• What is graphic design?
• What are the creative directions of graphic design?
• Is graphic design art?
• Why is graphic design important?
• What skills are needed to reach success in graphic design?
• Can you be a graphic designer without drawing skills?

Let’s get started with theory, practice, and a big set of examples from studio designers.

Logo design

Business cards

Truck livery design for Andre Landscape

Interface illustration for a Colony landing page

Storyboard: illustrations for Binned promo video

Title illustration for blog article

Stickers design

Badges for Pukapal app

Illustration for Opera promo video

Character design for Toonie Alarm

Book cover design

Theme poster-style illustration

Is Graphic Design Art?

In short, no, most professionals in this sphere do not position or call themselves artists.

Defining art, Merriam-Webster dictionary describes it as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects”. The objects of art are appreciated mostly for their beauty, aesthetic value and emotional appeal. And all that is not the primary goal set for design.

Graphic designer’s job could be described as building a bridge between the art and the functional goal-centered design. They mix the power of art and functionality within the limits of particular goals and a definite audience. “Good design is a lot like clear thinking made visual,” said Edward Tufte and that is a cool definition showing what graphic designers strive to achieve.

It’s easy to see that graphic design covers various aspects of human life dealing with visual communication, from books and posters to complex mobile apps or 3D animation. Supported by research, analysis, and testing, graphics enhance usability, strengthen branding and provide a positive user experience. That is the point where art and functionality merge and meld for the sake of making people happier by solving problems and satisfying wishes.

Theme illustration for a dating app landing page

Why Is Graphic Design Important?

This question is often asked and not so easy to answer. One of the reasons why this professional field has such a broad presence in our lives lies in the fact that people are mostly visual creatures. We tend to perceive images faster than words. We are influenced by colors and shapes. We respond to characters and symbols. We need prompts and visual hierarchy. We are dependent on emotions and feelings. The list may be prolonged – and graphic design is what makes the difference.

It rarely occurs that the object of graphic design serves only one objective. Let’s look into the core goals set for graphic assets.

Identification

This aspect deals primarily with branding, first of all, logos which set the foundation for a brand strategy. Designers have to consider multiple factors regarding the target audience, laws and rules of artistic harmony, the psychology of color and shape, impact on human perception and emotions, the current conditions on the market as well as business goals of the brand or company. Moreover, visual images are memorable which enhances brand awareness.

Whizzly logo design

Beauty

Beauty means much as it works like a hook for the users or viewers dealing with visual stuff from advertising to book covers, cartoons, user interfaces of all kinds, packaging, photos and loads of other things. We tend to be emotionally and aesthetically engaged. Although content and functionality are crucial for problem-solving, people still live by the unwritten rule that a good dress is a card of invitation. Attractive appearance is highly important to engage users in trying a product, watching a video, especially regarding the modern intense competition. Graphic design also becomes a powerful tool for UI beautification from small details like icons to significant elements like illustrations and mascots.

Travel app landing page

Event branding for Behance Portfolio Reviews Dnipro

Theme and mood

Visual elements, as well as copy, not only transfer the message but also set the tone and voice of communication. It may be reached with a background, typography, composition, color palette, shapes and sizes, stylistic approaches that inform the user about the product from the first seconds of contact. Visual perception plays a big role in decision-making, especially in cases of introduction: short minutes or even seconds are vital to get the user interested. As well, following popular trends, graphic designers give the object up-to-date look which is an essential factor of trust for many users.

Illustration for a blog article on UI navigation

Explanation, information, and guiding

This aspect is presented both in print assets and digital interfaces in various tutorials, manuals, tool-tips, guides, etc. A picture is really worth a thousand words: it saves precious time and helps to avoid big copy blocks. Even more, graphics based on a thorough analysis of the target audience turn on the mechanism of empathy and emotional appeal.

Style guide for Binned

Navigation improvement

Custom graphic elements are a great way to improve navigation and boost usability. Practice shows it has a great impact on conversions and retaining readers, providing an easy flow of journey through the website or app, map or city navigation. In addition, all this positive influence is supported by aesthetic pleasure if visual performance is consistent and keeps a harmonic composition.

Custom artistic icons for categories of Cuteen app

Characters boosting communication

Personification applied appropriately is a factor of positive user experience, it strengthens the brand image and brand awareness. That is why mascots and characters often become a part of a design concept and content strategy. And here graphic designers can show their best. Efficient mascots corresponding to expectations of the target audience provide originality and flow of communication which is closer to natural.

Toonie mascot and stickers design

Stylish copy

This is all about typography, the important branch of graphic design dealing with letters as a design object. Copy applied to various products should be not only legible and readable but also nice, attractive and emotional. In cases of lettering for branding, it also adds such vital features as originality and recognizability.

Creative lettering for theme illustration

What Skills Are Needed to Reach Success in Graphic Design?

Requirements to the specialists in graphic design often include the following:

• technical artistic skills and preferably qualification in some sort of visual art
• artistic talent and creative nature
• good artistic eye and feeling of harmony
• ability to draw well
• good skills in composition and visual analysis
• ability to work on the analysis of the target audience and possible options of communication with it
• ability to apply different techniques of drawing and painting, preferably both with manual and digital tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, etc.)
• ability to learn and self-improve all the time as the sphere is extremely dynamic and diverse, etc.

So, if you want to build your career in this sphere, it could be helpful to think about which of the mentioned positions you feel strong in and which ones need to be improved. As well, nowadays it’s vital to be quite flexible in applying diverse design tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. So, practice and training are needed all the time to get prepared for modern design tasks.

Coming from the side of knowledge, it would be very useful to get some knowledge about color theory, psychology, strategies and design flow for branding and marketing, negotiation skills, basics of business and sales, and other stuff that gets designer closer to clients and final users. In addition, it gives a broader outlook and makes the process of sharing creative ideas more natural and productive.

You may also be interested to check the article in which the Udemy instructor explains what you need to become a graphic designer.

The creative process for App Shack logo design

Can You Be a Graphic Designer Without Drawing Skills?

Well, in short: if we are talking about graphic design without high goals for success, yes, it may happen that you can earn their living in the sphere without great skills in drawing. Still, on the ground of practice, in the cases when a graphic designer aims at professional growth, a cool career, and really interesting projects, drawing skills and knowledge of academic drawing theory are a vital condition of success.

To get a bit deeper, it’s worth mentioning that in some other spheres of design it happens that you can be a high-level professional without being skillful in drawing (still, graphic design definitely doesn’t belong to them). For example, in the current conditions of the UI design field, with a variety of tools and hundreds of stocks with graphic assets like icons, illustrations, and photos, these resources may be enough for creating some kinds of interfaces. However, those who strive for originality, functional and unique graphics for their projects will create them from scratch or delegate these tasks to graphic designers. And the great high-quality graphic assets are basically grounded in great knowledge and skills of drawing and painting. Unlike other spheres, in graphic design, it is the core to be able to draw if you aim at success.

