Episode 1. – What do I need to become a Designer?

What do I need to become a Designer? That is a question everyone asks who is interested to work in the creative industry. Most of the time you will find the answer to your question is that you need to be creative and passionate. But how can one measure these qualities? And how can you tell whether you are good enough?First of all being a designer is not only about choosing fancy fonts and pretty colors 🙂 It is real work with real clients and real deadlines. Getting paid for something you love to do is great, but you have to understand that you have lots of responsibilities too just like others.Being creative is a crucial attitude. I wouldn’t call it a skill or talent. I don’t want to go into a whole discussion about talent, but in my opinion everyone can be good at something they are passionate about. It is more about the hard work and dedication to do great design than being talented. Talent means more like a focused effort to achieve something than a gift that one was born with. But returning to creativity, the reason why I said it is more like an attitude is because you don’t always have to be creative. No one can do that or should do that. To work as a designer you will have to switch between creative and productive mode all the time. It is like two different mindset. When you are creative you can come up with crazy ideas and explore and innovate, but you shouldn’t stay in this state of mind for too long. It is very tiring and it won’t take you anywhere without a constructive plan. For that reason you have to be able to switch from your creative mode to productive mode, when you are much more focused and disciplined. In this mode you are planning and following steps to achieve your goals.

Having said all this you can see that being organised and focused is just as important for a designer as being creative. So it is definitely not all about creativity. I met great designers who were not the best at coming up with ideas but they were amazingly productive once they had a clear direction, because they worked out a routine, which they could follow and they learnt the techniques needed to do cool looking design.

Don’t confuse artists and designers! Artists would spend much more time being in the creative zone than a designer. An artist doesn’t have to be productive all the time, while a designer has to deliver to serious deadlines. The way I look at this is that as a designer you will never be bored switching between being an artist and a craftsman.

Passion of course is a must. More important than creativity or talent. Passion is your engine that drives you through hardships in your career and in your life. You have to find your passion to be able to do something that you will enjoy doing. A small percentage of the population actually do what they are passionate about. That is one of the main reasons why there is so much depression in the world.

How can you tell whether you are passionate about design or not? That is easy. Just answer to these questions with yes or no:
– Have you ever stopped at an advert on the street wondering how did they create such a cool looking poster?
– Have you ever spent minutes for choosing a font for an invitation or greeting card?
– Have you ever bought a product just because the packaging looks better than the other similar products?

If you replied to any of these questions with a yes, then you are likely to be passionate about design. The level of your passion is hard to measure, but it can be fuelled by inspiring stuff. I will talk about inspiration in greater detail further in the course, but remember your passion is your engine. You need it to be able to work hard and go the extra mile.

So as a conclusion to this topic we can say that you need to be a hard worker who is passionate about design if you want to become a designer. Never say that you are not good enough to do something. I will help you to understand everything you need to know about becoming and being a designer and by the end of this course you will be able to tell whether you feel passionate about it or not. Becoming good at anything takes time.