting enough work done? It’s not because you haven’t mastered that so-called holy grail of “time management.” In fact, the whole idea of time management is a myth.

That’s right, I said it. Why? Because you cannot actually “manage” time. No matter who you are or what you do, there are 24 hours in your day the same as there are for everyone else.

Yet still, some people manage to be so much more productive than others, despite having so much more to do than they should be able to “fit” into that same 24-hour span. Not to mention fitting in time for eating, sleeping, walking the dog, et cetera.

The main reason that you may not be getting enough done is not your time. It’s your to-do list. If you find yourself constantly overwhelmed by the items on it, it usually means that they’re not broken down into small enough tasks. That means that your tasks, rather than your time, are the thing that needs managing.

For example, if you have “submit 3 comps to client” on your to-do list, and it’s just sitting there intimidating you, it’s probably much too broad of a task for your brain to digest and get started on.

Try breaking down the big, scary item into smaller mini-tasks. Detail out your to-do list as small as you need to so that it’s no longer as intimidating. This process is a task in and of itself and can take several hours, so it helps to actually plan a time to do it – on a Friday afternoon or over the weekend. Believe me, it will take longer than you think.

Getting a bunch of things done at the same time is always faster than doing one thing at a time. If there’s something you can batch and get out of the way in one group, do it.

For example, if you have three layouts to do, instead of completing each one fully before starting on the next one, see if there isn’t a similar task for all three that you could tackle first, sort of like an assembly line at a factory, then move on to the next similar task, and so on.

Again, usually things are overwhelming because they haven’t been broken down enough into bite-sized chunks. However, it’s up to you what’s appropriately small enough for you and what could be broken down more. In our earlier example, “submit 3 comps to client” might be broken down into smaller steps, such as “finish first wireframe sketch.” This might be a good to-do item for you, or it might still be completely overwhelming.

Take each thing on your to-do list and figure out how you can break it down into smaller steps. Break it down again – and keep breaking it down until it’s doable. Even if you have to list step one as “sit down and turn on the computer.” It may be embarrassing, but anything that gets you started is worth the effort.

This is not quite time management, but it’s as close as we mere mortals can get. Rather than attempting, set up a timer to chime in regular intervals, alerting you to when it’s time to switch to something else. Stick to your ETA, and whatever you do, don’t let yourself go over the time limit. If it’s 20 minutes, don’t take 35. If you’re not serious about saving time, then you never will.

Sometimes things that you’ve written down on your to-do list, for whatever reason, just don’t ever get done. Sometimes this can stress us out because the item is still there on the list, staring us in the face every time we look at it. This in itself can make getting through your work a real chore.

If something’s been on your to-do list for over a month, either delegate it to someone else, do it now, or just admit that it will never get done and move on. Uncrossed items on our to-do lists pile on more and more stress the more we look at them, so be sure to get them crossed off or dropped ASAP.

And last, but not least, remember that “perfection” is an impossible goal, in productivity or in anything else. It doesn’t matter what app or system you use to boost your productivity. Someone who uses a simple pen and paper can be a thousand times more productive than the person who has all the latest apps and gadgets.

Productivity comes from actually doing stuff, not preparing or planning to do stuff.

The post It’s Task Management, Not Time Management appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Perhaps you should do these things… and perhaps not.

Today, we explore specific ways to further educate yourself as a designer, and apply what you learn immediately to becoming better at what you do, as well as being more desirable to clients.

Marketing and The Unhappy Freelancer

Let me start off with a story about a person I know. This person is a freelance designer who really wanted to get more quality business. His work was quite good, and he worked hard for his clients, but he was struggling with attracting the kinds of people he really wanted to work with. His clients were the lower-end type, always giving him problems when it came to payment and deciding exactly what they wanted him to design for them.

This designer could have benefited greatly from learning how to properly market his services. There is definitely a right way to reach out to top clients, and there is a wrong way, and making an effort to learn the difference can make an enormous difference in your success as a freelancer.

Market yourself and your work the wrong way enough times and you can do real damage to your potential to earn more and attract better clients.

Learning your niche – knowing the ins and outs of your client base as well as the customers they serve – is the best way to tailor your marketing efforts for maximum effectiveness.

