It is often said that the real learning and hard work comes when you leave school or university, when you first set foot into the very real world of making a living for yourself, building up a career and becoming everything you ever dreamed of.

This was something I was always told when I was at college and later on at university, alas, as a student you never really believe this so much.

I enjoyed my education, I was definitely more creative minded than I was academic and made the decision during my later years of school to focus solely on Art and Graphics. After achieving good grades in both of these, I went on to study a Foundation Degree and from here went onto University where I studied Graphic Communication. After completing my degree with First Class Honours, I was riding high and genuinely believed that I knew a lot of what I needed to know.

After a few odd jobs here and there, I began work at my current job and it quickly and very suddenly became apparent, shit, I actually don’t know a thing….

“What do you mean I don’t have 6 months to work on this branding?”

“How am I meant to work without any copy?”

“The deadline is tomorrow, why has all this been changed now?”

These were just some of the new challenges I was being faced with. Not to mention other issues like how to present your work to clients, how to structure folders and artwork, how to collaborate properly with a team and how to manage your time effectively.

Now, I can only go by my own point of view here—a 25 year old guy from the UK. This may not be the case in other countries or even perhaps at other universities and colleges in England, but during your school life you are mollycoddled. Whether you think it or not at the time, you really are.

You are given all the time in the world to work on your projects and at University you only have the odd lecture here and there. The rest of your time you have to work on your projects. Certainly much more time than you are gifted in the real world.

On top of this, my main concern is that what students are being taught is all very dated. In my mind, the schooling system and what we are taught in the design area, particularly at University level, needs a shake up. Tutors should be brought up to date on modern standards and goings on within the industry; I would bet my bottom dollar that where I attended they aren’t teaching their students about “Progressive Enhancement” or “Responsive Web Design” still. These are both terms that students will be greeted with when they come out of University, and they won’t have a clue what they mean. I would love to be proved wrong.

There are some, very quick solutions which I believe could benefit and help a student to learn early on what it is like working in the real world. How about setting a project that needs to be completed within the month and a week before hand in, students get an email telling them,

“We need to add/remove all this copy and these images need to go in too”.

This screw up your layout? Tough, deal with it, make it look good again.

I also think that work placements should be made mandatory, rather than being cooped up in a lecture hall and then spending the rest of your day at home—get into a real work place and discover now and then what agency life is really like. The sooner you get yourself into the working environment, the sooner you realise that life is a lot different when you leave education.

These problems certainly don’t just start and stop at designers either. I was discussing this with a colleague just the other day, a developer, whose sister is currently learning how to code and build websites at school. The worrying thing, they are being taught how to code with tables… When he asked her why, her reply was that the teacher simply didn’t know any different.

The same thing happened not so long ago; we had a guy in his final year at University come in to talk to us about our process and we were baffled to learn that they were still being taught using Dreamweaver.

The education system isn’t helping students as much as it could. You are marked heavily on a process which is grade driven. You often find yourself going down a route which will just help you achieve a better grade rather than one that would fully benefit your design choices.

I certainly don’t have all the answers and I fully appreciate that changing the system is a big thing. However, students pay a large sum of money for the course that they take and they deserve to get given the most up to date and relevant information for their expense. The real learning should not start after you’ve finished years of education, it should be distilled into you from the start.

The level of available information we have reached is unprecedented. Anyone with a connection today can reach more resources in seconds than any researcher at any other point in history could pull together in hours from the largest libraries. This is almost scary—and indeed, has potential for serious drawbacks. People increasingly rely on Wikipedia for information, sparking a frustration among professors similar to that inspired by spellcheck in English teachers or by calculators in middle-school math teachers. But, like a calculator, it is a tool that can be used to further our knowledge and capability. It is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to advance—and it’s at our fingertips. But, if you’re reading this, you already know that.

What you may not know is that, while the information that today’s connectivity provides is incredibly helpful, it is not the most important aspect of the internet. The greatest resource that the internet has given access to is people. With online communication, we have access to people we couldn’t dream of speaking to if we were in a similar position two decades ago. Geographic, social, and a myriad of other limitations are swept away by the common denominator of the internet. We call it hyperdemocratization.

All of our current design heroes have email addresses; most of them have twitter accounts, Dribbble profiles, blogs and other forms of communication. There is a world of knowledge to be gleaned from their thoughts and experiences. Whether they are decades or just a few years further along in their career, everyone has something to share—whether it be some bit of experience to pass on to those who are just graduating, going through the process of self-education, or struggling through the first few years and trying to find their footing. Despite their busy schedules, these people we admire often not only find the time to respond to personal communication and questions from those hungry for knowledge, but seek out opportunities to be helpful to those looking for it.

