How to become a designer without going to design school | Hacker News Reader

How to become a designer without going to design school

karenx.com

118 pointskarenxcheng55 comments

I hope this doesn't sound "unnecessarily rude" as an earlier poster characterized negative feedback, but I also found the design for Exec to be incredibly pedestrian. To be honest about my position, I do have a degree in design so I perhaps am biased.

That said though, I think the analysis is a bit glib. "Learn to draw"; "learn graphic design theory"; "learn how to write" - not really sure how this advice possibly can compare with the huge amount of lessons you accumulate from practicing design in college. The suggestion that reading "The Design of Everyday Things" is a significant step to becoming a practicing designer is overly simplistic. I would never presume that, for example, "Gardner's Art Through the Ages" makes you into a museum curator.

The idea that someone could become a designer in 6 months reminds me of things like get rich quick schemes, get ripped in 10 minutes a week videos, or as was cited in the article, "You Can Draw in 30 Days". It reminds me of this comic:

http://mccreavy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/owl.jpg

You can't draw in 30 days. It is said that professional cyclists don't reach their peak for 10 years. This is also the nature of design.

EDIT: Found a better link for the image I was referring to.

You can learn to draw enough to communicate ideas more effectively in 30 days. You can learn to cycle as a transportation option in way less time.

You can learn to design to complement your skills for your existing job or to obtain a new one - I think that's the point; to get started on your design career, rather than to have the skills of a senior designer, in a shorter period of time and at less cost.

I hope this doesn't sound pedantic but we aren't talking about a basic competency lesson here; the article seems to purport that one can become a professional this way.

I hope this doesn't sound snarky - it isn't intended to - but the site in question looks worse than a WordPress template, design-school-freshman-quality stuff. I don't mean to be mean-spirited - this is just simply my impression of the design level.

Well, she DID get a job (and advocates continued education as well as being open to criticism)

I didn't mean this as an ad hominem and I am delighted that she is open to criticism. My comment is strictly about the level of design represented here, which I believe is not professional quality.

It is professional quality, as "professional" is not by definition a qualitative word up for debate, one is either paid for their work or not. And I'd like to see your work that you consider "more" professional. This is hacker news, a site that celebrates people making what they can with what they have.

Since I was asked for my credentials, I believe this should suffice: http://imgur.com/GPYmt3T

Just for the record, I work for startups, not large companies; it just happened that the startup I was at doing design work for was acquired by Oracle.

EDIT: Clarification.

Exec isn't the best designed website I've ever seen, but it's functional and presentable. There are plenty of startups / small companies that can't afford the money required for a senior level designer but would be happy to hire someone who could do even "design-school-freshman-quality stuff" for a reasonable price if it allowed them to present their idea / business in a way they couldn't on their own.

So if the measure of being a "professional designer" is someone who is paid to do design work, I think this is fine advice. A designer gets better with practice and real world work. This seems like a good starting point.

A lot of what you see online, even in professional agency portfolios, isn't particularly interesting. I see a ton of basic anatomical mistakes and it seems that color is used improperly more than half the time. It used to drive me crazy, because it felt to me that it wasn't professional work.

Partly as a result of that, I'm thinking about moving into the design field. But for me that's with a somewhat formal background in color and fine art; not as difficult a transition I think.

She didn't design the Wordpress template. Look at "projects" instead.. the car graph near the bottom is hilarious IMHO :D

But let's assume you totally dislike all of that, too - yeah, and? She got hired as a designer and didn't get fired since, which makes me believe her employer is happy with hiring her. It also does make her a professional in the sense of the word, like it or not.

I don't like the Wordpress theme either, but you act like she said she's a great designer because of it. Come on.

One can definitely learn how to draw well enough to be a web designer in 30 days. Although for most people, I'm not sure only 1/2 hour per day is enough practice, as claimed in the article. Then again, that might be plenty of practice, as the main things being drawn are boxes within other boxes.

I've found that anyone who has an interest in drawing can get the basics down in a few weeks to a month. 30min/day seems fine.