Get A Design Mentor

Mentors can teach you a lot about design, and can help you greatly improve your craft. But they can also provide a critical look into the industry from a veteran’s perspective, something you’re not likely to have if you’ve been working for less than a certain number of years.

Personally, I believe every designer should seek out a mentor – there are tons of experienced designers out there who would love the chance to help guide and foster a future industry rock star. Making time to reach out to people who can help you often costs nothing, yet it’s one of the most important things you can do to grow your career.

The problem is that younger designers often don’t ask to be mentored, believing that more experienced designers are too busy to help them. Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, you need to know one thing about designers who have reached a certain level of renown: they love it when people give them compliments and ask them stimulating questions about their craft. Especially younger designers.

Try it – email 10 of your favorite design “celebrities” and think of a few short but intriguing questions to ask them. The worst that can happen is that they say no, but if your questions are good enough, they almost certainly won’t.

Test, Then Invest

Sometimes you might have to invest a lot more money, time, or resources into learning something than you initially thought.

If you hate networking, for example, and know you will have to expend a lot of time, money, and energy going to networking events and building relationships with people in the design industry, you may question whether or not you genuinely need to make that investment and expand your network.

Sometimes, you don’t need to make a significant investment to achieve a goal. If you honestly feel that you can get by without making a particular investment, then test this assumption before going any further. This is an excellent way to learn what works and what doesn’t, both in your design work and in the promoting of your freelance business.

In fact, this is my absolute favorite way to learn anything related to my own design career. Research and mentors are great, but in the end, you must test each and every piece of advice you get from your sources. If it doesn’t work on a practical level, there’s no reason to keep playing the guessing game.

In Conclusion

Your design education doesn’t end with college or university. It starts there.

The acquisition of knowledge to further your career is a lifelong pursuit, if you’re doing it correctly. Remember that education, in whatever form it comes, is never a waste of time, money, or effort. When you don’t invest in your own education, you are losing a game you may not even realize you’re playing.

Your competition is certainly busy investing in themselves, and will come out ahead if you aren’t right there with them, putting in the time, money, and energy to improve your edge and win over clients.

The post Why You Should Further Educate Yourself as a Designer appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Often, designers simply jot down those excess ideas in a notebook and file them away somewhere, but that’s boring and unhelpful.

The truth is, there are far better ways to deal with your spare ideas. Here are some suggestions on what to do with them.

Give Yourself A Deadline

If you really want to finish something, force yourself to make time for it.

We often have more time than we think we do, so if an idea is really burning a hole in your desk drawer or hard drive, it’s time to pull it out and make time to finish it. This may require reorganizing your to-do list, and letting go of other items that are less important.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide whether this project is really worth the sacrifices you’ll need to make in order to finish it. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, but you’ll never know for sure unless you actually schedule time to analyze your priorities.

Combine Them With Other Ideas

If you’re anything like me, you come up with approximately a million and one ideas every single day. Over the course of several years this can add up to… well, a lot of ideas.

Often, these ideas might be compatible with one another, in ways that you might not expect. You can always combine ideas if you don’t have time to do each one. Sometimes this results in an even better idea.

Combining ideas is actually a well-known brainstorming technique, in fact, because the juxtapositions can open up new creative pathways in your brain and put you on the path to your best idea yet. Or at least something that you will actually want to finish.

Give Them To A Friend

Ideas are free; you can’t legally copyright an idea. But you can still give away some of your extra ideas that you know you’re not going to get to anytime soon to someone else who might use them in the near future. They might know exactly what to do with the idea, and will be grateful that you’ve helped them develop their creativity a bit more.

By the way, if you’re worried about having your idea ripped off or stolen, don’t be. Your friend won’t implement the idea the exact same way you would, so there’s nothing to worry about.

Also, consider this: if an idea isn’t good enough to be stolen, it’s probably not worth doing in the first place.

Drop Them

Sometimes it’s better to just admit that you’ll never use an idea and move on. Holding on to old ideas can actually hold you back creatively. You want to be fostering the development of new ideas, not hanging on to old junk that’s never going to be realized.