Many busy people I have emailed in the past, hardly expecting a response, have emailed back with solid advice and encouraging words. Logotype master Claire Coullon seeks out those interested in lettering on Dribbble, lending her expert eye by offering insightful feedback. Ryan Hamrick, another great letterer, regularly posts hugely informative, practical advice on his blog. Matt Chase of Design Army wrote a solid article of advice for recent grads on this very site. Instead of simply focusing on their own endeavors, they take the time to help others and give back to the design community. They have acquired an enviable amount of experience and knowledge, through books, professors, colleagues and hard work, but rather than turning up their nose at those who are a step behind them, they go out of their way to pass on this knowledge.

What’s more, you don’t have to be an expert in order to be helpful. There’s always someone out there who would love to know what you know. Granted, anyone should avoid giving advice on something that you don’t have experience in, but for every area you don’t have that, there’s another area that you do. Take some time and offer somebody some advice today. And tomorrow. Make a regular habit of it. It’s not a rat race, in which we try to put others down in order to make ourselves look better. Creative communities grow together.

Don’t be that narcissistic middleweight designer that begrudges every minute of time that it takes to respond to that hungry student’s email. Don’t be the business magazine stereotype of what they call “creatives”—the difficult egotist ignoring everyone you don’t feel is on “your level”. Be greater than that. There’s no better time to begin giving back than right now.

Graduation kicks ass. Big time.

It’s the grand culmination of delayed gratification: a lifetime of academic rigor rewarding you with an open door of opportunity. It’s pure elation cut with relentless optimism. Excitement multiplied by confidence. You are unstoppable, on top of the world, and hopefully still a little drunk.

But as thrilling as it is, the euphoria inevitably dissolves. The party winds down, the dorms release their captives and the campus slowly retreats to a quiet state of hibernation. Reality generously clears the brush from the trailhead and you see, if not yet fully, the path laid before you. Riddled with forks and dead-ends, it isn’t easily navigated, and the only map you have is the twitchy compass of your own intuition.

On one hand, there’s the good news: never before have designers (of any kind) been more integral to molding the culture in which they live. Companies like Apple and Nike have spent the last three decades conditioning the public to crave creativity—to want it, to need it. They did the hard work for you. They pushed the boulder to the top of the hill, and now we get to ride it down the other side.

On the other hand, there’s the bad news: a lot of people want a seat on that boulder. More than ever before—maybe even more than it can safely hold. Securing the spot you want means forcing your way through the crowd, throwing some elbows and, if necessary, wrestling the last person standing in the way.

How do you make sure you aren’t standing in the dirt watching it roll by?

Strike While The Iron’s Hot

Momentum is force to be reckoned with, and it applies to more than physics. Avoid the urge to “take some time off” (that booze cruise will be more fun with a salary) and stretch the adrenaline from your Senior Show as far as you can. Waft in the inspiration and knock out some cover letters before it wears off. There’s a confidence rooted in coming off four long years of personal design evolution; let it carry you through the next few weeks. But don’t get hot-headed: assume that the Design Director who handed you her business card also gave one to six other people. The quicker you act, the more sincerely you demonstrate your interest in the position and the better your chances are of beating Timmy to that open spot. Timmy’s a douche anyway.

Don’t Let May Day Signal Mayday

For the most part, graduations occur over a pretty standard period of a few weekends. Employers have May circled on their calendars for a reason; they’ve got their hawk eyes narrowed (for interns or otherwise) and you want to be poised to cruise into their periphery. Assuming their talons ensnare you, have a plan should a potential discussion come into play. The nuances of mastering a job interview are enough to constitute an almanac, but a couple of universal guidelines apply:

Know your work inside and out. Re-remember why you made specific typographic considerations or chose a certain format. An interested employer will want to discuss projects that caught their eye: they want to make sure you can do it again. Focus less on describing what the project is and more on the process by which you conceptualized the final outcome. Bring up that brick wall you ran into and then show them how gracefully you scaled it.

Have questions to ask back. A new employee is an investment; design studios are banking on your dedication to their company. Expressing genuine interest in their work culture, project schedules, client presentations and concepting process are all indications that you’re going to hook them up with some serious ROI.