Art school and lessons of academic drawing in its classic form give a broad and solid artistic basis of composition, coloristic, drawing and painting techniques, history of arts. Adding to them the hours of elaborate training in which you practice hand-drawing, painting, sketching, ocular estimation, ability to see and transfer the lightest shades and shadows and the like, you get much stronger, more skillful and diverse as an artist. This is actually the best basis for creating nice, stylish and high-quality graphics with the complexity of any level required.

As for real examples, graphic designers at Tubik Studio do have the remarkable basis of professional training and academic qualification starting from several years of intensive studying in art schools and then moving up with majors in architecture, visual arts, and design. With all that stuff, mastering design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Procreate and combining it with the knowledge of modern trends in digital design and art, they have worked out their personal artistic style and have developed it more and more in actual design projects accomplished by the studio as well as design concepts.

Creating illustrations and icons for real UI/UX designs and testing them in combination with other elements, working on logos and other branding elements, practicing hand-sketching and drawing as well as digital illustrations just for developing better and faster use of software, they get to the solutions which are original, beautiful and functional. Sure, this is a personal opinion based on long-term design research and day-by-day work with a team of designers.

Sketching for Winter Olympics illustration

Today’s brief FAQ review is over, but new answers are coming soon, stay tuned!

Useful Reading

Flat Design. History and Modern Practices

Design Glossary: Basic Color Terminology

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

State of the Art: 15 Creative Graphic Design Concepts

Illustration Case Study: Winter Olympics Illustration Step-by-Step

How to Create Catchy Flat Illustrations: Designer’s Tips

Small Item, Big Impact: Types of UI Icons

6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding

Creative Stages of Logo Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Creative Jobs: What Graphic Designers Do появились сначала на Design4Users.

What is KRUPA conference?

KRUPA is the biggest interface design conference in Eastern Europe. The event is held on April 6, 2019, in Kyiv. It gathers global design stars, UX leaders, aspiring designers, and UX teams, developing networking opportunities and raising design industry in Ukraine to a new level.

• 13 fantastic speakers are coming to the event from all over the world to share their real-life experience.
• 3000 attendees. KRUPA attendees are driven and focused interface designers, product managers, and design directors. It’s the biggest interface design related gathering in Eastern Europe.
• Cool venue. The conference is held in Sports Palace—a sports and concert complex located in the center of Kyiv, within walking distance from the subway station with the same name. Its capacity will allow comfortably accommodate spectators, food courts and entertainment. Indoor sports games, concerts, major exhibitions, and fairs are held in this hall.

Here’s a quick glance at the previous conference in 2018 whose keynote speaker was famous UX design guru Alan Cooper.

Reasons to attend Krupa in 2019

Touch the legend: for the first time in Ukraine, Don Norman, a design legend and the author of the term User Experience, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group and author of The Design of Everyday Things.

Get global insights with speakers from the USA, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Israel, and Ukraine. Join the experience of various participants in the global UX world.

Join a powerful community of specialists. Meet designers from Smashing Magazine, Airbnb, Figma, Wix, Mozilla, Soundcloud, Tubik Studio, Lun.ua, The23.design, and CloudMade.

Feel the creative drive at the largest conference on design interfaces in Eastern Europe.

Try the big platform of networking with other designers and specialists from various companies.

Speakers in 2019

Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group Partner

Vitaly Friedman, Smashing Magazine editor-in-chief

Cole Mercer, ex-product manager at Soundcloud.com

Guillermo Torres, Airbnb Product Designer, ex-Google, Adobe

Zach Grosser, designer educator at Figma, ex-Square, Apple

Lior Pinco, Design director for Wix.com

Max Shirko, The23 creative director, curator at Projector

Alexander Ivanov, Head of Product at ЛУН and Flatfy, curator at Projector

Takeshi Horiuchi, UX Director for Age of Learning

Dmitry Starkov, senior UX designer at CloudMade

Sergey Valiukh, Tubik Studio creative director

Anna Kuntsman Rozenberg Creative Director Wix.com

Amin Al Hazwani, User Experience Designer at Mozilla Firefox

What does it feel like?

To get more insights into the atmosphere of the upcoming conference, let us share some photos from KRUPA 2018.

More information about speakers and the overall agenda can be found on the conference website. Join in!

Don’t miss the collection of inspiring TED-talks for designers and the list of handy tools for the UI/UX design process. 

Сообщение Design Events: KRUPA Conference for UI/UX Designers появились сначала на Design4Users.

The question is definitely great and the answer, in particular, can be important for the young specialists who are considering this career. Not only in terms of humanity, but also in terms of yourself adding something to the global progress. Whatever people tell about money as the key point, in creative spheres there is a variety of research showing that designers need the feeling of creative growth and participation in global progress not less than a good salary. One of the articles in Harvard Business Blog mentions three big reasons that are common in making people happy at work: a meaningful vision of the future, a sense of purpose, and great relationships. Specifying the sense of purpose, they state: “People want to feel as if their work matters, and that their contributions help to achieve something really important. And except for those at the tippy top, shareholder value isn’t a meaningful goal that excites and engages them. They want to know that they — and their organizations — are doing something big that matters to other people.” Being aware of the destinations and seeing themselves the part of globally important processes, people tend to make the choice of a particular career as good for them.

Without getting dip into the sphere, you can see UX designers like people working out endless flows of screens. At the first sight for many people who don’t deal with all the aspects, this job looks neither interesting nor creative. And the aspect of its value for humanity also seems to be not so obvious. Here in Tubik, we’ve been lucky to see the sphere of UX design high and deep, in all its diversity, creating digital products for companies worldwide. And what we’ve seen and taken part in, makes us certain to answer: UX designers do provide considerable value for humanity.

Before starting the list of aspects for this value, let’s check the terminology. In one of the issues of UI/UX Design Glossary, we described UX in the following way: it is the general attitude and emotional feedback that the user has at different stages of using the product. In terms of digital products, such as websites or applications, UX is a comprehensive term involving all the possible stages of user engagement. UX is based on several key factors such as usability, utility, desirability, attractiveness, speed of work, etc. If all the logic and possible issues of product implementation into real life are analyzed and designed properly, it forms a positive user experience which means that users are able to satisfy their needs in a fast, easy, and pleasant way. Positive user experience remains one of the strongest factors of retaining users.

Working on the UX for a digital product such as a website or mobile app, UX designers have to concentrate on such aspects as:

• usability (the product is convenient, clear, logical, and easy to use)
• utility (the product provides useful content and solves users’ problems)
• accessibility (the product is convenient for different categories of users)
• desirability (the product is attractive and problem-solving, it retains users and creates a positive experience which they are ready to repeat).

All of the mentioned positions present the value for people in terms of particular operations done day in and day out as well as global processes in different spheres like commerce and business, education, management, housekeeping, communications, and so on, and so forth. On the ground of everything above mentioned, we could assume several points of the value which UX designers provide to humanity creating a wide variety of digital products.

What are the values brought by UX designers?