You might be surprised to discover, after a few years have gone by and you’ve managed to drop an idea, that it wasn’t even that good of an idea in the first place.

This has happened to me many times, and I consider it a good sign. As your taste develops, you learn to detect bad ideas more easily, and you’ll no longer be stifled by those ideas you’re not completely sold on.

Logo Sketch Ideas by Ian Barnard

Whatever You Do, Take Action

Ideas are useless unless you act on them. Don’t forget to check your backlog of ideas often to make sure you’re not simply stockpiling them for a “rainy day.”

Whether you combine them, power through them, give them away, or drop them, always make sure you’re keeping things rotating in your creative process.

Shaking things up, shuffling ideas around, arranging ideas like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle is a great way to get your creative juices flowing, even if you never end up doing anything with the idea.

The post What To Do With All Those Spare Creative Ideas appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

It’s also not a good thing for your eyes. If there’s no focal point, the food can overwhelm you, and you’ll find yourself lost in a vortex of scary, calorie-filled nightmares.

You’re not going to process your eating experience; you’re simply going to start at the least offensive corner and chow down until it’s all gone and your stomach’s about to burst.

That’s why, when you go out to nicer restaurants, the chef portions out your food in small amounts, so that you can take your time and absorb not just the actual eating but also the sensory experience – the sights, the smells, even the sounds. Yes, people. Food is complicated.

Today, I’m going to talk about simplifying your designs using the very same principles a chef uses to ensure that you have the most pleasant eating experience possible.

And just like you’re much more likely to return to a restaurant that serves you an experience rather than a mess, your users will be more likely to do the same when your designs are clean, strong, and simplified.

Focus In

We humans are programmed to make things complex. In the field of cultural anthropology, there’s overwhelming evidence of this fact, as societies around the world have progressed over the millennia from simple (think ‘hunter-gatherer’ type societies) to complex (modern “post-industrial” countries).

It’s in our DNA to want to add on rather than take away, which can make the average designer’s job pretty difficult.

From your end as a designer, it’s generally quite hard to be objective about which information or design elements are “necessary” versus which are not. Getting a second opinion can help sometimes, but if the person you’re asking is not a seasoned designer, they might not have the experience to tell you what’s not working and why.

When I’m working on a project that’s gotten too out of hand, I usually stop and take out the notes I took at the beginning of my process.

The mind maps, diagrams, and lists that illustrate precisely what my main focus was supposed to be for the project. It’s inevitable that you’ll lose sight of your main focus at least once during the design process.

That’s okay, as long as you refer to your notes and refresh your memory. Designing around your main focus helps you to be more discerning about the content you include in your design, as it makes it clear what’s directly related to that main focus and what isn’t.

Use the Pareto Principle

The Pareto Principle is something that’s been getting quite a bit of attention in recent years, thanks to personal development gurus like Tim Ferriss. But just in case you don’t know the basic idea behind it, here’s a quick run-down.

The Pareto Principle, or the “80-20 Rule,” as it’s sometimes known, basically states that 20% of any given element is responsible for 80% of the results, and vice-versa.

Designers love the 80-20 rule since it’s so applicable to the design process, particularly in those areas where information or sales are at the heart of the design goals.

While you’re designing your product, website, or other deliverables, here are two important questions to ask yourself so that you don’t “over-design” those elements that don’t need it and so that you can keep your focus on the 20% of the elements that are the most important:

1. Who, specifically, is most likely to benefit the most from this design element?

I’ve talked at length about narrowing down your career focus to zero in on one or two specific markets.

This question is one you can ask yourself at any time during your creative process. If you devote time to researching exactly the target markets you’re best equipped to serve, you’ll have a much easier time finding and understanding the needs of clients.

And when it comes time to simplify your designs for this target group, you’ll know exactly what they’re looking for, how they look for it, and how to provide it to them simply.

2. How can I deliver the most value to this group of people using the least number of steps?

As an extension of the above idea, your process will become much simpler when you begin focusing on the number of steps it will take your users to get from your design to the information or product they’re looking for.

It’s helpful to write it out in a literal list; start with the key action step on your website, brochure, poster, etc., and document exactly what needs to happen from there to make the sale.