Plan Ahead. Consider and determine your start-date availability, future travel plans and willingness to relocate prior to the interview. In the time that you’re “getting back to them on that,” the hawks are already circling another meadow.

15 Minutes Seconds of Fame

First impressions are everything. Curate your portfolio as carefully as you would a mix tape for that girl in your Lit class (“Creed? How did that get on here!?”). Whether hurriedly scouting over their lunch hour or foraging through application submissions, employers have a very limited amount of time to spend looking through portfolios. You’ve got fifteen seconds to snag their attention, so make it count:

Trash the trash. Weezer’s Blue Album had maybe ten songs but, let’s face it, they were all solid. A small portfolio of immaculate work trumps a mega-site that begs you to sort out the mediocrity from the gems. This is true every day of the week, ten times out of ten. It only takes a few bad projects to rust the chrome off the good stuff. Think of it like those mixed bags of Halloween candy: you don’t want to be the kind where you’re digging through a pound of lemon drops to find the last piece of chocolate. You’re 100% cacao or you’re on clearance come November.

Be versatile, be original. A brief scroll through Dribbble will yield a hundred logos for coffee shops, letterpressed typographic slogans and movie posters that have been predictably deconstructed into vector objects. Even if your iterations of these things are leagues better than the next guy’s, you still have a site full of the same stuff. As a student bound to the curriculum of your professors, there’s admittedly a certain degree of inevitability regarding what you produce. But: those limitations only reach as far as the classroom door. If there’s a project you want to do, that you know will diversify your body of work and give you an edge over your peers, then do it. Having a (good) project under your belt that none of your classmates do is like bringing a shotgun to a knife fight. Pull the trigger on those ambitions.

Photograph your work (and not with your iPhone). As pervasively simple as it is, a JPEG comp simply doesn’t hold a candle to a real image. Not only does a photograph add visual tactility to a piece, it proves that you actually made the thing and offers you a chance to supplement the work with a little photo art direction. Just finished an illo for The Economist? Cool. Prop the image with a briefcase and black-rimmed glasses and shoot it on your coffee table. Suddenly, it’s a piece of a narrative. Keep in mind that you don’t need a 5D or pro lighting equipment. A few drawing-board size sheets of newsprint and any SLR camera will do the trick. Shoot RAW and fix everything in post. You can absolutely do this while watching Mad Men.

Consider a physical self-promo. E-mails get deleted, inadvertently skipped, relocated to spam folders and just plain ignored—all the time. If you have a creative idea for a mailed promotion piece, by all means, put it together. You’re going for inexpensively creative: something that won’t leave you out of pocket but will shout over a stack of Pizza Hut coupons. Skip a bar night and re-appropriate the beer money for printing. Remember: it’s an invitation, not the party itself—you’re only selling them on the idea of checking out more of your work. Don’t pass the whole bottle, just offer a sip.

Lose the moniker. You’re not a brand, you’re a person. Just a guy or a gal with a first name and last name. Don’t go by anything you wouldn’t want someone shouting across the table at a client meeting. No one wants to hire “Luke B. a.k.a Digital Design Prophecy.” Same goes for your e-mail address. BabyCakes69 is getting an internship at Hooters, not Apple.

Bold that “Contact Me” button. Seems like common sense, but you wouldn’t believe how many designers hide their e-mail links in places that no one’s going to look. Even if it’s drowning in a sea of RISD accolades, if an employer can’t figure out how to get in touch, you risk getting left behind.

Does This Tie Bar Match My Pajamas?

The freelance vs. studio debate has gained revived traction the last few years, with more and more designers and illustrators foregoing the 9-5 in favor of a Netflix-filled idyll absent of staff meetings, account reps and the groaning nag of omnipresent Art Directors. It’s a perfectly legitimate path, but unless you’re strutting across the stage having already commandeered a serious list of steady clients (this situation could potentially apply to illustrators), it’s one you probably shouldn’t be heading down just yet. You want a real job. The prospect of blasting out of the gates and making a name for yourself can be tantalizing, but in skipping the studio (or in-house) life, you’re depriving yourself of an invaluable experience and very likely stunting your career potential. At the very least, a studio atmosphere is going to afford you an opportunity to learn from people who have been doing what you want to do for longer than you’ve been doing it. Say that last sentence slowly and repeat it until you’re convinced. I’m not out to shatter any egos, but regardless of how good you think you are, there’s an infinite expanse of shit you simply do not know. Stuff you didn’t even know that you were supposed to know. And there’s no better way to learn up than on someone else’s dime. Think of a studio as a cooler version of your design class that you get paid to go to.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

