Characteristics a Designer Should Have

In my previous post, What I Learned Through My Interview, I spoke about the main takeaways I learned from my interviews, but for this one I wanted to share the answers of my interviewees from the question, “What do you believe a designer needs to be?” These were their answers *cue Law and Order, dum dum*

Kyle Rice | Rolling Stones

Always be curious—“It is a term so many people use to where it has lost it’s meaning, but at the end of the be willing to learn.” everything is so connected to design (marketing, photographers, production team, etc.) that it is important that I have an idea of what they are thinking

Push those boundaries—You’ve got the idea of what the team are already thinking so you can provide solutions for them, but also provide ideas of “what if we did this instead, what would that be like?”  Sometimes you get too comfortable in a position that you don’t think outside the box.

Mental Health—Health is so important. Kyle shared that he can become a workaholic easily and forget to take breaks. Before COVID he was able to separate himself from work on his drive in and out of work, but without that drive he’d think about it more at night and it began to take its toll.

Matt | Lead Art Director Rolling Stones

“Pick a good bourbon, lift with your back, and be the loudest person in the room. Just kidding!”

Curiosity—design in all its different forms, it is a story telling process. with more knowledge you can better describe and share it with fluidity.

If you can design one thing, you can design anything—with a skillset and knowledge of typography and design you can design almost everything.

You never know who you many need—“I will look up illustrators in other countries to see their work.” You never know when you may need a street artist, so keeping a record or saving websites of different photographers, artists, illustrators, writers helps to be prepared later on. Never think, “well when am I ever going to need an underwater photographer?” or anything else. 

Toby Fox | Deputy Art Director Rolling Stones

Flexible—The hardest thing to deal with is a stubborn designer. You have to be willing to change the designs, learn to roll with the changes, not fight them.

Story Teller—Know how to tell the story visually. Nothing should be there to be pretty, it should always have information in it and purpose. It is all part of the story. “[An image of] The Who live on stage in 1989 on the opening spread, you don’t want to see The Who on stage 1989 from a different angle on another spread.”

Being a Collaborator—we have to as designers that, editorially, the story is told completely, if they need 6,000 words without hurting the design. If it hurts the design, then we collaborate with them on avoiding the problems. It’s all about working together to create effective and beautiful designs. 

Justin Mezzell | Plural Sight

Know how to talk about your work—Being able to explain where the inspiration came from, or if it's a product design, why did you go with this design. Justin stated that, “It means so much to me to have a product designer, be able to walk through why they were like, well, we thought we were going to build this and then we did some research and we found out it was this. So then I pivoted this …we [noticed] a huge uptick in how people were performing in this experience.” He stated that the details in why the designer or creative changed directions is so important to understanding the project and making an empathetic product.

Be able to push a style, or your style—Be able to show adaptions and flexibility with a set style if you have one. “I do love a design style, but I would say pushing on it is great. So if you want to be an illustrator have a portfolio that's all about illustration that defines a style but like flex it a bit, you know. Show me where the medium changes and show me where you're able to work and another space. If your product designer. Don't just show me, Helvetica Neue on a white page that's always the same look, show me how you change the design for the needs of your user base right there.”

Write—Using a  blog or platform of some sort to discuss design, illustration, photography, whatever it may be, helps to show case your abilities of the prior two points. Being able to communicate design and reasonings as well as being able to push designs and your thought process. “writing is such a powerful piece for us to see not just your work, your output, but a little bit about who you are, about what you think about what it's going to be like to work with you.”

Breaking down your illustration [or designs] into these really intentional moments for illustration I think is so awesome.

— Justin Mezzell

Meg Lewis | Freelancer, Ghostly Ferns, & Podcaster for Dribble

Not ego driven—Learn to place your opinions aside when designing for a brand.

Sense of self—Identifying what you are good at and letting go of what you’re not good at. We compare ourselves to other designers too much, when someone is better at something than us we internalize it and we make ourselves feel bad. But once you can identify what your good at it will help empower you and it will help you to see what others are good at too.

Taking critical feedback—Practice being okay getting feedback and when you’ve done something wrong and apologize when you need to and move on.

Brooklyn Brown | GitHub

Communication Skills—especially with remote working

Being Adaptable & Flexible—be comfortable with uncertainty, when aspects of the design/project changes we can’t take it personally.

Being Humble—not taking design critique personally. Being able to critique other people’s work and being able to take constructive criticism in return, and learn to implement it into your work to make it better.

Dawn Austin | Brand Muscle 

Detail oriented—You want to make sure that the bleeds are right, sizing is right, and so forth. You never want to send off a document without making sure it is mistake free as it can cause issues later on.

Confident—No matter what it is. If you are not confident then no one else will believe you or follow you. But with that be a team player

Time Management—Make sure to meet the goals along with the way while making everything ready by or before the due date.

Adrianne Ngam | Glide

Never stop learning—There is no end goal to how good of a designer you can be. “[I] went to design school for over five years and I didn’t feel like I learned anything until I started working.” having that open mind that you don’t know everything

Being and organized communicator—Stay organized so that you can easily show and communicate to others what you are doing and working on.

Having no ego—the more humble and sponge like you can be is critical for any designer. It’s important to design for what the client wants rather than what you assume they want.

Stacy Simpson | Britten

Creative—“You can be taught a lot about concepts of creativity, but I don’t think creativity is something  you can’t just be taught as a practice… If your  not getting a lot of opportunities in your work to be creative then you should be creative outside of that because you are definitely going to lose some of that. I think the brain needs to be constantly creating and practice. Those are muscles you have to keep up”

Collaborative Mindset—It can be easy to get frustrated. But at the end of the day what you make is for them.

Effective Personal Time-Management—Learn what works for you and how you can stay on top of things efficiently and effectively. 

Valerie | Britten

Teachable—“Recognizing that you have not arrived and that you always have more to learn.”

Problem Solving— Being creative more than just visually

Thick Skin—“I’ve had a lot of very stressful situations where there is a lot to do in a short amount of time with super high stakes. And you can’t cave in to the pressure and give up. You’ve just got to keep going.”

Jessie Peters | Designer, Mitchell Graphics

As Jessie was my first interview I had not yet thought of this question. But to keep her included I wanted to share what three things a designer needs to be and have from my discussion with her (these are not her words, but what I believe would be important based on your conversation.)

Learn—When you know about where your working and working with because it allows you to know what is possible, how it would be produced, and if it won’t work and how to re-work it.

Be adaptable—while you may have a focus in an area of design still be willing to learn and rework something if it isn’t working to better finish designs and make the designs for the clients needs.  

Creative—When you know more about a process you can better determine its possibilities and are better able to push those ideas and be more creative. This helps to also articulate and practice utilizing the design eye, that is hard to be taught.