Once you’ve done that, the path usually becomes very clear in terms of what’s actually needed to get the user to their destination, and what’s not.

Smart It Up

A lot of the advice you may read about simplifying your designs might make it seem like designers think their users are the stupidest people in the world.

Skim a few articles and you’ll see what I mean – everything is concerned with making the important elements as obvious as they can possibly be so that the user doesn’t have to use their brain for anything.

It can actually make you start to feel a bit sorry for the average user at first since designers seem to think so little of them.

But if you understand the underlying principles behind this philosophy, you’ll begin to realize that not only do designers not think their users are stupid, they’re actually being very smart about creating an experience that caters to the needs of the very top of the user “hierarchy.”

It’s not that you should automatically assume that people are stupid. Rather, your assumption should be that everyone is smart – each of your users is far too busy living productive, interesting lives to waste time where they don’t need to.

Once you embrace this mentality, it will become easier for you to zero in on exactly what makes these smart, productive, interesting people tick, and how you can help them absorb the exact information they need to go on about their awesome lives. This has the added effect of allowing you to go on about your awesome life as well.

Your users should be able to get to the specific information they need with as little effort as possible.

Whether that involves less reading, scrolling, or interactivity, make sure you keep your focus on the actual steps required to encourage the biggest results from the least amount of action.

The post Why You Should Simplify Your Designs for the Smartest User appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Why am I talking about pie on a design website? Well, because I think that designers, of any kind, can learn a lot from bakers who skip over the fancy trimmings to give people what they want most – an uncomplicated plate of minimalist goodness.

Apple pie has endured through the years because it’s something people easily understand. In the same way, a simple, classic design that doesn’t require your audience to think too hard to understand the message will still be relevant after years of fancy fluff and bad trends have come and gone.

Apple pie is something you can’t really mess up – unless you start adding things that don’t really need to be there. It might not be easy to create the perfect design, but simplifying your “recipe” of features and information is one of the most important steps toward creating the best user experience possible.

“Pare” Necessities

The best recipes for apple pie, in my opinion, are the ones that keep things basic. In culinary terms, this allows the flavor of the main ingredient – apples, in this case – to shine. The apples are the “selling point,” so to speak. When you sit down to design a website, flyer, or brochure, make sure your audience knows exactly what they’re looking at.

In America and most of Europe (with a few exceptions), apple pies are covered with a crust. This crust is traditionally either flat or plaited into a lattice, and it sends a signal to hungry folks that the fruit they’ll find inside is probably going to be apples.

Make sure your selling point in a design is as clear as the apples in a pie. Determine exactly what your users are looking for and what they want. Ask them, if you can. The more testing you can conduct before publication, the higher your probability of creating a design that speaks to your users’ specific needs.

If, for example, you’re designing a clothing website, do your users want to search based on the types of clothing (shirts, dresses, shoes, etc.) or the types of materials (silk, cotton, leather, vinyl)? The only way you’ll know the answer for sure is if you ask.

Getting feedback from friends and acquaintances is a time-honored way of gathering “market” research in the initial stages of a design. Ask them specific questions about their experience – is something missing that they’d like to see? Can they digest the information they need clearly and without any assistance? If you’re bound by confidentiality agreements (or you have no friends), it’s perfectly acceptable to ask your client to produce this research for you or enable you to do it yourself.

This will probably be a terrible pun/cliche combo for both this article and this topic (forgive me), but Apple is the leader in the area of simple design and streamlined user experience. The Apple website and store are specifically designed to lead you, the user, through the buying experience with as little hassle and stress as possible.

The product images are big; the text is short and obvious. Additional information is available at the click of a mouse, but if you don’t click the links, you never need to worry about it. You’d better believe that the web design department at Apple spent hundreds of hours figuring out the things their users wanted – and needed – to see in order to complete the sale. And well, cliches just mean that something is extra-extra true!

Sweet Reduction

There are plenty of things you can put on top of a pie: ice cream, sugar, whipped cream, syrup, cookies, cherries – the list goes on and on. Some people might think this makes the pie taste better, but in my opinion, if you have to add that many extra things to your pie to improve the taste, you’re starting from the wrong end of the plate.

Similarly, extra bells and whistles usually only serve to clutter up a design and obscure the fact that it wasn’t very good to begin with.

