I know, I know. Usually when you hear the word fail on the interwebz, you’re promptly thinking of skateboarder eating it, or a baseball athlete player taking a 95 mph pitch to the face. However, I’m about to make the case that failing is a great thing…well if you happen to be a learning designer. In a profession that is surrounded by subjective opinions, failing is inevitable. There are a lot of up-in-the-air day to day decisions to make, and it’s not an easy thing to perfect.
You will learn more in a single day of real world work than a month of schooling.
While it sucks to miss deadlines, or misunderstand a client’s needs, it’s these mistakes that will help you perfect your craft more than anything else. Sure, you can sit in a lecture for days on end, attentively listening to advice and jot down notes on how to manage your work flow and your work ethics, but it’s the real life experience that will truly test your instinctive decision making. After you slap yourself across the face or scream at your wall for an hour, you can get a real understanding of how the mistakes occurred and what you can personally do to fix them. Failing can not be prevented!
The client is always right.
This was one that was hard for me to swallow, but in the end it worked out for my best interests. After studying design for as long as I have, it’s hard to take orders from a client as they can seem so misaligned with your understanding of a project. I have a lot of pride in my design skills and decisions, as should you. This is why perfecting collaboration is important. It’s more than deciding “blue is a great color because it calms me, do you like blue too? Great! Let’s use it”. It’s about entering a client’s psychology and embracing their lifestyle. Live in their shoes for a moment. Really understand what makes him/her tick, and why they make the decisions they do. What are their biggest personal influences / interests? If you can come in at an angle with design suggestions that are cohesive with your clients personality, then you’re much more likely to make your personal design solutions that much more relevant to your client. However if you can’t come to terms with a common solution, then don’t be so persistent that you lose business. Simply take requests as they come… after all, they are the ones with the money aren’t they?
Lock down a plan.
Don’t waste time developing a personal idea when it all boils down to an epic fail – a scrapped project and your monitor thrown off a 30 story building. Stress your concepts! Really make sure your client likes the IDEA before it turns into production. It is much like a house of cards, if your fundamentals are not strong, the whole thing will come down in an imploding mess. Sketches, comps, and frameworks are great way to do this, but don’t just do it once and get approval. There are always gray areas in potential design solutions, iron out as many as possible before advancing to the next step. You’d be amazed how far a dinky little sketch will come.
Refine your projects.
If there’s any 1 thing every designer should know, it’s that their work can never be considered complete. If something in your portfolio suggests even the smallest imperfection, do not flaunt it! If it’s a piece of work that is just sitting on your hard drive dying a slow death, work on it and make it a superstar! Do not be content with your flaws, this is your passion. Work diligently and passionately to bring a concept to a whole new level.