When being (just) a designer is not enough

One of the problems with the current market is that being (just) a designer, in the meaning of ability of “drawing pretty pictures” is not enough if you want to be actually able to sell your stuff to someone. In this post I’ll try to round-up some skills modern designer needs to embrace if he wants a success in the market. With a ‘designer’ in this post I mean people who need to work with applied design, like industrial, print or web designers, but some of the points should work well for everyone. Anyway, here’s the list.

Mastery of limitations

No matter if you’re an industrial, web or print designer, you should know and apply the rules you need to keep to “make it work”. As someone who needs to design things that work, no matter if it’s new Kawasaki bike, poster or website, you need to know the limitations that the production process puts on your back. Nobody, and I repeat that, nobody ever, will buy your project if it’s not possible to make it work in the real world. So, the web designer for example should have a strong background in front-end development – CSS, HTML limitations, some knowledge of browser hacks to know that putting this shadow there could cost more work than it’s worth it. Print business got a bit easier with digital printers lately, but if you want to work with offset or other classic print techniques, you should master the art of CMYK mixing just for your own good night sleep, not spending another evening fixing this greyish-black to black just because it’s gonna print with a halo.

Viral Marketing

No matter what’s your specialty, you can’t just design and wait for someone to come. You need to know basics of marketing, especially viral marketing. Experience shows that if people talk about you, they buy your stuff, even if it’s not that perfect in your opinion. If you think that you’ll design something, post few pics on the web and become rich – I’m sorry, but you can’t be more wrong. Unluckily for you, whole bunch of web users does not care about you and no – nobody on the web has a notification screen popping up if you posted something on the web. That’s why using broad spectrum of media to communicate the world “I’m here” is a must.

Personal Branding

That’s connected to the previous point more than you would think. In the age of information noise, you need to know how to market yourself, too. You can’t just put an info on your Twitter page and hope that someone will see it – even if you have lots of followers, the conversion ratio is incredibly low, so you have to spend some time to build your online (and offline) brand. Get a logo, get a website (or at least a portfolio on Behance), post interesting stuff on your blog and Twitter. Embrace social media – post your stuff in designer-focused sites like Creattica, Behance Network or Designers’Couch. If you have a blog, broaden the range of your readers by posting your links on lists like Inspired News. Make your brand visible, using the tools you have available.

Local Labour Law

If you’re planning to be a freelancer (and I aim this article mostly at freelancers), you need to spend some quality time by digging through your local labour law and copyright/intellectual property papers. You might want to consult a lawyer (freelance lawyers are good at this, and often their rates are much more friendly than lawfirms) with a draft of a contract that you want to give to your customers to make sure it’s 100% O. K. and – also – you won’t be in trouble of someone not paying you or requiring extra work under a threat of lawsuit. Contract you have needs to be solid or else you’ll end up doing free work, having problems with showcasing your work or not getting paid. FreelanceSwitch has a great list of 12 things you need to include in your design contract, which can be used to secure you and your clients. You also need to make sure what kind of contracts exist in your local labour law and how do they correspond to your rates, taxes you pay and stuff like that – freelancing from the jail is a no-no. ;)

Well, that would be all from my insights on skills you need to have when being a modern designer. As usual, if you have any comments or additions to this list, feel free to drop it below the post or ping me on Twitter.