I’m not saying you should never add, say, an extra column, widget, or typographic treatment if you really need to, or even just really want to. But it’s important to start with a good “base.” Make sure the fundamental message of your design gets through loud and clear. Don’t give your users extra options they don’t need or aren’t looking for.

Don’t make it harder for them to get to where they need to go. Make your users’ main goal your top priority, and add in the “toppings” only once you’re sure the main event is a treat. And hey, toppings can be delicious. My favorite is apple pie à-la mode!

Ask Grandma

You know what they say: if your Grandma can’t figure out how to navigate through your design, it’s too complicated. Elderly people tend to have less patience, ability, or desire to sift through tons of unnecessary information. That makes them perfect starting points for determining exactly what’s needed for your design and what’s simply taking up space.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re testing a design for a web template store. Is your objective clear (instant download of PSD files)? Will it be easy for your customers to find exactly what they’re looking for? Is the font size large enough for most people to read? Is there too much text? Too many ads? Is the shopping cart/payment method simple to find and navigate through?

Simply put: is there anything standing in the way of your user getting exactly what they want? If so, Grandma might just get up and head down to the record store. (Assuming there still is one in her neighborhood!)

Remember to run your design past your grandmother (or your uncle, your great aunt Matilda, or anyone who’s not so “tech-savvy”) and see if she gets it. If so, perhaps she’ll bake you a nice apple pie!

The post How Simple, Classic Design Should Work appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

That’s pretty alarming, but even more alarming is when you’re the designer chosen to create content for one of these entrepreneurial turkeys. It can be really tough when a client suddenly runs out of money and has to default on your payment for a project. Yes, you can sue them, but unless business suddenly picks up (or they have incredibly wealthy parents), you’d probably be wasting your time.

Knowing how to spot a business idea that is not going to work, or how to tell when a particular business relationship looks rickety and on the brink of collapse is an important skill for any designer to learn, particularly if you work with new startups.

The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy

There are a lot of upsides to working with new businesses – the energy and enthusiasm among the members of the team is contagious, and if you’re a designer getting in on the ground floor of a successful venture, you can find yourself in a very enviable position within the company in just a few years. However, if things go south, it can turn into a nightmare if you didn’t see it coming.

It’s helpful to know something about business yourself if you plan on working with startups. There are plenty of books to read, but in my opinion, the best way to learn about business is to start one yourself. Not only does it make sense financially for designers to have a side business, but the knowledge you gain from doing so will also be extremely valuable in your future dealings with entrepreneurial clients.

Technically, if you’re a freelancer, you’re already running your own small business, but even if you’re working in-house, it can be extremely valuable to learn the ins and outs of business. Even if you fail – especially if you fail – you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t, and why.

Be wary of business ideas that sound too strange or that don’t seem to make any sense. Does the idea sound just a bit too perfect, unique, and lucrative? Watch out. Anything that sounds too good to be true probably is.

Also to be avoided: businesses that don’t have any real competition or market equity. If the waters are too quiet, that’s a bad sign. It usually means that there’s no market for what the business is selling.

Perhaps counterintuitively, business ideas that seem to be unoriginal or that are jumping on a current trend actually have a better chance of doing well than unique businesses with little or no competition. Why? Because popular industries are more profitable, for obvious reasons. More people interested means there’s more money to be made.

This is why nobody is attempting to come up with a completely new, original alternative to the automobile – they work with what’s already popular and what already makes money. Reinventing the wheel is usually more trouble than it’s worth (except when it’s not, but chances are you won’t encounter anyone who manages to pull it off successfully).

Stop, Look, and Listen

Something every designer needs to know to avoid getting tangled up in business disasters is how to properly observe a potential client. It can be difficult to tell in the first meeting with a potential client whether their business will be a flop, particularly if you haven’t been freelancing for long.

But if you allow someone to do the majority of the talking for at least 5-10 minutes, you will learn more than perhaps you ever wanted to about that person’s behavior, management style, personality, and feelings about their mother-in-law.

People love to talk about themselves, and as a designer on the lookout for danger, this can be your best advantage. Listen far more than you talk – ask questions that encourage the client to reveal more information. Interview your potential client as much as they’re interviewing you.