1. They support fast, easy, and productive communication worldwide via products like various messengers, social networks, etc. Communication is one of the key reasons why people turn to websites and apps, and its flow has a great impact on user’s life, from personal chats with family and friends to professional online conferences and business negotiations. To create a user experience for this purpose, designers have to study the needs of the audience and offer the appropriate solutions which will make the product helpful for getting in touch with other people.

StarDust Bikers Website

2. They support international collaboration working over successful experience for apps enabling productive work within a team scattered around. Today the world has a number of applications and tools enabling professionals to work effectively from different places. That creates new business contacts and supports a great variety of international projects. And by the way, sets the ground for creating new workplaces, raising profits, and developing welfare which, no doubt, sounds like credible value. The platforms, apps, tools, and software enabling specialists from different cities, countries, and continents to operate in a big number of professional activities, all have user experience designers behind them.

3. They support the everyday life of millions of people with digital products that solve actual problems (like to-do lists or apps for taking notes), inform (like news websites or different blogs), and entertain (like apps for listening to music and watching films as well as tons of games). Every day, using quite basic and simple things like alarms, news platforms, video apps, or music players, most users don’t even imagine the simplicity of those interfaces and navigation which makes all the flow intuitive is the result of thorough work which takes many hours. User experience designers are the ones who have to build these products helpful and pleasant-to-use on the balance of applied content, target audience, and business goals.

Upper App

4. They support and improve core spheres of human life like health care, education, commerce, and self-expression. In this aspect, UX designers are contributors to different fields of human growth and development. They create the flows of interactions and layouts for educational websites, applications used in medical treatment and health care, data analysis, technical support, and other directions. Add to it the variety of specialized platforms where people share their creative outcomes like artworks, music, or pieces of writing – all of them need experience and interactions appropriate for these needs.

Health Care App

5. They make technology more accessible which means closer to people of different ages and nationalities, levels of education and tech literacy, physical and mental abilities, or disabilities. User research is one of the core parts of UX design, and one of the objectives is finding the solutions for problems, which could make using the product hard and tricky for some categories of users. Diligent UX designers aim at creating products that will be inclusive and accessible for users of different abilities.

6. They support the concept of non-stop learning through life via educational and information resources. Motion is life, and motion through the ocean of information around is not an easy part of it. People are born with natural curiosity, the wish of getting knowledge, and being informed. UX designers contribute to this eternal human movement creating flows at which users, readers, learners will not get lost under the tons of data. They apply the techniques and methods of information architecture to make the interfaces organized and problem-solving for their readers.

Birds of Paradise Encyclopedia

7. They respond to the human need for harmony and aesthetic satisfaction finding the ways to make digital products both useful and beautiful. There are many people who support the idea that digital products of today should be minimalist and purely functional. However, life is not just like that: practice shows that people want to both solve the problems and feel aesthetic satisfaction using apps and websites. The balance of these things is included in the responsibilities of UX designers.

Calendar App

8. They support products that simplify and automate decent mechanic processes saving time for activities applying creative human energy. More and more products nowadays, including chatbots, are able to automate simple things, for example, scheduling, computing, checking grammar in writing, analyzing and organizing received data, etc. Those things allow people to accomplish some tasks faster and easier and free their time for more creative tasks which machines cannot do. This is one more side of a positive user experience.

NGIN App

9. They keep the balance between the rational and irrational parts of human life and activity. UX designers work on the crossroads of rational and emotional sides of human life: creating apps and websites, they have to consider both logical thinking and typical interaction models as well as the emotional background which can greatly influence user behavior.

Cinema App

10. They make beauty working and logical as well as they make simple operations beautified and pleasant to the human eye. No special comments are needed. UX designers know how to get an efficient combination of beauty and functionality, doing it in the way which the particular product and audience require.

Home Budget app

Surely, this list is not full as well as the issue is not so purely positive. There are many aspects of the job of UX designers, some of which are inspiring while others are challenging or confusing. Still, we suppose the given positions are a good ground to believe that the job of UX designer is the one creating real value which has plenty of shades and tones. On the other hand, this variety of values added by the representatives of the given professional field brings out the number of responsibilities for the job, which should be also considered and kept in mind.

The life of UX designers is not the life of a magician flying in silver clouds and saving the world with every move of a hand. No, it’s a flow of rigorous research and analysis, creative effort, and review of the slightest details – and many other things to mention, as well as in any other job. However, that is definitely the job that brings something precious to the humanity of today and tomorrow.

Useful reading

Creative Jobs: What Graphic Designers Do

3C of Interface Design: Color, Contrast, Content

5 Basic Types of Images in Web Design

Functional Art: 10 Big Reasons to Apply Illustrations in UI Design

UX Design: How to Make Web Interface Scannable

Negative Space in Design: Tips and Best Practices

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение How User Experience Designers Bring Value to the World появились сначала на Design4Users.

Some people got used to thinking that only marketing specialists do all the job in branding. However, if you say it to professional designers, they’ll tell you how wrong you are. As an American graphic designer Paul Rand said: «Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.» The article tells about the essence of branding as well as the role of design in it. Also, we’ll define the key stages of effective brand creation.

What is branding?

Lately, the word “brand” has been commonly used as some trendy thing, especially in the fashion industry, so many people forget its true essence. According to BusinessDictionary, a brand is a unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors. In other words, a brand is a visual representation which people correlate with a company or a product. An effective brand identity is the one which customers associate with a high level of credibility and quality.

However, powerful branding depends not only on aesthetic features of brand elements but on the details such as message and emotional appeal standing behind it. To create a proper brand identity, designers need to get deep into the details about business goals as well as do research on the market and its target audience. Here we’ve divided a branding process into six essential stages which designers need to go through on the way of brand creation.

The creative process of branding design for Andre

Stage 1. Business goals and brand personality

Of course, it’s not a designer who sets the goals of a company or defines its personality still it is a foundation for all the branding processes. To receive the expected results, the company has to set the priorities and values at the start point so that the crew working on branding could see which way to go. They do not necessarily need to be defined and used for all the cycle of brand existence. The goals can be modified later during a creative process but it’s vital to have some directives in the beginning.

Moreover, before designers start working on a visual part, they need to identify the character which the company or product wants to present. Designing a brand without this knowledge is like drawing a portrait from a photograph. You can do the copy quite right but the work won’t have an emotion in it. The same is with branding. If the clients didn’t provide a designer with a description characterizing their company, it’s good to ask for it. For example, designers can ask customers to make a list of 4-5 keywords describing their business, or at least what they want a company to be.

Practice shows that not all clients come to designers prepared. They may not think of details and ask only for an attractive visual presentation that will bring success to their business. There is nothing remarkable about it. Clients often see designers like artists creating beautiful pictures and you can’t expect them to know all the peculiarities of designers’ workflow.

In one of our previous articles, we’ve mentioned the role of psychology in design. It can be quite helpful on the way of understanding users’ behavior and their possible reactions to the design. Moreover, psychology principles can help designers establish effective communication with clients. There are many customers who are not certain about their desires and preferences and that’s when psychology assists. If a designer finds proper questions to ask, it will be easier to create a guide based on the client’s wish.

