Real World Advice for Budding Designers & First-time Freelancers

Looking back at design school, every designer can come up with a list of experiences and lessons that they wish their professors had touched upon. How do you get freelance work, let alone manage it? How do you put together an RFP response or project proposal? What do recruiters want to see in terms of an online portfolio? The list can go on and on, as it would with any profession.

Nothing can replace real-world experience; however, there are fundamental lessons that, in my eyes, every creative professional should have a thorough understanding and appreciation of: what I wish someone had simply said to me as a budding designer, the pillars which would in turn make up the foundation of my approach to creative work.

Redefine how you see failure.

As a creative professional, most of what you do requires failure. One of the biggest mental hurdles to get over is the idea of failure as a bad thing, when it is, in fact, very much the opposite. Failure leads to iteration; leveraging from your mistakes and eliminating weaker design choices, while refining the stronger ones.

The key to this is that failure should come early. You will hear many times in your career, “fail early and fail often” – one of the core principles of usability design work. What this means is that it’s much easier and more effective to experiment and burn through concepts early in a project’s lifespan than it is later on, when more is invested and change poses greater risk.

Expecting failure and changing your mindset from “I failed, I’m a bad designer” to “one more bad idea out of the way – what can I take away from it?”. It can be seen in two lights: iterative and valuable failure (the kind I’m talking about), and catastrophic failure (the type that ends projects). Naturally, you want to avoid the latter, and by accepting failure’s role in your creative process, you help to avoid negative outcomes with your work.

Understand your creative process.

The most vital set of tools in any design arsenal is your creative process. It provides the framework within which your imagination and creativity can develop mere ideas into effective, intelligent, and communicative work, reaching the widest audience with the clearest message. As a creative professional, you need to develop your own personal formula that defines you and how your work is created, start to finish.

Every designer has their own process that is unique to them, though probably not entirely unfamiliar to others in the profession; you might start by sketching out all the details of a project on post-its, getting inspired on your favorite image-sites, experimenting and roughing out a million thumbnails before refining them in illustrator with your tablet, followed by a peer review of the top 3 creations. Whatever it is, your process has worked for you before, and it won’t fail you moving forward as long as you have a solid grasp of it – after all, it’s what makes you an effective communicator.

It’s quite easy to tell when a design has been rushed in its development without having followed a guiding process, and it’s never difficult to find poorly crafted design work in the wild. Even with budget and time restrictions or a difficult client, being aware of the key factors that determine the success of a project, and knowing the ins-and-outs of your process and how you work best will get you through the most difficult of challenges.

Seek criticism and check the ego at the door.

Criticism is a wonderful thing. Critical feedback of your work is the most valuable gift someone can give you as a designer, and the biggest boost to the success of your work. A fresh pair of eyes on your work is almost guaranteed to reveal a slough of improvements, most of which will be seemingly obvious as soon as they are pointed out to you. By putting your work in front of your peers, no matter how minor, you are only going to grow as a designer.

Criticism is an art form; anyone who knows the value of critical feedback will tell you this. There is a certain grace and strategy to both giving and receiving feedback that, as a professional, you should try and hold to at all times. Unfortunately, this won’t always be what you encounter when it comes to those talking about your work, but remaining courteous and receptive will always benefit you in the end. Occasionally someone will chew into your work for what seems like the sole purpose of bashing it; that’s fine, because as a professional you will let it roll off your shoulders – it very much comes with the territory. Always maintain your professional image, regardless of how frustrating a situation may be, as those worth respecting will respect you for it in turn.

Criticism is also challenging to attain. It can be incredibly difficult to get honest opinions of your work, as creatives are often seen and felt as sensitive types who see negative feedback as “attacking” their designs, especially if they are not in an entirely creative workplace. Keep pushing, and try to reinforce that opinions do nothing but help, and you will not have your feelings hurt. There is a level of trust that needs to be established, but once it’s there, you should have no problem.

Nothing is as sobering as getting a non-designer’s perspective on your work, but don’t limit your audience to creative types; ensure you get at least some of your intended audience.

Learn from your colleagues.

Absorb as much information as you can from the professionals around you, as it will only serve to help you become a better, well-rounded designer. Look to those who you rely on for critical feedback of your work; what’s their process? What kind of work are they doing, and how do they go about creating it? What successes and failures have they had? You should try to learn as much as you can from the mistakes and successes of others. If someone has a skill you don’t have in your design toolbox, regardless of how rudimentary it may be, try and leverage from their experience and expand your own skill-set.

Don’t limit who you talk to, either. If you work with non-creatives or professionals in different industries the same rules apply; the more you know about how they work, the easier it will be to work with them, and the more understanding and empathy you will have for their roles.

Being known as a designer who’s both easy to get along with and effortless to work with can be a huge boost for your career. This will also make individuals who are difficult to work with more approachable, as you can avoid obvious project difficulties by understanding where conflict may occur.

Push yourself, stay hungry.

Constantly push both your creative and technical skill-sets, and never stop learning or evolving as a designer, otherwise the world can and will leave you behind. As harsh a reality as it may seem, if you only work on what you are good at without upgrading your abilities, your effectiveness will fade.

Overcome the fear of new technology and environments. If haven’t done any web or interactive work – start. You don’t need to start learning code – just begin with the design philosophies and approaches to creating interactive work. If you stick to print, you’re choosing to eliminate a massive source of potential work – there are no excuses here. Only limitations that you place on yourself will set you back, and they will set you back unless you push yourself.

If you’re not being challenged at work, then flex your design muscles with freelance projects on your own time, as there is an infinite amount of work available for those who really pursue it. You don’t need to get wrapped up in huge contracts with projects that are months to years in length; anything that sparks interest and gives you the opportunity to interact with clients will help develop you as a professional. If you’re not happy with your job – quit. There are few things more crushing for your creativity than an unhappy working life.