False Friends

Sometimes, a business seems perfect. The idea is solid, the market is strong, and competition is at a healthy level. These kinds of businesses can catch you off guard the most when they go south, because everything seemed okay on the surface.

But chances are, even these surprising failures have warning signs that show themselves well before you ever sign on to do any work. This is where it’s helpful to know the signs of detrimental management – why certain business owners and managers are successful and why others seem to cause chaos and turmoil wherever they go.

When meeting with a prospective entrepreneur client, take careful note of their demeanor and speaking style, specifically how they talk about their current or past employees or freelancers. If someone is trash-talking their people or uses too much personal praise (as opposed to team-oriented praise, which includes the entire group), that’s something to be wary of. It doesn’t always mean the company will go belly up, but it certainly won’t help matters.

Another type of red flag is clients who seem to have no regard for any type of budget. One of the top reasons many businesses fail is because of a lack of strict budgeting and an excess of profligate spending. If your small business client asks for work that you both know will cost an exorbitant amount of money, they’re probably not going to be a long-term client.

Moderation is what you want to look for when shopping for steady, repeat clients. You want someone who is financially responsible (but not cheap) and understands the budgeting required for a small business to be successful past the five-year mark.

Conclusion

Even if you don’t personally get caught up in the financial fallout of a bad business sinking to the bottom of the ocean, you want to avoid attaching your name as a designer to too many failed commercial ventures. It doesn’t look good on your resume, and once you encounter a genuinely successful startup, they will take one look at your track record and immediately draw conclusions about your involvement in each fiasco.

You may have had nothing to do with the company taking a nosedive, but your name was thrown into the mix, and that makes you a suspect. They may even see you as a “bad luck charm” – people are more superstitious than you would believe.

Successful businesses don’t want to invite freelancers or employees who may bring about failure. So it’s important to cultivate your intuition when it comes to bad businesses.

Learn how to spot bad ideas when you see them and avoid becoming the opposite of a designer rabbit’s foot!

The post Dealing with Terrible Business Ideas from Your Clients appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

But what exactly should you focus your attention on when it comes to learning new skills? You probably want to pick skills to learn that have universal appeal and can be applied to many different types of client projects.

Here are five exciting design specialties to broaden your skillset.

Learn Photography

This is an obvious one. Taking your own photos has many advantages, both creative and legal. Learning about lighting, camera angles, and photo composition can improve your designs immensely.

Many designers are already being expected to perform the work of a photographer, so why not take a few classes and practice to build some genuine professional experience in the field?

When you take a photo, you own it. It’s your intellectual property, and you don’t need anyone else’s permission to use it for client work. Having this power can speed up your design process, and, if your photos are good enough, can also help you get noticed by relevant media channels.

If you or your client has something to promote, it will be an enormous help to have professional-looking photographs ready to be plugged into a blog or print publication.

Learn Video Editing

An extension of photography, only with “moving parts,” so to speak. Video is a field with tons of opportunities growing with popularity even as you read this.

People have long since decided that they enjoy watching videos online, and your clients are waiting for someone with the expertise to take advantage of this huge market.

If there’s an opportunity for your clients to take advantage of the medium of video, it’s your duty as a service provider to make them aware of that and communicate the possibilities to them.

You will have clients begging you to incorporate video into their businesses once they see how simple it can be to do so. You can learn the basics of video editing for free (ironically) on YouTube.

Learn Motion Graphic Design

Long used in the advertising industry, motion graphics are making their way onto the web as well. Motion graphics can be applied to everything from animated typography to responsive mobile app design.

Software such as Adobe After Effects can help turn you into a motion graphics pro. Of course, motion graphics software is not cheap, but the percentage increase of what you can charge for your work will more than make up for it.

Learn 3D Effects

3D has exploded in the design world. Especially with the advances in 3D CAD technology, which is taking the craft from the esoteric realm of product designers and animators and placing the power in the hands of the common people to create virtually anything they can dream up.

The rise of 3D printing is also helping to generate more interest in 3D. Free software like Blender and SketchUp can get you started in this exciting field.

