How to be a better designer in 5 steps…

There are all sorts of blogs and tutorials out there to help designers with certain techniques or to achieve a particular effect in Photoshop etc, but there aren’t too many on the practicalities of being a designer. I have decided to list a few that have either come to me naturally as demanded or were taught to me by people who knew what they were talking about… Which brings me to point 1:

Respect and listen to your “elders.”

Namely, people that know something that you don’t. And it need not be just about design…. Have some humility about yourself. The fact of the matter is – nobody knows it all. But many of us know something that no other is privy to. The internet is great – it’s a great resource for information, but it’s rubbish when it comes to practical experience, everything is virtual. If possible, learn from someone you can sit down and talk with, or even better learn from those you have a chance to work with. All truth dies in the mind unless lived out in practice (or practical experience). Be an experience hog.

Learn to design for print and bear the poor printer & repro guys in mind.

I used to think, “if I can display it on screen then it should be possible to print.” No. There are so many things to think about when designing for print that it seems like a minefield… I think it can be made simpler if you bear the following points in mind.

• Pay attention to spot colours if you plan to print in CMYK; Pantone colours look cool, but are not all reproduce-able in 4-colour… Oranges, Blues, and greens can shift dramatically. It’s much better to have control over this process and convert these colours to CMYK early in the project so you get used to the way they look. Also, as a side note, pay attention to Pantone colours used in EPS files.

• Include funky fonts with your job! (Or, if you are worried about font usage issues, learn how to make high quality PDFs. Make sure you learn about the use of spot colours in PDFs also.)

• Come to terms with the fact that your super-vibrant RGB image will change when in CMYK. But…. it won’t be as dull as you think it will by glancing at the on screen Photoshop CMYK representation.If you really want something to look like pure colour use 100% CMYK values… Good strong blue? 100% Cyan, a little bit of black or magenta to taste. And so on.

• Be kind to your print minder’s eyes. Use as few CYMK colours as possible for text… You and your client will thank you later for not using that slate grey/green colour. Paper can stretch while feeding through that press, so sometimes four-colour text can be impossible to register. The same rule applies to fine lines also.

• Be careful with registration black! It looks black on screen, but it’s really all four colours. Don’t use it for text. At all.

• Learn about paper types; Gloss = most vivid colours. Satin/Silk = medium. Matt = mildly dull colours. Pulp board = dull colours. (See above with regards to pure colours. Personally I think pulp board can look class if used correctly.)

• Lastly, overprint text is a godsend for printers. Use it when you can.

You will not always use the best design.

Remember the humble part above? The same rule applies here… we are in the service industry. Personally, I wish I could use the coolest and most interesting design that I imagine for each client, but…the client is the client. Designers see work by other designers and think that it’s really clever or really hit the mark, but it may have only hit the mark with designers. *Your* best design may not be the *best* design. keep the real world needs of the client and their target audience in mind. It’s quite a bitter pill but sometimes it just works out that way.

Talk to your client before it’s too late.

There’s a point of no return with customers. You reach it by not working on their project while allowing them to think that you are. Talk to them in some way. After all, it wasn’t a robot that hired you, perhaps they will understand?

Lastly (at long last?), be verbose in emails.

Documentation is really important. Be clear but be careful with your words. Not everyone is familiar with our terminology – and jokes can display wrongly in text, so make sure you leave no room for doubt. Also encourage some kind of full response – if you are clear and your customer is clear, then it should help your really great project to be even greater.