Your design career doesn't have to make sense right now

A lot of designers I meet worry about structuring their career in the “right way”. They obsess over which “industry vertical” to work in. They worry if this or that company is the right “next step”.

This was especially highlighted when I spoke at DBA Singapore recently about my work. It made me realize a lot of things that I’ve learned, I have learned in hindsight.

So here are some things I wish someone had told me while I was slogging out there in the design industry.

Don’t worry about some kind of overarching “narrative” in your career

It will make sense eventually (trust me).

Do what you love, learn new skills (even if they are not design related) and work with amazing people.

If you studied graphic design, don’t get too invested in the label of “graphic designer”.

Your career is not a straight up ladder (it’s a zigzag)

It’s a lot of detours, experiments, random events and luck!

Just have fun on the ride while you try to pay your rent.

If you need to learn a new skill, take that demotion if you can. That new and different skill is going to be invaluable to you in the future.

Failure is good

It makes you question and experiment more. It makes you leave your job and try something else. That’s amazing.

The more things you try the closer you are to finding the thing that is going to work for you and bring the story together (finally).

It doesn’t matter how cool the work is

You could be working for the biggest brands, the coolest clients, newest tech, the most funded startup. But it means nothing if the people suck. Work with the best people and teams. You will become a better designer.

Caring too much about the “what” you are working on is a rookie mistake.

It’s ok to quit your job in the first 3–4 months

No it doesn’t “look bad.” You tried something and it didn’t work. It’s ok!

The best time to quit a job that’s not working for you is in the first 6 months. Don’t stay and just make it worse for yourself and the team you are working with.

Go look for something better for yourself.

Thank you for reading!

What did you learn from your design career? Does your design career make sense? Let me know in the comments :)

This post was originally published on Bytes of Candy in October 2017.

UX Workshop at Construkt

The workshop focussed on teaching hands-on design prototyping, taking the participants step-by-step through a prototyping process, how to think and analyse their design concept, and even a quick ten minute guerrilla user research activity at the festival grounds. It was rewarding to see the 25 participants get so involved and excited about what they were building. Below are some pictures of the three hour session. It started with some warm-up creative thinking activities, after which the participants chose a random 'everyday-life' object. They then proceeded to redesign it, much to their surprise! One of the participants chose an orange as a common 'everyday' object for the first exercise and ended up 'redesigning' it into a scent dispenser and pen holder. Every participant had a set of raw materials such as card paper, straws, tape and foam pieces to use. UX Workshop participants at the Construkt Festival, Bangalore. The Construkt team gave me a beautiful location under a giant tree on the festival grounds, so everyone could work in the outdoors.

UX participant shows off his prototype, a redesigned Table Tennis racket as part of a completely new type of Table Tennis.

UX workshop participants at the Construkt festival, Bangalore. One of the central goals of my workshop was to make it hands-on learning, and also ensuring it was fun. It is so important to enjoy these exercises since it makes people more relaxed and therefore more creative.

UX participant shows off his smart watch prototype at the end of the workshop. The last stage included quick user research, getting reactions from people wandering around the festival and trying to make last minute adjustments on the first level prototype.