If you’re thinking that 3D design is difficult or complicated, think again. Simplified, free software made for 3D printing can nearly eliminate the learning curve, and the growing library of free 3D base models to use even lowers the amount of modeling you need to do to create something extraordinary.

Learn Mobile Web Design

As of last year, the number of mobile users is estimated to be 6.4 billion. Yes, that’s right, over 6,400,000,000 people currently use a mobile device.

That’s a lot of potential customers that your clients want to reach. The more you know about mobile design, the more valuable you will be to a wide variety of clients.

As you can see, there are many exciting design specialties to explore. You can broaden your client base and make more money the more you know how to do.

Of course, these are just five of the most popular and potentially useful skills, but the possibilities are endless if you know how to dominate a design niche.

Things like calligraphy, origami, or even knitting and basket weaving can help your career take off. You just have to know where and how to apply an expertise.

The post Exciting Design Specialties to Broaden Your Skillset appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Even people who have no idea what the original design was even used for will discuss its beauty, simplicity, and timelessness.

What goes into creating work of that caliber? Today, we’re going to explore some possible explanations and try to get an idea of how a designer might go about creating timeless designs.

Will It Be Timeless?

Some things might seem as though they will be instant classics. Then, without warning, they fade into obscurity and no one ever mentions them again.

Why does this happen? No one really knows for certain, but there are some possible explanations. The most important, in my opinion, is that the general public – not just the design community – either stopped caring about the design, or never cared enough in the first place.

Design is meant to change the way people interact with one another in the world, not just designers, but everyone. If it fails to do so and generate influence beyond the scope of the original brief, it will never become the classic it could be.

Glitch Mona Lisa by Dan Svetlichnyy

Design Marketing Problems

Public opinion is fickle, but it can be greatly influenced by the right advertisement. Brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Microsoft didn’t get to their current level of market dominance by chance.

Even great art like the Mona Lisa has been heavily promoted to be recognizable to a modern audience.

There were plenty of contemporary works that were just as popular in their day, and even some that were more so. But it was marketing that propelled the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the statue of David, and other iconic works of the Renaissance to last as long in the public memory as they have.

To Trendy To Be True?

As I’ve said in the past, if something feels like a trend, it probably is. I’m not simply talking about phenomena that are currently all the rage, like neumorphism or previously flat design.

I’m talking about things that merely look cool without any underlying fundamentals to ground them. Such trends are destined to be one hit wonders, fading as the design world moves on to more solid ideas.

A good way to spot a trend that’s being milked purely for profit is to determine what the most respected members of the design community have to say about it.

If the ‘movers and shakers’ of design are constantly lambasting the trend then there’s a good chance it’s simply a throwaway fad. However, if they don’t have much to say or are even incorporating it into their own work, it’s probably a winner.

Neumorphic Radio Player App by Alexander Plyuto

No Good Designers Left?

A lot of designers complain that the current crop of design professionals are too caught up in trends and technology and are ignoring the fundamental principles of good design.

These designers tend to be older and may even feel a bit left out as the world seems to be embracing a completely foreign approach to design.

This happens every generation, with the old-timers complaining about ‘today’s kids’ and their apparent lack of respect for the profession.

I’m sure the designers from the 1940s and 50s griped about ‘whippersnappers’ in the 70s and 80s with their Rapidographs and floppy disks or…whatever.

It’s true that there are a lot more designers actively working now than there ever have been in the past.

But the number of talented designers who have a solid understanding of the fundamentals has not diminished. If anything, it has increased due to the larger pool of designers out there.

The likelihood that at least a handful of these designers will produce something lasting is very high, even though one might have to wade through a lot of junk to find it.

Rapidograph & Notebook by Harry Diaz

Timeless Doesn’t Equal Boring

Think that classic design is boring and behind the times? Think again. Every single designer is influenced by those who have come before them.

If you choose only recent, contemporary designers to be influenced by, you’ll only be regurgitating the most recent trends, which could hasten their demise and make all of your work look horribly dated.

Try heading to the library and flipping through examples of classic designs by the greats of the 20th century. You might even be surprised at how often (and how badly) those designers were ripped off by later copycats.

The post How a Designer Might Create Timeless Designs appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.