Corporate identity for Binned

Stage 2. Market and user research

When the goals are set and a company’s personality seems clear, designers go to the research work. This step is essential for all kinds of designer’s job, be it a logo or a mobile app. The research helps to immerse into the environment of the future brand and comprehend the peculiarities which may influence its success.

First goes the market research. Designers dig out the information about the market and potential competitors. It’s good to learn from someone’s experience be it good or bad. Having the necessary data experts can create a unique and efficient logo and build a brand identity that will stand out from the competition.

Designers and clients’ preferences should step aside to the needs of the target audience. A brand needs to make a good impression on its potential buyers or users to gain their trust. User research helps to get deeper into the preferences and psychological peculiarities of the target audience.

The design is not pure art. If you rely exceptionally on the sense of beauty and talent, there is a risk of failing the task. Research takes less time compared to doing the job over.

Stickers designed for Reborn

Stage 3. Logo design

Some people often mistake a logo for a brand but it is only one stage in the process of branding. However, it would be wrong to underestimate the role of logo design. It is the basic mark of brand identity, the most prominent symbol of brand image and the foundation of an effective marketing strategy enabling its connection with the target audience.

In our article Creative Stages of Efficient Logo Design, we’ve described essential stages of the creative process in logo design. They are:

• setting the task
• user research
• marketing research
• creative search
• choice of style direction
• choice of color palette
• testing in different sizes and environments
• creating a style guide setting right and wrong cases of logo use etc.

Logo design for Passfold

One of the aspects the research includes is exploring logos of the competitive companies. It helps to avoid unnecessary similarity with other logos in the sector and make an original brand identity.

When all the core information is gathered, designers move to the more artistic stage – the creative process itself. By the means of various experiments, they choose the style direction and color palette which will work best for a brand.

After the logo is complete, designers start the testing part. The thing is that not everything looking good on a digital screen will be the same in a different environment or variety of surfaces. That’s why it’s vital to test the logo in all possible situations and placements to make sure there won’t be an unpleasant surprise.

Logo design plays a big part in branding, so designers are recommended to pay a big attention to its creative process. A well-thought logo is worth time investment.

Logo animation for Binned

Stage 4. Visual elements of brand

Logo design is not the only visual representation of a brand. Certainly, the major focus will always be a logo but there are some more elements deserving the attention such as mascots and typography.

Companies often look for ways of personalizing a brand and designers have a solution. Mascots are the custom design characters created to represent the brand in a quite symbolic way. They can be created as a part of a logo or exist as an individual brand element. Such characters can establish a connection with users as nothing else. A mascot serves as a tool for communication and interaction with users helping to transfer the message in an unusual manner. People start to see a mascot as a major representative of a company introducing them a product or a service. The efficient mascot guarantees recognizability and memorability to a brand and easily draws users’ attention.

Mascot design for Saily

Another visual element responsible for brand identity is typography. Many logos are created via typography or contain fonts in it but typography doesn’t end here. Banners, business cards, correspondence a company applies should involve brand identity signs as well. You can make fonts also speak for your brand. Designers often create custom fonts for companies to be unique even in such small details. However, it’s not the only option. Experts may choose a combination of regular fonts that will suit a certain brand best. This way users will easier remember a brand because of its consistency in every detail.

Logo design for Reborn

Stage 5. Corporate brand style

When the logo is ready, the color palette is chosen, and other visual elements are prepared, it’s time to unite them into harmonic corporate style. It is required when a designer works on branding for companies providing services. Various attributes can become a branded item depending on the type of company. There are some common brand items which are used by different companies:

Business card. Today it’s a must-have item in business communication so it’s vital to make sure a business card represents a brand properly.

Business cards designed for Binned

Correspondence. Business communication always has a formal style. To show a brand is a reliable partner and service provider, designers need to work on its correspondence presentation. Letterheads and envelopes need to contain brand identity elements showing the professional level.

Envelope design for Reborn

Billboards and banners. They are a core part of branding and marketing so clients often ask designers to work on a creative idea for outdoor adverts and web banners.

Poster designed for Andre

Vehicle branding. Companies that provide product delivery need an effective decoration of the vehicle. Brand identity elements on the company cars or trucks are an efficient way of outdoor promotion.

Vehicle livery designed for Andre

T-shirt and hats. Clothes with brand marks bring the team spirit into a company so employers often take care of these attributes. Branded T-shirts and hats can be a good alternative to a uniform if it’s required or they can be used as presents.

Branded clothes designed for Binned

Stage 6. A style guide

The work is done. The visual material is complete. The last task for the designer is to make sure clients will use all the assets properly. A style guide is a document providing instructions about correct and wrong ways to use the graphics created for the brand. Traditionally, a style guide includes the explanation of the idea standing behind a logo as well as the presentation of a corporate color palette which can be used for different purposes. It can be good to demonstrate examples of incorrect usage in order to avoid poor visual performance.

Styleguide for Reborn

As you can see branding is a complex process. Each step should be well-thought, based on the needs of the target audience and business goals. To see more, welcome to check case studies on recent branding projects. Stay tuned!

Recommended reading

How to Use the Power of Mascots in Branding and UI Design

Animated Logos: Why, Where and How to Use

How Shape and Color Work in Logo Design: Practical Cases

Design Case Study. Corporate Brand Identity for a Landscape Firm

Logo Design. Creative Path to Effective Branding. Free E-Book.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding появились сначала на Design4Users.

What is the difference between UI/UX designer and programmer?

UI and UX design present different aspects of creative flow for digital products. Basically, UI design aims at creating an effective and attractive user interface while UX design aims at providing a positive user experience. Interaction with a product via the user interface is a part of user experience, so we UX design as a creative field is broader and includes UI design as its integral part.

Work on information architecture for a website UX

Working on the UX and UI for a digital product such as a website or mobile app, designers have to concentrate on such core aspects as:

• usability (the product is convenient, clear, logical and easy to use)
• utility (the product provides useful content and solves users’ problems)
• accessibility (the product is convenient for different categories of users)
• desirability (the product is attractive and problem-solving, it retains users and creates the positive experience which they are ready to repeat).

UI design of some screens for Home Budget App

Programmers or developers are people who actually build the website or mobile application planned and designed by UI/UX designers. They breathe life into the plan, with the code they create the live product which users can actually apply to solve their problems and satisfy wishes. Programmers transform the structure and visual performance thought out and created by designers into the real interface.

How interfaces look from the programmer’s point of view

Therefore, to see the difference, we can apply the metaphor of an actual construction site:

– UX designers are architects who come up with the general concept, its structure and the flow of interactions as well as a variety of factors which influence positive or negative user experience (in case of real building it could include transportation, quality of air, availability of shops and entertaining points, educations and sports facilities, neighbors, etc.).

– UI designers are architectural visualizers who find the best solutions for visual performance of the object corresponding to the style, the environment, user’s expectations, and aesthetic needs based on the already agreed architecture, structure, and core factors of interaction.