There’s a very real truth to the notion that not all jobs are created equal. The basics (quality of work, salary, dental insurance, etc.) aside, there are hordes of other factors that separate the dream jobs from the nightmares. Dividing the two is a daunting task, made all the more difficult considering that one designer’s paradise can be another’s living hell. Ask yourself the right questions and you’ll help ensure that your first big step is in the right direction. Here are a few things to consider:

A place that does great work is not, by mere definition, a great place to work. It’s easy to distill the entirety of a studio’s worth into what kind of projects they’re pumping out, but if you’re seriously thinking of joining the ranks, their portfolio is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more to creative fulfillment than cranking out award-winning work, and at the end of the day, that’s what you want: a place that fills you up without spilling over or leaving you half-glassed. Getting a handle on the inner workings of a place can be tricky, so consider contacting a few current and former employees to solicit a candid opinion of the studio. They’ll be honest, trust me.

Try and define the kind of work you think you want to do. It’s tough as a recent grad—and you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself before you really get out there—but if you know for damn sure you don’t want to work with layouts, you probably want to steer clear of studios known for their annual reports. Similarly, if you know you absolutely want to be involved with branding, don’t get your hopes up on a place with only a handful of identity projects. Larger studios typically dabble in a bit of everything, while smaller firms often compete in relatively specific arenas. Find your sport and track down the teams you wanna play for.

Don’t write off the in-house lifestyle. People always seem to look these guys over, and while their portfolios may sometimes lack diversity, that’s a blessing in disguise to someone eager to work with a specific, defined range of projects. You know what you’re getting up-front and there’s at least a modicum of comfort to be had in knowing your job security doesn’t partially depend on new client acquisition.

Trust your gut. In the end, your own intuition is the best map you have. Let it lead the way.

There’s probably a lot more to be said here, but the bridge from academia to industry can’t be built on an essay. There’s no master blueprint to a fulfilling career, no crystal ball. A piece of advice is only as good as the experience that birthed it. So, keep this in your back pocket, but remember to carry a pencil—make your own edits, alter the rules, write in the margins or scratch it out altogether.

You’re the author now.

It’s surprising how bad people are in the memory department, at least in the details. It’s even more surprising given how we think we are awesome at remembering experiences, life, products, friends, etc. The brain is an elegant machine designed for a purpose, specifically to recall important lessons and experiences. Even so, there is so much to remember and such an unfathomable number of details to take in; the brain must have a system of shortcuts to do it. How could it not? Part of the shortcut methodology is aimed at distilling all of the sensory input and experiences into useful data. In other words, memory is trying to summarize rather than record verbatim.

Recently, there has been an explosion in popularity of user experience (UX) as a subject and even a separate discipline. In product and software development, you can’t take two steps without hearing the term “user experience” or some variation thereof. Despite this focus, it feels like no one understands what the anatomy of an experience is. I hear about details like button colors, rounded corners, verbiage, screenflow, icons and so on. Certainly, details contribute to great experiences. However, almost 100% of these details need to be condensed and associated to form the memory of the experience.

An exercise I have always loved in product design is word-subtraction. Write out a description of a product in say 500 characters. Now do it with 300, 200, 100 and so on. It forces removal of increasingly less important details to distill the principal meaning of the description. Memories aren’t much different. It really makes me think about what details I choose to focus on when designing. This model means that the user experience is the memory of using the product not the process of using it. It’s an important distinction.

It means a button’s shade of blue doesn’t exactly affect the experience. It means having a mind-blowing on-boarding process with poor follow-through is still a bad memory. Events that happened even a week ago are shockingly vague and inaccurate. How was that Michelin-rated steakhouse you went to last week? It’s likely that the details of how good the server was or what kind of plates the restaurant had are lost to time. As long as those details weren’t notably terrible or disruptively out of place, they were probably forgotten or filled in with past memory data. The memory says the place was quiet and classy; the wine selection was thoughtful; the steak was good enough; and the cotton candy served for dessert was a fun surprise. In short, experience is cumulative.

I am not saying that all the little details aren’t important. They are. Details contribute to cohesion. Details are only remembered if they tripped the shortcut flags in the memory. The iPhone is an excellent example of details that add up to powerful memory. The rendering style of interface elements and small decisions such as smooth transitions and features that “just work” add up to a positive experience. Cohesive experiences require that every element is contributing to a team effort. Teamwork demands smart and thoughtful compromises. It sounds good to say that every piece must be 100% awesome but if everything is on the same level than no hierarchy or contrast exists.