It's not so much becoming an artist as training your brain to make a thing on paper based on what you see or what you are imagining. Heck, draw the same thing every day – someone's ear is a good one – and watch when you get better and better.

It's very much like photography and cinematography and ties into what the author is trying to achieve by telling someone to draw.

You see differently when you have an objective. Just as you train yourself to see opportunities when becoming an entrepreneur (and realize ideas are 'worthless' because there are too many of them to chase them all down), you will train yourself to see that the world is not just lines, but degrees of shadow and reflection.

I was a professional artist (painting, sculpture, drawing) before my software career and when I've been out of practice for a while, I find that I lose this faculty. A little time over the table with pencils, some clay, or watercolors and my brain clicks back into seeing and not just glancing over things.

I agree that just drawing, design theory, writing, and ux are not guaranteed to make you a brilliant, original, designer. However, understanding typography, whitespace, color, and being able to apply that to a goal is a big lever.

I always encourage "back end" developers to work on design. Even if it's bog-standard bootstrap with some tweaks, it ends up being better for a client or an employer. Keep in mind that most web apps lack pulchritude.

Plus, I hate it when people refuse to do front-end work because they're "back-end" people.

I think you made the point beautifully when you said "can get the basics down in a few weeks to a month". The key word here is "basics". A professional level of skill goes beyond basics. As a web designer, one can get the basics down of CSS, for example in just a day's workshop at a conference. That said, to be of any real value as a professional, you really need more insight than what a basic understanding gives you.

As for your comment about wanting back-end people refusing to do front-end work - actually, I myself do not have a problem with this. I believe people should do what motivates them at work and not get strong armed into doing things that fall outside of their professional interests. There is a limit to this of course, but in this case, there are definitely front-end people who will do the job better and take it as their career passion.

Completely agreed. I would not assume that a person with a month of personal development in a skill would be a specialist in a general area. However, on a smaller team, I think this would be ample to take on the design duties.

As for specializing, I am uncomfortable with "that's not my job" in general. Whether it's front-end work, back-end work, operations, management, etc., I'll put that person on the slow track right away. If they try and it's just a hot mess no matter how much support they get, that's a different matter.

The thing is, there are brilliant, passionate, skilled, experienced people who can actually do it all. I want to find them before they realize this and grow them. I see it as pushing to excel, not strong-arming, but I can understand your perspective. I've had to do sales before. :-)

I think this is a case of the 80/20 rule. Given some talent, I believe one can become 80% proficient in less than a month. Basic design principles really aren't difficult and can drastically improve results for someone starting from 0.

It's the last 20% that takes years to master.

Except for the simplest kinds of unskilled labor, I can't imagine becoming 80% proficient at anything significantly new in under a month.

80% of the way towards very basic competency, perhaps. That still leaves you with years of practice to go to reach a respectable professional level.

Leverage what you know and keep the firehose going into your brain. Immersion, commitment, and resourcefulness will get you surprisingly far.

I agree with this. 80% I think is a bit of an overestimate. Especially since the design discipline is so multi-pronged.

I agree with the earlier poster also that talent can also play a role. However that is somewhat rare and even in that case requires experience to truly master.

My designs for Exec can definitely be improved - details in the spacing/layout of the website, as well as the branding overall.

There are always tradeoffs with design, and we make our tradeoffs consciously at Exec. Our priority is iterating quickly, with a design that is presentable and functional. For us, the 80% design done in a week is better than the 100% design done in a month.

Everyone's tradeoff is different - for apps that differentiate themselves on design (Clear, Paper, Flipboard) then it's worth it to take the extra time to get to the 100%.

As Coryl mentioned, I am definitely not discounting the value of design school, I have a ton of respect for the designers who come out of design school and I'm considering going myself one day.

Design school is expensive, both in time and money. It's 4 years of time and tuition is $$$$. Not everyone can do that. A lot of people just want to learn themselves, and you CAN get good enough to become a professional by self-teaching.