– Programmers are actual builders who create the final object in reality. As well as on the building site, they have various specializations: some are good in creating the foundation, others know how to realize visual features made by designers, and some of them work out effective interaction with this object in particular environments and for new requirements which can arise later.

Do UI/UX designers need to know computer science and programming to create top-quality user-friendly designs?

This is the question in which the terms should be clearly defined.

Computer science in its traditional understanding is a broad comprehensive study including theory and practices for making and using the computers (now it can also go further to other kinds of digital devices and gadgets). It is often characterized as the scientific and practical approach to computation as well as study, exploration, and automation of diverse operations with data. Therefore, the person with a major in computer studies is usually a specialist in the theory of computation and design of this sort of system and hardware.

In this perspective, yes, knowledge of computer studies is a great basis for creating problem-solving and user-friendly interfaces. UI/UX designers are professionals dealing with much more than just the looks of a website or an app: they think over the logic, transitions, usability, accessibility, emotional and aesthetic appeal, data presentation and lots of other things forming the whole user experience. Whatever is the way to get this knowledge – higher education, courses, apprenticeship, self-education, etc. – it underlies the necessary basis of knowledge which allows a designer to understand human-computer interaction for appropriate and effective design solutions. The knowledge of computer science is an important factor in being a competent designer of modern user interfaces.

As for programming, the situation is different. There are, basically, two camps of extreme positions. One side claims that programming/coding is the absolutely vital thing to know and you cannot provide really efficient UI/UX without knowing how to code. The other side believes that the knowledge of programming kills creativity in design as in this case designer is limited with the rules, standards and restrictions of development. Both positions are supported by numerous articles and discussions and both somehow make sense if you think about the issue in the perspective of real design projects.

On the basis of our team experience, it’s easy to state confidently: you definitely CAN be a competent and successful UI/UX designer for mobile and web with no background or major in programming.

Basically, the task of UI/UX designer is to analyze the target audience and their needs, to make a research, to create an efficient layout and well thought-out system of transitions, to wrap it in an attractive but highly usable and clear visual design and to test the solutions. UI/UX designer is not a developer: they work on the same product but from different sides, as well as for example a writer, an editor and a publisher work differently on the same book. However, it is obviously pleasant for developers if a UI/UX designer is able to produce designs that consider at least the basic limitations and points of programming and coding.

You can find a great bunch of successful experts in app and web design who have never had anything in common with the sphere of coding and development and provided great design solutions with a very high level of usability. Nevertheless, in the case of high-level specialists, it’s impossible to say that they are totally out of the issue. Designers, who are keen to create viable product designs, usually tend to get acknowledged with the general understanding of development basics. That really supports the designer in providing effective design as possible, considering all the stages of its creation and implementation. However, it doesn’t mean that without this sort of knowledge it’s impossible to create good designs. Moreover, if designers work in a team with developers, they can create designs without knowing how to code even easier as they are supported by developers who control the process from the perspective of coding.

The happy medium should be found in this issue without any extreme positions. If designers tear themselves too far away from development reality, they risk losing viability of their designs and could end up having a great deal of amazing and terrific concepts none of which will be implemented in real products. On the other hand, if designers concentrate too much on the limitations of coding, they risk becoming unable to think out of the box and provide original design ideas. Keeping a wise balance provides harmony.

So, to sum up, a person can become a successful UI/UX designer not knowing programming and development; however, this kind of knowledge can be supportive if used wisely.

Working on interfaces created from the first line of design to the real digital product, like Upper App and Toonie Alarm, we find thoughtful and organized teamwork the most effective workflow: UI/UX designers, developers, content, and branding specialists have to be involved in the creative process from the very beginning and combine their strongest sides into one product. The wise delegation of tasks works more quickly and effectively than the attempts of one person to explore and cover everything. And this sort of teamwork lets designers and developers share their knowledge and understand each other’s decisions for the sake of good outcome solving users’ problems.

Upper App

Originally written for Tubik Blog
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Сообщение FAQ: Should UX Designers Know Programming and Computer Science? появились сначала на Design4Users.

Nevertheless, effective teamwork is the foundation of a successful company, and teammates need to get along with each other to work productively and efficiently. Step by step, Tubik Studio was transformed from a small design agency to a full-service digital company so we’ve experienced the pitfalls appearing on the way of creating a cohesive team. Today’s article highlights the problems occurring in the teamwork and presents useful tips on organization of the effective teamwork in a digital agency.

Why is teamwork important for a company?

No matter how many talented workers a company has, it will be hard to build a profitable business if employees don’t work as a team. Teamwork is not only about operating together for one company, it means to collaborate so that you could achieve the company’s goals on its way to success. But what benefits can teamwork bring? Let’s see.

First of all, team members increase the efficiency of their work as well as the general productivity of the company. The amount of work is shared among employees so the tasks are done faster while nobody is overloaded with a ton of work. Moreover, it’s much easier to solve problems if there are colleagues willing to help rather than dealing with them by yourself.

Another benefit of teamwork is that together team members are able to generate more ideas. Brainstorming and task discussions are one of the biggest sources of fresh and unique ideas. The diversity of opinions and creative thoughts make a pleasant environment for idea generation. Furthermore, each team member can share their experience and knowledge so employees constantly learn and develop their professional skills.

In addition, teamwork enhances connections between team members. The efficient interaction within a team contributes to a better understanding of the project details and ensures the quality of the product in all aspects. Besides, informal communication between colleagues increases their effectiveness in the work since some fun and laughter help to reduce stress and fatigue.

How can different departments get along?

Effective teamwork is impossible when the departments can’t get along. Digital agencies have a difficult task – unite extremely different personalities under one roof and even more make them support each other. To achieve this aim, you need to learn deeper about possible pitfalls on the way successful teamwork in a company. Let’s discover common problems that can appear when designers, developers, and managers are working together.

Designers vs Developers

Designers and developers are often seen like cats and dogs bickering all the time which often has a bad influence on the workflow. However, now when most of the digital companies aim at providing full-cycle services, these two opponents are forced to find ways how to understand each other. To find out what causes these confrontations, we’ve distinguished the most common issues occurring in designer-developer relationships.

Developers ignore design principles. Design harmony, visual hierarchy, the balance of design elements play a significant role in a quality digital product. However, it often happens that developers miss some details or change them for some reasons crushing the harmony within the design. Obviously, designers react negatively and ask to correct errors. But the conflict starts when developers say “What’s the big deal?”. It actually is the big deal and designers need to explain why rather than arguing.

Designers don’t understand anything about HTML CSS. Of course, designers are not developers and they don’t have to know how to program but the basic knowledge of the web and how it works is essential. Design created without knowing web principles can be too difficult to actualize in a real life and it’s not about developers’ skills. To avoid such an unpleasant situation, designers are recommended to learn the basics of CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, a language that defines a layout of HTML.

Developers make the design look different than designers expect. Every designer must have been in a situation when the developer shows the coded version of the design and it looks like anything but the one that designer meant. Different colors, unnecessary white spacings, or even different fonts can make designers get angry with the developers but it’s not always their fault. Many designers do not consider the fact that colors may look different on Mac and the whole picture can be changed on the different browsers.