A product is going to be boiled down to the memory impression it leaves. This is characterized by mental shortcut flags. The most common are first impressions, “WOW” moments and endings. An average customer’s mind is working to make important associations with these endpoints to recognize practical patterns and potentially useful details. A simplification would be that short-term memory needs to make decisions about what information is valuable enough to make it into long-term memory. These shortcuts can be powerful. Imagine this scenario: a customer is checking out of a hotel. Until check-out the stay has been ideal. The customer reviews the final invoice and discovers that an amenity which he thought was free was not. Now an extra few hundred dollars has accumulated. He asks the manager to remove the charges but the manager is unable to do so. The customer begrudgingly pays the invoice and goes on his way. Its likely that this customer will use the ending as a memory marker and will not recall it with fond sentiments.

Most anything can potentially become part of a customer’s experience. However, focusing on the parts of the process that are far more likely to be remembered and effectively define the experience helps make it clear what elements should be in focus, what battles are worth fighting and what compromises are valuable. Remember, “user experience” is just a fancy term for a memory. What will your customer remember?

Photo via  Ulf Bodin

I have a markerboard in my office. I also have a Macbook Air with as many prototyping and design creation apps as you can think of. But I prefer to kickoff most projects on the markerboard.

Sometimes, instead of the markerboard, I’ll even use some scrap paper – either from my printer, or from a little pile of cut up sheets of paper I have on my desk.

You’re probably thinking, “WAIT – YOU DON’T HAVE A MOLESKIN FOR YOUR SKETCHES?!?!”

Yes, of course I do. Relax. But I prefer the scrap paper over the moleskin for sketching out rough ideas.

Do you know what the markerboard and the scrap paper have in common that my Moleskin and various software applications do not?

Temporality.

They start with the assumption that what you create on them will be disposed of, not saved. I believe this is the best assumption to use when starting most projects: that your initial ideas will be disposed of, and replaced with better ones. Iterations.

They also share another common thread, related to their temporal, disposable nature: they facilitate discussion, not execution. In other words, they are about solving the “what”, not the “how”.

Too often we as designers instinctively start with execution, then worry about the content or the strategy after an idea for execution (style or visual treatment) has been established. What happens is we end up creating a visual framework first, then fitting the strategy into our design – which in reality is putting the cart before the horse.

Starting with disposable mediums lends itself to keeping initial ideas and direction to the strategic level. It facilitates the discussion that must take place before a visual framework for execution is ever considered.

Of course, they do blend together at times. Is it possible to use a disposable medium like a markerboard or scrap paper to start hashing out your visual execution? Of course.

I’m not proposing these tools should never be used for the purpose of brainstorming specific visual treatments or other execution related details. What I am advocating for are two things:

1. Start A Discussion First

View your work through the lens of a problem solver creating a solution, not just as a designer creating a visual work. Start to think of yourself as creating conceptual solutions that just happen to be manifested through a visual skin, and you’ll begin to understand the necessity of solving the problem independent of the visual design you create for the solution.

The benefit of using a tool like a markerboard or scrap paper is that it forces you to start to abstract yourself away from the design details we designers tend to get caught up in due to fidelity. The low-fi nature of those tools tends to force us to think more broadly about the solution we are trying to accomplish, as opposed to the rounded corners or drop shadows we tend to get caught up in with more hi-fidelity tools.

Either way, the point is NOT that you need to use a markerboard or scrap paper to start your projects. The point is that you need to use your conceptual thinking cap first, starting a discussion about the nature of the problem and what the solution should be like independent from the visual nature of your work.

2. Prepare Yourself To Iterate

The other benefit in tools that produce disposable work is that they help us to realize where we are in the process: the beginning. Often we stumble on a singular piece of the puzzle and try to use it to craft the rest of the solution.

In reality, there are many aspects to a good solution that must all come together to form the final product. You can no more design an entire web application based on a single button treatment than you can design an entire building from a certain style of staircase.

Far too often we treat our projects this way, finding some isolated piece of inspiration that serves to dictate the tone of the entire user experience. But in reality we need to be willing to let go of initial inspirations as the creative process uncovers challenges and solutions unique to our own project.

