The mark of a great designer is their awareness of system thinking.
When I encounter inexperienced designers, there’s one thing that always sticks out about the way they think. Or more specifically, the way they don’t think.
They don’t think of every design project as a design system. They don’t appreciate the interconnectedness of their design decisions. …
Mind the gaps for long-term thinking and creative rejuvenation.
White space is a designer’s best friend and most powerful ally. It’s what gives great visual work breathing room. It creates moments of silence that amplify the areas of focus. It forms groupings and builds rhythm. …
One of them is never optional, and sometimes you can’t even pick two.
Surely you’ve heard it before. The iron triangle of service: good, fast, cheap — pick two. You can never have all three, as the saying goes.
Cheap + Fast = low quality
Good + Cheap = too slow
Fast + Good = expensive
I have so many problems with this…
Mediocre work requires constant sales and marketing to maintain momentum. Exceptional work sells itself.
Would you rather have an average product with excellent marketing or an excellent product with average marketing?
Off the top of your head, what would you pick?
The perfectionist in me would choose the latter, and I would usually be wrong.
The answer to this common business question frequently refers…
It’s time for a radical shift in how we present ourselves as designers.
My website needs some love. The design is showing its age—but even worse — I’ve been too busy to update it so it doesn’t even represent my best work.
Sound familiar? Many creatives find themselves in this conundrum. It’s difficult to work on your own website when you’re flat-out designing…
The maturation of UX isn’t making you an uncreative robot or replaceable commodity.
Complaining about the maturation of digital design is all the rage in the UX world right now. Years ago we started noticing how all websites look the same due to the standardizaton of UX best practices and data-driven design. …
What’s holding you back from sprinting your career ahead?
It was more than 20 years ago, but I can still remember it clearly. I was sitting in front of an old cathode ray tube watching a grainy VHS tape of my state’s high school track finals. Kevin, a friend who was one grade above me, had just won the…
How alternating focus between the yin and yang of design leads to the perfect balance of consistency and flexibility.
Talk to any design system advocate and you’ll hear the word “consistency” over and over. Consistency in customer experience is what has matured our design field, governed UX best practices, and elevated many loved brands and services to the top of their industries.
We all know that consistency is a…
Pandemic-induced efficiency is real, and we’re all better off for it.
If you follow my writing you’ll know I’m not afraid to tackle the often-taboo issue of money. I freely discuss what I earn as a freelance designer because I believe it’s not done often enough, and being honest about money can help teach immensely valuable business lessons. …
What l learned about designing quickly from Malcolm Gladwell and The Queen’s Gambit.
What do chess, law school exams, and UX design have in common? As it turns out, a lot. They all judge skill — rightly or wrongly — in terms of speed.
Hikaru Nakamura is a grandmaster chess player. Not quite as good as Magnus Carlsen, the greatest chess player of…
Benek Lisefski
I’m a UX/UI designer from Auckland, New Zealand. Writing about freelancing & business for indie designers & creatives at https://solowork.co