My design level isn't up to the standards of devilshaircut - heck, it's not up to the standards of myself yet - but it is up to the standards of many quality companies who are hiring. It's good enough to start a design career, and it's up to you to keep improving through the years.

I think it was a decent blog post, but the title makes me think of this. http://www.27bslash6.com/brochure.html

And of course in deference to the post above you, the 10yr 10,000 hour rule still applies, but I expect someone like yourself taking a disciplined approach should be able to make a better designer than your average crappity crap for crap Art Institute.

I definitely respect you and your self-starting attitude. It's definitely true that school is expensive and impractical for some people's life's situation. The only thing I take issue with is that the experience can be compensated for in a period of 1-6 months.

As you indicate correctly, there are other ways to become a designer outside of design school. In either case, however, it takes a lifetime of dedication and hard work. Reading a few books and designing a few websites is a good first step but it does not a designer make.

Can you link to your portfolio?

As noted in a different reply to you, here is something indicative of something I worked on recently: http://imgur.com/GPYmt3T

If you'd like to see my portfolio, please PM me your email and I will reply to you privately with it. I generally do not share it except upon request.

There used to be a time when all programmers were true CS graduates. But demand for tech across the boad has risen and now we have hacker schools that get you up and running in 6 months.

If there is a corresponding rise in demand for design skills, at some level across the board, you can expect the same trend.

Reaching your peak and landing a job are two different goals, and if more designers are needed, you can be sure companies won't wait for a full grad when others show they can perform many of those tasks "well enough"

Speaking as someone who doesn't design much anymore, I think the key here is:

    There was one key difference between me and many of the
    other designers that gave me an edge: I knew how to work
    with developers.

Being able to work with developers and being able to understand how their end of the process works will ultimately lead to much better design and UX (assuming you're working on web/mobile). There are too many designers that keep designing for web/mobile as if it were print and it bothers the hell out of me.

EDIT: Formatting.

Yes, super annoying. Fixed width is one thing but fixed width and height (easy way to see that a designer comes from print) is absurd.

I love flexible designers who come from print who have adapted to web/mobile/etc.. Getting PSDs with intelligent layout and absolute color references, offsets, etc. are a dream compared to sloppy html, css, and canned javascript that so many 'designers' deliver without validating on anything but the browser they use on a daily basis.

I've dealt with many people who say they're 'technical' and 'work with programmers' only to have them say, "Hmm.. let's change this module to this side, and then add this functionality." not knowing those small changes will cost several days of work: static changes, backend peeps changing the api, circling through people trying to get things done. It can be a real issue. The best designers I've ever worked with would dive into the code with me and ask questions. On one particular iOS project, a designer would actually make custom views after showing him the basics.. it really helped me, and I can tell he learned a ton about approaching developers/ making sure a design is truly done before implementation.

In other words, I totally agree with you, but it's up to a programmer to decide if the designer fits, not the other way around.

Pretty sure it goes both ways.

Thanks, I enjoyed the post, and I think it reaffirms the idea of controlling your own destiny. People seem to be missing the point just because they can't see past the post title.

You can be whatever you choose to be and you don't need anyone else's permission. If you can show an employer that you produce good work and that you are relentlessly resourceful and tenacious, then why wouldn't you deserve it?

Nobody discounts the value of a design school or a computer science degree. But there are other paths, as proven many times over by leaders in the field. In 5 years, imagine how good she'll be, and how little anyone else's opinion will have mattered.

(Also, shame on you shitheads with your judgement on her work. Constructive criticism is one thing, being vaguely dismissive is another. No jerks allowed.)

Google cache https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cach...

Thanks for posting this! I need to find a new host for my blog that can handle traffic better. If anyone has suggestions let me know.

Try github pages

Here is a little love for Octopress. Easy to mess around with the themes and easy to deploy with github or rsync.