In short, we need to be willing to iterate – something which is much easier when we hold ideas loosely as concepts, rather than tightly as finely imagined pixel perfect Photoshop comps. There is a place for the later, but it’s seldom at the beginning of the process.

Problem Solving Thinking

Markerboard mentality is really just about problem solving thinking. That’s why it’s important.

In an age where design aesthetics are finally being taken seriously as a part of strategic business decisions, we risk our craft being taken as a mere marketing commodity if we don’t push to keep advancing it as an essential business skill.

Let us be diligent and willing to approach every problem as something to be solved, something to discuss, and something to iterate on.

When I started out in design, all I knew is that I was passionate about it; no direction, no long term plan, I just wanted to be creative and make stuff. I drifted along for a few years and, after seeing 37Signals release Basecamp, it dawned on me: this is what I wanted to do—I wanted to build products. Marketing work had grown tiresome and I felt a burning passion to build things people actually used instead of things they just looked at.

Jump forward a few years and we find ourselves in the middle of the technology boom. People aren’t just building fun little apps, they are building thriving businesses, pushing technological boundaries and making a dent in the universe. The environment is extremely creative and inspiring. This is evidenced, in part, by the fact we see an influx of young founders who respond to the electricity they see in this space. It is an incredible time to be alive and working in this industry.

When you operate in an environment such as this it can be tempting to accept certain pre-conceived notions about what it means to be a founder or an entrepreneur. It’s easy to accept the path others have taken and assume the same should be true for you. You can look at other successful people and think that just doing what they did will lead to the same happiness. This just isn’t the case.

It can be so easy to get caught up in the parts that don’t matter and lose focus on what it is that you really wanted to do in the first place. For some to be happy, they need to follow the familiar script of founding a company, bringing on Venture Capital, obtaining viral growth, and seeing a massive exit. For them this is the ultimate dream, and I applaud them; for others, the dream might be different altogether. I find a lot of inspiration in people like Drew Wilson, David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried. These guys are hell bent on building businesses that are bootstrapped and profitable. They seem to have little interest in businesses grown on venture capital, and prefer to follow a path that doesn’t get as much fanfare.

I think it is important to ask yourself, “What got you into this industry? What keeps you up at night? What is your dream?”. No matter what happens, you still have to wake up every day and find a way to be happy. Are you going to be happy when you realize you just spent a chunk of your life pursuing a dream that was never yours in the first place? Did you chase something that seemed like a good idea just because it was the popular route to take? At times I have fallen into this trap and it left me feeling unfulfilled. I set out to chase a passion, but somewhere along the way I lost sight of my own ideas and started pursuing the dreams of others. Chasing the dreams of others is simply a waste of time. In their book “Rework“, David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried touch on this idea:

“You don’t have forever. This is your life’s work. Do you want to build just another me-too product or do you want to shake things up? What you do is your legacy. Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to make the change you want to see. And don’t think it takes a huge team to make that difference either”

I now find myself in a place of maniacal commitment to doing the things I am passionate about. What originally drew me to this business was the desire to build something useful, to do something new. I recently described my dream as simply “wanting to build products that people are willing to trade their money for”. Nothing complicated, nothing grandiose, just building something that provides real value, no matter the scale. For me, nothing makes me happier than to chase that story line. How about you?

We all have them—busy schedules and digital distractions. I know with absolute certainty that I do. For me, both have seeped into being central to my world, but they don’t have to be.

One of my dearest friends who I consider a brother is getting married the first week of May. As a “last hurrah” of sorts, four other guys and I went on a ten-day adventure. Escaping the frosty spring mornings of Chicago, we traveled south to the tropical Nicaraguan coast to surf, eat tacos and share stories accompanied by a beer (or two or three or four). As I was packing for the trip, I was encouraged by my wife to disconnect + disengage from work and happenings back home for the entire week and a half trip. Power down. Leave everything off. No emails, no Instagram, no client calls, no texting.

I’d just come through an incredibly busy winter season, buried in work with endless deadlines and commitments both in and out of the office. One would think that I wouldn’t have a problem saying good riddance, but being honest, I was having a hard time stepping away from the busy trap. I’m so grateful for my wife’s encouragement (er, mandate)—powering down was one of the healthiest and sobering things I’ve done in a good while. Unknowingly, my brain and soul desperately needed it.