Designers estimate their work time wrong. Time estimation is a painful question for everyone who’s paid hourly. When you work in a team, it’s getting worse because the other departments depend on you. Sometimes, designers underestimate the time they need to accomplish their part of work and the development team is forced to push hard so that they could meet the deadlines. Certainly, it can’t be a good thing for the relationships between designers and developers. However, programmers need to take into account the fact that the design process heavily depends on creative aspects and inspiration presence, so it makes time estimation more difficult for designers.

Designers and Developers vs Managers

One thing that designers and developers undoubtedly have in common is their confrontations with managers. When it comes to the “managing time”, programmers and designers can forget about their issues and create a coalition against the manager. But what are the problems? Here they are.

Designers and developers don’t stick to the deadlines. Managers are responsible for delivering the product to the client on time. And when the product team is late and can’t meet deadlines, the blame goes to the managers. Still, in this situation, the fault lays on oth sides because managers couldn’t organize the team properly at the start while the team was too irresponsible.

Managers are too demanding. Sometimes there come clients with a project that can be done for two weeks and they say “I need it to be done in three days, no longer”. Managers take the risk of agreeing and ask the team for the impossible. This may happen when the managers don’t understand the peculiarities of the design and programming process and underestimate its complexity.

Managers can’t establish the connection between the product group and the clients. One of the biggest problems leading to bad product creation is misunderstandings between clients and the product group. If managers do not make sure this connection is established right, designers and developers can build the product that doesn’t correspond to the client’s expectations, and the blame will be put on the product team.

No one takes responsibility for the failure. People can’t live a life without failures, and of course, digital companies also have bad days. There always will be the clients who will abandon their project and pay no money to the agency. This is when the team starts to blame each other and no one takes any responsibilities. However, it’s a common problem which companies face from time to time and that it’s not a reason to fight. The team needs to accept the failure and learn from the mistakes.

Useful tips to improve teamwork between departments

Difficulties exist so that we could overcome them. Today there are many great digital agencies showing that effective teamwork is possible. Discovering their secrets, we’ve conducted the research on the efficient tips about teamwork and created a list completed with some advice from Tubik experience.

Constant communication. To collaborate and understand each other, team members need to communicate. If the team works on the project, every department should know how things are going. Designers should involve development team on the very first steps explaining their choices. And the development team needs to advise designers on the aspects of realization.

Learn the craft of the others. Misunderstandings are often the result of ignorance. Designers don’t know about CSS, developers are not aware of design principles and managers know only about management. It’s the worst scenario for the team. If each department learns the basics of the craft of the other departments, they will understand each other.

Managers can help. Both design and development teams need to understand that manager is a major link connecting them to the client. Managers know the product team as well as the customers, the reason why they can organize the work in the best way.

Respect. It may sound too obvious still many of us underestimate someone else’s job putting our job as the biggest. We need to keep in mind that all the parts of the work are vital and the proper combination of them gives the desired outcome.

Use the technology to your advance. Modern technology makes our life easier in many aspects and teamwork is not an exception. To make collaboration and communication more productive, team members can use cloud-based platforms such as Slack to communicate faster. Moreover, using tools like Sketch and Zeplin can significantly improve designer-developer relationships because they make the process of assets exchange much easier and faster.

Learn the trends. If you’re a designer, it doesn’t mean you need to follow only the design news. Read about the web and programming trends and you will find more topics to discuss with the programmers, or even you’ll together come up with the new idea. The same refers to developers.

Informal communication. If you want to know the colleague, you need to communicate not only in the office but also somewhere outside. When you learn the personalities, you may be able to collaborate at work more effectively. Besides, a friendly atmosphere reduces stress and improves the productivity of the whole team.

Today the summing will be short: working together people can move mountains. So, the effective teamwork leads straight to the success. Stay tuned!

Recommended reading

Designers And Developers: No Longer A House Divided
5 Pet Peeves Developers Have With Designers (and How to Avoid Them)
5 Pet Peeves Designers Have With Developers (and How to Avoid Them)
Designers and developers collaborate better with these 5 adjustments

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Helpful Tips on Effective Teamwork in Digital Agency появились сначала на Design4Users.

Designers must:

• Learn constantly

There is no point on the way where being a designer you can stop learning. Sure, if you work on several projects at the same time, it’s hard to find the time for reading professional books or blogs. However, finding this time is vital for your success, otherwise you risk losing the essence and fundamentals.

• Follow the trends

There are loads of ways how to keep yourself up to date about the latest and freshest trends. Following blogs and social accounts of well-known and prospective design studios, exploring established design platforms like Dribbble and Behance, watching speeches by famous designers and presentations of new products in the field, communicating with other designers at various events – all of these steps can be extremely helpful in keeping your professional horizons as broad as possible.

• Try new tools

It doesn’t mean that all the professional tools, soft and applications you are going to try will be useful and helpful. Moreover, it doesn’t mean that they are going to be better than the earlier ones. However, in most cases they will provide something new enabling you to obtain new solutions, to save your time, to create new features. The more tools you try, the higher is the chance to find those which are perfect for you and your project needs.

• Communicate with colleagues

Communication with colleagues can be both real and virtual. In both cases, it matters for your professional recognition. Don’t forget that design, as well as business, is always done by people. Socializing with colleagues can end up being involved in interesting projects, recommended to potential customers, or invited to speak in front of other designers. The basic aim of communication is the exchange of information and this information can be strategic for your professional growth.

• Present and share

As we have already mentioned in our tips for beginning designers, sharing and presentation is the way to get not only recognition but also feedback which opens a new vision of your own work. It is a well-known fact that being objective and fair about your own project is quite hard, so presentation and discussion of your work with others can be very helpful. Moreover, sharing your designs on design platforms like Dribbble and Behance, your thoughts in blogs and your professional life and routine on social accounts attract your potential customers and bring home the bacon.

• Use technologies they design for

Designer should know what is the path of a user when he uses this or that technology. When you design the application not knowing how to use a smartphone and how it differs from using a tablet, the chances to create a viable product are really low. Updating the soft and operation system of your devices plays the same important role. Creating something for users, you should be a user yourself.

• Use social networks

This point combines several aims mentioned above. Using social networks not just for private, but in professional aspects gives you three important benefits: you understand how it works from user’s view and can apply this knowledge in your job; you can get a lot of information on how other designers work and communicate with them in the fast and unobtrusive way, and you can present yourself and your professional abilities on the established and promoted platform with a great number of users.

• Keep themselves fit and healthy

This actually doesn’t look like a professional tip. However, your health and fitness are the basis of your success. Putting it aside, to ‘better times’, you risk losing your ability to work and that is the thing to be remembered, always. Give your eyes the break, walk around, stretch your back muscles, eat clean and find your own enjoyable way to exercise, let it be swimming, running, or anything else. It may sound “out-of-business”, but your business totally depends on it.