If your ok with a static blog that you need to put a little work into you can use GitHub Pages and Jekyll. You have to push updates yourself but its completely free.

http://jekyllrb.com/ http://pages.github.com/

Instead of jumping on another similar host try optimizing your website first, installing caching plugin like W3 Total Cache would make a lot of difference. Of course, the best way to handle traffic would be with flat html files, converting your blog to Jekyll/Octopress or similar, like the sibling comments are suggesting.

If you use WordPress, try this: http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/

It turns your WordPress blog into static html pages that load fast.

Learning Photoshop mechanics and UX concepts isn't sufficient, IMO. One can be proficient in $DRAWING_TOOL and still unable to compose something that looks good. As much as I appreciate sites like Tutsplus, they teach mechanics but rarely answer the "why." Why do we add this 28% opaque drop shadow in step 37? Knowing why something looks good is essential to being able to create new works.

Two books I personally found very useful for "why," both discovered via HN:

   "The Non-Designer's Design Book"
   "Design for Hackers"

Well, you also have to learn Illustrator, which is probably more important than photoshop these days.

Knowing what looks good requires lots of experience. Just learn the tools and get started, you'll suck at the beginning anyways.

This is a great post. The only thing I would add is to learn to code at some level.

I remember a few years ago, I was at a large corporation and we had a large team of developers and designers. Things were REALLY bad, and people were leaving in droves. I had several friends who were designers and they were depressed because they had been interviewing and every single company wanted them to know how to code and understand how code affects design. My two friends were rockstar designers (both had won Webby Awards for their designs) and felt like there was no way out for them. They were stuck at a bad company because companies were now looking for more hybrid designers.

It's great to know everything you pointed out, but knowing how to code will give you a leg up on other designers.

Perhaps this is a vote for design school?

I've always found Exec's design to be terrifically underwhelming.

That seems unnecessarily rude.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my design skills and going to design school is one of those ways. I wanted to get across - you can get good enough to get a decent job without going back to school, if that's not in the cards for you.

Classy response that makes this developer want to work with you, design school or not. And I'm looking for a designer for an upcoming project. I'll take a close look at your portfolio. Is it linked through your blog? HN traffic has taken it down (I'll echo the recommendation of others to look into one of the many WordPress caching plugins such as SuperCache).

EDIT: Apologies -- your blog is back up and I see you're not a freelancer, so cancel my presumption that you're looking for contract work. Still a classy response!

EDIT 2: Ah, you're the one behind the Exec mobile design that generated all that buzz. Well, now I'm doubly embarrassed.

I've known Karen for a while now and just wanted to say that 6 months of learning for her is not the same as 6 months of learning for a normal person. There's a hidden layer of superhuman dedication and focus that made it all possible as well.

This is an incredibly well written and useful article and it's a travesty the site is down. Definitely don't discount it because it doesn't load at first.

Thanks, Karen. This looks like great guidance. There is certainly no avoiding the "learn to draw" step if one ever expects to generate original material.

"A good designer is a good communicator." I'm really glad you mentioned this. To many people view design as making something look cool or pretty.

It would be interesting to have a post about how to get a design job after working in another field. What does your portfolio look like? What does your cover letter say? What happens during an interview? Did you know the people beforehand? (#1 way to get any job) What do you actually do the first month on the job? Is it better than your old job?

Really this post helpful and inspiring. As a long time developer/tinkerer who has struggled at times to find good designer help, I'm inspired to spend some time seeing if I can get back into doing my own designs. At the very least, I bought the first book in your list!

My desire to really learn design has been slowly growing over the past year or so. I love programming, but I feel incomplete without being able to create an product with code, design, and copy that I'm proud of.

These tips will come in handy as I start my own design journey.

Just joi hackdesign.org

https://iamexec.com/feed

look at the left and right margins of the items in the center column, they are way off.

https://iamexec.com/mobile the icon is low res on high dpi mobile. But seriously, the post is super encouraging and helpful, however many mistakes there are on their website.

Consider if 0.5% of their users are using hdpi displays (unlikely these days, but just consider), maybe not worth the effort if resources are constrained?

I dunno, it's easy to point out flaws without understanding the context.

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