I woke up with the sun and quietly enjoyed my coffee, checked the surf, went swimming and ate a late breakfast. I actually made time to read, savoring every literary afternoon spent in a hammock outside. Late afternoon swims turned into games of cards, glasses of rum and reminiscent evenings of classic stories and hearty laughs. Without my phone I realized how present I could be, undistracted by my self-inflicted necessity to be perpetually connected and available. I was disengaged from the crutch of social media, email, and my checklist mentality. I was able to listen, respond, and intentionally just be. And I really enjoyed it.

Landing back in Chicago nine days later, I powered my phone on. In trips past, I would arrive home greeted by the all too familiar feeling of anxiety of being hurled back into the hustle. But this time, it was different. Something clicked. I realized that it’s all about an intentional shift in perspective and communication. How do I want to do life with others? How connected and available do I want to be? What does it look like to engage more in the present tangible tasks at hand and physical relationships versus being overly immersed in the digital social world?

I’ve since been making an effort to stay less busy and power down more frequently. Sure, life gets crazy. Seasons come and go in which being connected is seemingly necessary, but I’ve been guilty of perpetuating the behavior. What’s profound is that by clearing my schedule I’ve become more focused, driven, and refreshed—both at home and in the office. My work now seems more purposeful. Each project is less of another thing in the queue and more of an opportunity to share a story. By not conceding to the notion that I’ll consistently and unflinchingly be busy, I’ve been able to work with a reignited passion. I’m working and living with an authenticity rooted in truly caring and observing what’s around me.

The final question I’ve been asking myself is how can I sustain this idea of reduced busyness and digital distractions? I have to believe it’s by making an intentional choice to be present and aware in both my work and personal life. I want to live without with my face illuminated by my phone 24/7. I want to look up, keeping my gaze where life is happening around me with those who I love, admire, and hold dear to my heart. And I truly believe my relationships will grow, my work will be richer in purpose, and I will be there to see and experience it in a way possible only by putting my phone in my back pocket—or maybe even leaving it behind at home.

I always assumed I’d go on to graduate school. The pattern set by my parents and plans made by college peers pointed to graduate school as the obvious or eventual next step. But as graduation approached, the last thing I wanted was more school. I wanted to design things, see them produced, and be compensated for my work.

After getting my Bachelor’s in architecture, I landed a great job as a web and graphic designer at a startup. When I began the job, it was with the assumption that I’d eventually get tired of the same routine 5 days a week. I thought that after a year I’d be fantasizing about going back to school. But the more I worked, the happier I was. The things I thought were exclusive to school were in fact a part of my everyday working life.

Yet still, every once in a while the question returns… “When will I go back to grad school? Will I? What will I study that would make me better at what I’m doing?”

I had the perception in college that I would get out in the ‘real world’ and find that I could only advance so far without a graduate degree. This could be because for architects, this is true—a master’s degree and much more is required to be a certified architect. But as a UI designer, this isn’t the case. My employer, and any other potential employers, are far more interested in what I can do. Can I draw/design/build the thing they need, or can I figure it out quickly? Great. Let’s get to work. Furthermore, as a web designer with an architecture degree, I’m not even sure how much my BA mattered—if only to demonstrate that I had training and experience.

All this was on my mind when I came across Colin Dunn’s “Thoughts From An Ex-Graphic Designer.” He talks about how the undergraduate curriculum at MICA sheltered its students from the developing landscape of digital design—which is where they have the potential to make the biggest impact—and instead kept them focused on the established profession of print design:

“We are chasing a reality that is rapidly fading. We are skating to where the puck has been.”

Going to college wasn’t even a question for me. Graduate school used to be just as obvious. But if I’m doing what I want to be doing and institutions of higher education would take me away or delay this, then perhaps the grad school assumption is becoming a thing of the past. Maybe the college assumption is too.

Delaying hands-on professional experience while in school doesn’t even begin to mention the price tag that comes with those choices. Many creatives and design professionals already have to get scrappy to make a living starting out. Then factor in the cost of tuition, materials, and supporting yourself while not having a full-time income? It’s not possible without loans, and tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans doesn’t make sense for creative professionals to take on. What does graduate school have to offer designers that would make these huge sacrifices worth it? What does college offer for young creatives who are already making money designing?

For me, it seems the action is out here—learning from each other on Dribbble, Github, Skillshare, etc. As working designers, we can’t help but to be constantly consuming new information, finding incredible work and figuring out how to do things ourselves.

So what does this mean for formal education as a part of the creative’s journey to a career? There are so many conversations about how the system is broken and too expensive, leaving us in debt and ill-prepared for the job market. How does our profession play into the larger picture of what may be a societal shift in how we value higher learning? What are the rules anymore about the type of education required by employers of graphic and web designers? Will college and graduate school soon be only for academic or humanities-based careers?

