kev/null design/book/comics/games/photos/presentations

So You’re Thinking of Becoming a Designer

A few days ago, my friend Liz Danzico asked a number of designers, researchers and other industry vetarans including Jim Coudal, Jared Spool, Joshua Porter, Ryan Sims, Steve Portigal, Whitney Hess and many others to answer this:

So you’re thinking about being a designer? If I could tell you only *one thing* about going into the field, my advice would be ________.

I thought of a lot of different answers, many of them quite cynical. I imagine my time watching the industry’s discussions and throwing peanuts at it from OK/Cancel makes me think that way a lot. For example, I considered answering with, “don’t use convoluted phrases just to make yourself sound smarter.” In the end, I erred on the side of practicality:

The other answers have been collected on the School of Visual Arts blog.


8 Comments

You had the best poster frame, btw!

Posted by Steve Portigal on 30 July 2009 @ 8am

Thanks, Steve. I wasn't skilled enough to record while driving so I had to compensate! ;)

Posted by kevnull on 30 July 2009 @ 9am

I had the services of a cameraperson. I just didn't want to be standing in front of a wall and talking.

Posted by Steve Portigal on 30 July 2009 @ 9am

Hey, you know that your RSS feed just has a bunch of search terms like viagra and other prescription drugs, right? Weird. It links to the post fine but the content is not there.

Posted by Louise on 30 July 2009 @ 10am

Someone else told me this. I can't trace why it's happening because I'm not seeing it. Grrrr.

Posted by kevnull on 30 July 2009 @ 12pm

You should be a professional audio book reader in your spare time. That voice is silky soothing!

Posted by Paul Robinson on 30 July 2009 @ 4pm

Fixed! Thanks!

Posted by kevnull on 30 July 2009 @ 6pm

Haha, thanks Paul. I once was told I should be a DJ for an easy listening radio station. I -think- it was a compliment ;)

Posted by kevnull on 31 July 2009 @ 10am