Have you ever thought of becoming a designer? Or perhaps wondered how designers create such innovative designs that make using so many things in your life easier?
As more and more people enter the design industry, we know many of them are curious about what it takes to become a successful designer. That’s why we asked the designers at Brucira to share some soft skills that are important for everyone aiming to be a successful designer needs to develop:
1. Communication
Effective communication is the key to ensuring your design aligns with everyone’s ideas. Similarly, communicating about the main aspects of your design will ensure they’re highlighted by the developer and accurately captured in the copy.
This means that designers have to be adept at two-pronged communication. Asking for feedback and giving feedback are two sides of the same coin. Without clear, specific, and actionable feedback, there can be a lot of confusion. This wastes time, effort, and money all around. Explaining your design choices, the reason behind them, and how you think they’ll (positively) impact the product is also something successful designers can do clearly.
Streamlined communication helps designers establish trust, clarity, and understanding with clients and team members. This also includes listening to others and taking feedback about the design. From feedback to guidance, this is how successful designers use communication to create functional yet striking design.
2. Team player
Being a team player and communication often go hand in hand. No man is an island, and neither is any designer. Even if you’re a freelance designer, you work with clients, developers, copywriters, and loads of other people to bring your design to life. This means that you have to be a good team player — often in more than just one team.
Good communication, understanding, and kindness go a long way in establishing you as a team player. Your juniors should never feel scared to ask you for advice or feedback, and your seniors need to know that you will take heed of their words and put them to use correctly in your designs.
Successful designers hold themselves accountable and take responsibility to fix any mistakes. They’re committed to delivering excellent, high-quality work no matter how much time it takes. Good designers are always willing to support their team members or clients in the best way possible.
3. Openness
One of the best qualities in a designer is an openness to trying out something new. Good design stems from innovation. Doing the same thing in the same ol’ way leads to a tired design that doesn’t add any value to the user. A designer’s openness to learning, adapting, and changing the status quo is what results in new and useful design that users love.
Flexibility is another aspect of openness any designer should work on cultivating. Often, the designs you create won’t be immediately loved. Taking feedback and being flexible with your design gives you more space to create and innovate. In fact, openness is one of the big five personality theory traits, making you both a better designer and a better human being.
4. Creativity
This should go without saying, but creativity is one of the most important skills a designer should have. At the end of the day, designers are creators — whether it’s reworking an existing design or creating something from scratch, it takes creativity to imagine something new and ensure that it fits all the project parameters.
Although this is a more innate quality than the others, it can be honed by practicing, understanding, and studying good design. Creativity is the crux of good design. Designers are often brimming with different ideas and their openness to try out both the safe and whacky ones that end up creating good design.
5. Logical Thinking
Designers also need to think logically, no matter how creative they can be. They’re designing products for users to love — that means they need to properly understand the target audience’s needs and patterns. How to attract users to the product, get them to use it, and then keep them coming back for more are all questions designers need to ask when creating their design.
Logical thinking is critical when it comes to brainstorming and creating the first couple of versions of the design. Choosing the right size, resolution, and even the design style or illustration may seem like inconsequential details. Still, these are what make or break the design.
These are only five traits that successful designers have. We haven’t forgotten attention to detail, organisation skills, confidence, and honesty — these are qualities that are also important for any designer to inculcate.
Creating good design isn’t easy. In fact, it’s much easier to create bad or useless design. Similarly, it’s easier to be an inadequate or average designer. Becoming a successful designer takes hard work, commitment, and understanding. Constantly upskilling yourself and keeping an open mind will help you nurture the above qualities and put you on the path to becoming a successful designer.
Remember, that at the end of the day, along with these qualities, your design and work ethic make you a successful designer that clients will love working with!
Curious about designers, developers, and what they do in a product design agency? Check out our blog to read more about the things we get up to at Brucira!
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P.S. Remember to check out our newest tool, Brutask — an fantastic way to make your digital to-do lists and work with your team members!