From what I can tell, for today’s designers and developers it is more important to demonstrate being an independent learner rather than to have degree credentials. I’m happy to be doing what I’m doing, working in the day and age I am—where I feel my work is more valuable than where or how long I went to school. I get the feeling my training as a designer lies not in the hallowed halls of a post-secondary institution, but out here, learning from an international, rapidly changing community of design professionals.

There was a drop of sweat dripping from my brow. It had been like this for the past few hours as I chipped away at completing the task at hand. What I had before me was a challenge, that is, a new opportunity to completely reinvent myself once more and make a masterpiece. This is one of the many beauties behind the life of a designer: creating sustainable products that break the barriers of time and burn into the memories of individuals. That motto never lacks a challenge and neither does our vast community. Ricardo Housham put it perfectly:

“People, it’s not always about trying to fix things that are broken. Sometimes its about challenging yourself to let it go and move on, start again, create something bigger, better, brighter and more meaningful!”

A few weeks ago, I posted a tweet saying, “Always strive to be at a place where you feel challenged as a creator.” It was only after I went back to it that I realized how important this actually was, not just in our line of work, but in our lives in general. Once we begin to stop challenging ourselves, we hit rock bottom and become bored, and boredom is the most detrimental thing to the creative mind. Boredom drains our excitement and with it, the reason why we do what we do. Don’t let that excitement die. Lita Albuquerque said it best when speaking about her career in design:

“Sometimes I’m amazed that I spend my days creating magic and fantasy…It’s like connecting with the inner child in me; I’m just having a great time, and I’m chuckling to myself that this is really happening, that I can do this with my life.”

Whenever I see imposing work someone in our community created, my brain explodes with wonder as to how it was made, and it’s only when I push myself that I discover the answer is not as far off as it seems. It’s with the same passion we discover one of the greatest challenges in our field: being original. To some, it comes naturally, while to others it’s a path filled with trial and error. Once you find that sweet spot, you’ll know it.

I can draw back on when I started to enter the field of web and user interface design from an almost purely video and print background. To say it was hard is an understatement. I took this as a new challenge, spending hours working my way through tutorials, books, and forums. I can’t say that the thought of giving up didn’t cross my mind once or twice—but for one reason or another, I kept going.

I spent many late nights on YouTube and Google, I even took up a web design course. In the end I learned a lot, and looking back, I enjoyed it. Work I used to have to sub-out I was able to do, and at that point this new skill had become my full-time occupation. Skip ahead a few weeks and I was getting work inquiries for my newfound skills—and to think, I was so close to quitting something I ended up loving so much just because it was difficult.

Staying challenged keeps us fresh. Without a challenge, we hardly have motivation and purpose—and lack of purpose is a sure sign that things will fall apart. Go push yourself and don’t be afraid to try something new. We all make mistakes. Maybe you’ll hate it. I hope you love it.

I believe, especially in a creative professional’s life, there is a tendency to garner prestige surrounding awards, job titles, and clients, rather than focus on the details in our work. The pursuit of prestige comes naturally to us, yet it is frequently interpreted as the pursuit of excellence with the goal of recognition.

Pursuing recognition as reward without the input of excellence is a short-lived race; it loses meaning quickly and sets shallow unrealistic expectations. In 2006, Y-Combinator founder, Paul Graham wrote an article called How to Do What You Love where he said,

“Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige.”

Like anything else, recognition is earned only when you’ve put in hard work to make it the best it can be for both yourself and your client. We should not be working for the single purpose of being recognised as its creators. We should be working for the purpose of making things better for people we haven’t met yet.

With each new project is the opportunity to outdo our last. When stuck in a rut, we learn quickly by necessity in order to better ourselves. I believe the best work is produced when there is absolute synergy between the designer and the client with an emphasis on quality over sensational appeal. Only at this point do we succeed in surrendering our pursuit of prestige and ultimately deliver honest work of which one can feel proud.

In retrospect, I see many of the decisions I have made in my career so far have been for the possibility of prestige or recognition, as I mistakenly thought that it was the best way to reward my ambition. This year, I chose to become self-employed, giving me the chance to focus on projects that are interesting and meaningful to me, no matter the size or popularity.

Further Media:

Paul Graham, How to Do What You Love
Alain de Botton’s TED talk: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success