• Listen to their customers

If you want to make design a business giving you money, you should study how to satisfy customers’ needs and sell your service. So, always listen to your customer, and ask loads of questions if needed. Get into details, feel their pain, understand their targets – and they will later give you not only money but also promotion, which is even more important.

• Test as much as possible

Experts in usability say that it’s impossible to be fully objective about the project you work on, especially if it’s long term. Moreover, you are not a magician turning into anyone who will use your product to understand the best way of doing anything. Therefore, creating the idea is hot enough. You should test it to grab the real practical data and improve your product.

• Present themselves as personalities

Presenting your professional achievements in the global design community is significant on the way to recognition. But if you want to make the process even more efficient, give your work the personality. Let people know, who you are, show them how you work, share your opinions, instagram some routine. Support your skills with your personality to make them both more powerful.

• Organize their day

If you want to make design your business rather than your hobby, organization and time management are vital. Otherwise, you will not be able to provide the customer with an efficient workflow and get lost in tasks. Set the regime, split the tasks into smaller steps with their own due dates, and don’t neglect the to-do lists. It can make you surprised with the amount of job you are able to do when your day is properly organized.

Designers mustn’t

• Look down at their customers

Sure, in most cases you know more or the hell much more than your customer. However, it doesn’t make you enlightened and doesn’t give you the right to be rude and arrogant. Your task is to understand and help rather than to humiliate and self-express.

• Stop learning

The day you think that you are the super expert and there is nothing new for you anymore is halfway to the death of your designer career. Self-education should never stop, especially in such dynamic fields as web and app design.

• Ignore users’ needs

Designer should always remember that in most cases neither they nor their customers are the deciding voice. The users of the final product are. Therefore, ignoring their needs is going to give a product that may be awesome and highly artistic but absolutely non-viable.

• Say direct “no” to the customer

Certainly, that doesn’t mean that the customer is always right. If all the customers knew how to create their designs, they would do it themselves and designers would get extinct. But in our world and our days, your customers are people who are asking for your help, and what is really important they do it not for free. So, when you do not agree with the customer’s solution or you see the better ways of solving the problem, get into the issue, ask about all the details of this wish and then offer your vision in a solid but polite way, reasoning every step of your solution to the problem.

• Avoid communication

Communication is used here globally. Obviously, when you are deep into a particular project and, let’s say, work out the complex screens, you won’t be happy to get distracted just to feel that feeling of communication. Communication here means being ready to brainstorm and delegate the parts of the tasks in a wise and open way when it’s needed for the team or project’s sake. Also, it happens that designers avoid communication with customers preferring just to get the task and accomplish it how they see it right. This way can lead the designer of spending a long time accomplishing the project which is absolutely different from what the customer wants and then cause long and hard hours of frustration while redesigning.

• Start the project without research

Starting the project without preliminary research can also cost you wasted time and effort. Without investigation and exploration, you will not be aware of the situation on the market, the needs, and wishes of your target audience, strong and weak sides of the competition, so the risk to create something not original or not appropriate is much higher.

• Forget about coding and development

One more thing to bear in mind is that the product designer creates is going to be coded in the next stage. Sure, most designers want to see their products alive, working, and presenting their bright skills, and if you are one of them give out the result which will be not only visual but also supported with the materials, helping developers to breathe the life into it.

• Ignore competition

The ever-time truth of martial art is that to be prepared you should know your enemy by sight. Certainly, design is not the war field, but this law still works. And the most important benefit of exploring the competition is not to reveal or define the enemies, but to understand what is already going on in the market and analyze how to make your product stand out from the crowd of the like.

• Forget about deadlines

If design is your hobby or you do it just for pure art, you can ignore any kind of deadlines and time restrictions. But if you want to make design your business, you should be ready to stick to deadlines and study how to manage your time. Otherwise, you risk losing the projects and perspectives just because of breaking deadlines.

• Wait for the muse

Creative people often say that they cannot work without the necessary inspiration. They are just waiting for the muse which will help them to find the best solution. Like it or hate it, but muse which doesn’t arrive on time is not a reasonable explanation for broken deadlines or inappropriate results. Therefore, if you want to have a serious name and get respected by your clients, if you want to have a constant flow of projects and earn more and more, find the ways to call your muse when you need it, not waiting when it wants to come. By the way, the process of research and sketching for the project is one of the great ways. Appetite comes with eating, the muse comes with working.

Useful Articles

Creative Jobs: What Graphic Designers Do?

Seven Simple Tips for a Beginner in Web and App Design

Design Workstyle: Freelance vs Teamwork

Design Career: How to Get a Dream Design Job

Time Management for Creative People

How User Experience Designers Bring Value to the World

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Basic Grammar for Designers: Must and Mustn’t in Design. появились сначала на Design4Users.

In one of the earlier articles with tips for beginners in the app and web design, our first piece of advice based on practical experience was rather simple. The first and really crucial thing may sound quite primitive: you should make sure that you really want to make it your job. There are lots of people who, being great artists, deeply creative, and inspired, get broken by the necessity to work systematically with strict deadlines and loads of requirements and wishes (sometimes illogical or not-too-professional) from the customers. Clear up the nature of your job: the designer is not a pure artist free of obligations and fully devoted to creativity. Nope. In different stages of your project, you’re also going to be a researcher, an analyst, a time manager, and the like. Bear in mind all those things from the very start of the way.

For those who have made this vital decision, today we would like to recommend a useful and helpful book “Design Is a Job” by witty expert Mike Monteiro, the co-founder of Mule Design. The book reveals all the stages of a design job, including communication with clients, organization of the process, drawing contracts, working in teams of colleagues, and so on and so forth. The author doesn’t try to make the profession look like magic: he is deeply and sometimes sharply honest about not only the benefits but also pitfalls. In the foreword to the book, Erik Spiekermann says: “Contrary to popular belief, designers are not artists. We employ artistic methods to visualize thinking and process, but, unlike artists, we work to solve a client’s problem, not present our own view of the world.” The ideas shared by Mike Monteiro are deeply practical in supporting this thesis. It is not about the design process inside only, it is more about the outer part of the design world, full of clients, requirements, goals, metrics, iterations, presentations, and discussions.

Here we would like to share a new set of design quotes that we grabbed from this book for Tubik Studio Quotes Collection. This time it will be fully loaded with honest and informative thoughts by Mike Monteiro. Join in!

A designer requires honest feedback and real criticism, and that’s not going to happen in a realm where colleagues or clients are worried about crushing the spirit of a magical being. The sparkly fog of affirmation gets in the way.

Clients will always ask you to make their logo bigger, prescribe solutions, and ask you to do things that will make you smack your forehead. You can roll your eyes at how much they don’t understand about design or you can roll up your sleeves and begin practising your craft by helping them clarify what they need.

If you can stand in front of a client completely confident and explain why you are worth the amount you quoted, you should charge it.

The general rule is to involve as many people as possible in early discussions, and make that number as small as possible once you go into review cycles.

Anyone who hires you because they thought you could do the job and then doesn’t let you do it has lost respect for either you or the design process.

