Design Thought Leader

1) People don’t accurately self-report what they do. This is useful when studying customers during research, and managing clients during the whole darn life of a project.

2) Design isn’t an analytical process. Creativity requires taking leaps and risks, success requires managing those risks perfectly.

3) Have a mantra. Have a few words you can say to yourself over and over that captures what yu want to accomplish in a design. Then make it a point to stop every few days and ask yourself, ‘does the design live up to the mantra?’

4) Always look at least one layer out from the design problem. When you’re drawing your designs, always put them in context. What room is the person in? What else is there? It might just force you to be a better sketcher, but it will often give you insight into issues and opportunities you’d otherwise miss.

5) Fidelity matters: Don’t try to be too polished or too rough, be where you are in the process. If you don’t have a good sense of what’s right, find a mentor who can review your work from that perspective. Otherwise, no matter how great your idea is, it’ll get lost in the silly stuff.

Gretchen Anderson
Director of User Interface Design, LUNAR

I approach every project systematically, and develop a set of rules that will help me make something consistent and interesting. With a typeface I’m considering all the angles, lines and transitions which will create a kit of guiding principles that direct every decision. The same is true in a logotype or a diagram or a publication, I try to develop a system that is robust and interesting enough to carry all the parts of the design in a successful manner. …

You have to stay busy. If you’ve got a day job and you’re not doing freelance or personal projects at night, you’re not doing enough. If you’re working for yourself, and not working on the weekends, then you’re basically standing still. Experience and a solid body of work takes time to accumulate, and there’s only one way to get there.

Nicholas Felton
Designer, Megafone, Co-founder, Daytum

Working in the entertainment industry is really fun (sometimes it doesn’t even feel like a job), but to get here, you have to put in thousands of hours of hard work, blood and sweat. There are no secrets or ‘magic’ buttons to push. Focus on the fundamentals and don’t get caught up on superficial stuff. The latest versions of Photoshop or the coolest MAC/PC are not going to solve your problems. Put away the excuses and the urge to always have the newest things—instead, just work hard.

Feng Zhu
Designer and Founder, FZD School of Design, Singapore

Be a continuous feedback loop. That means continuous input: reading books and blogs, attending talks and conferences, using the medium you design for. It also means continuous output: writing books and blogs, speaking at conferences, designing.

Luke Wroblewski
Interaction Designer and Writer

I don’t like the word still. I am working.

Eva Zeisal
Industrial designer and Ceramicist