Whether you are helping to launch a new business from scratch, or making incremental changes to an existing product, or something in between, any design task you undertake must serve a goal. It’s your job to find out what those goals are.

Successful design balances convention—familiar forms, terms, and interactions—and novelty—new forms to engage and delight the users, in the hope they will stick around a bit longer and maybe buy their pants here instead of somewhere else. As long as you remember that those new forms must serve the goals of the business. Otherwise, they’re just novelty.

A good client will trust your process as long as they have transparency into it, can see results, and you’re willing to bend a little here and there. Without breaking.

A designer who does not present his or her own work is not a designer. Presenting the work, explaining the rationale, answering questions, and eliciting feedback are part of the design toolkit. If you sit at your desk while someone else presents work to the client, you don’t get to complain about the feedback. The failure was yours.

Clients are the lifeblood of a healthy business. They are the oxygen in your bloodstream that keeps everything going. No matter how good you are at what you do, without someone willing to pay you for that service you will have to close your doors.

If you’re trying to decide between two design firms that seem equally talented, the one that came with a referral has a solid advantage. And that vetting goes both ways—a client who is well-socialized and has a good reputation in a large network is more likely to be a great client. In most cases, you’re going to be as sceptical of a client who hires a designer from an ad as they are of the designer who answered that ad.

…you should aim to be pleasant to work with, as everyone would rather work with someone pleasant than with an asshole. But no one wants to work with someone who’s faking it. Doing good work often requires a few hard conversations.

The biggest myth ever perpetuated in the design field is that good design sells itself. (The second is that Copperplate is a legitimate typeface.) Design can’t speak for itself any more than a tamale can take off its own husk. You’re presenting a solution to a business problem, and you’re presenting it as an advocate for the end users. The client needs to know that you’ve studied the problem, understood its complexities, and that you’re working from that understanding.

Ultimately, your job is to make the client feel confident in the design. Confidence is as much of a deliverable as anything you’re handing over in the project.

There’s a difference between being enjoyable to work with and being “nice.” Being nice means worrying about keeping up the appearance of harmony at the expense of being straightforward and fully engaged. Sometimes you need to tell a client they’re making the wrong call.

Of course, being the most pleasant person in the world won’t help your cause if the work isn’t good. But don’t make the mistake of thinking the quality of your work by itself will be a shining beacon that pulls clients near.

You can do a lot to show a client how valuable time is in how you comport yourself throughout the project. Run your meetings and work sessions efficiently. Come in prepared. Don’t run over. Don’t hang out. Don’t train clients to think you’ve got extra time on your hands.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, stay in good communication with your clients at all times. They will accept your process as long as you are showing them results. Make sure to set their expectations correctly as to what is happening when.

Over the years the one constant that we’ve been able to rely on is that how a potential client behaves in the business development process is exactly how they will behave during the project. Trust your gut.

Never work for free. Any work you take on for free will get pushed aside for paying work. That does neither you nor the client any favors. Neither of you will respect each other’s time. If the situation merits it, work at a discounted rate. But submit a budget showing the actual rate, with the discount applied. Let the client know the value of what they’re getting.

Not knowing the design language doesn’t make someone a bad client.

Only you know the value of your time. (Hint: it is greater than $0.) But the value of your work to a particular client depends on what the client has to gain from that work. And the client is not buying time from you. They are buying work. The value of that work is what you need to charge them for.

As we tell potential clients when they ask us what their site will look like: “Oh, we have no damn idea. But we know what the process is for finding out.”

But much like the best umbrella is the umbrella you have on you, the best process is always the one you’re having success with. Don’t fall for trendy processes. If the one you’re using works for you, go with it.

You’re not going to ask for permission to do things your way. You’re going to convince clients that your way works by showing them how you will use your process to meet their goals. And you’ll back this up by showing them how many times it’s worked in the past.

Throughout a project you may have to remind a client multiple times that they agreed to follow your process. And throughout a project you will have to convince a client that your process is actually on target to get them the results they need. There will be hand-holding. There will be tough love. But above all, you will have to stand your ground and stick to what you know works.

…just make it a habit never to speak ill of your clients. They’re paying your bills. And putting their livelihood in your hands. They’re good people.

Working with other (talented) designers makes you a better designer, and is essential to your professional development, especially early in your career. There’s simply no better way to learn your craft than to watch someone else practice it.

Not only can a designer change the world, a designer should. This is the best job in the world! Let’s do it right.

Originally collected for Tubik Blog

Welcome to watch 10 TED-talks for creative people

Welcome to check out the set of 30 Eternal Quotes from Design Experts and 30 Bright Quotes About Creativity

Сообщение Design Is a Job. 30 Honest Quotes by Mike Monteiro появились сначала на Design4Users.

So, today’s issue of our FAQ Design Platform in Tubik Blog will concentrate on some popular questions along with the nature and differences of some positions in such a diverse sphere as design. The answers are based on the thoughts we have provided for those popular questions on Quora which you are always very welcome to read and where we are always happy to share our ideas, knowledge and experience.

Can you be a UX/UI/Web designer without knowing programming at all?

On the basis of work experience for Tubik Studio and communication with designers from other companies and studios, it is possible to give absolutely positive answer. Yes, you definitely CAN be a UI/UX designer for app and web with no background or theoretical knowledge of programming.

Actually, it should be mentioned that the question if UI/UX designers should know how to code or not is the one of  “eternal” discussions in the design sphere. There are, basically, two camps of extreme positions. One of them claims that programming/coding is absolutely vital thing to know and you cannot provide really efficient UI/UX without knowing how to code. The other side believes that knowledge of programming kills creativity in design as in this case designer is limited with the rules, standards, and restrictions of development. Both positions are supported with numerous articles and discussions and both somehow make sense if you think about the issue from the perspective of real design projects.

Basically, the task of UI/UX designer is to analyze the target audience and their needs, to make research, to create an efficient layout and well-thought-out system of transitions, to wrap it in an attractive but highly usable and clear visual design, and to test the solutions. UI/UX designer is not a developer: they work on the same product but from different sides, as well as for example a writer, an editor, and a publisher work differently on the same book. However, it is obviously pleasant for developers if a UI/UX designer is able to produce designs that consider at least the basic limitations and points of programming and coding.

There is a great bunch of successful experts in app and web design who have never had anything in common with the sphere of coding and development and provided great design solutions with a very high level of usability. Nevertheless,  it cannot be said that they are totally out of the issue. Designers, who are keen to create viable product designs, usually tend to get acknowledged with a general understanding of development basics. That really supports the designer in providing as effective design as possible, considering all the stages of its creation and implementation. However, it doesn’t mean that without this sort of knowledge it’s impossible to create good designs. Moreover, if designers work in a team with developers, they can create designs without knowing to code even easier as they are supported by developers who control the process from the perspective of coding.

Ideally, the happy medium should be found in this issue without any extreme positions. If designers tear themselves too far away from development reality, they risk losing the viability of their designs and could end up having a great deal of amazing and terrific concepts none of which will be implemented in real products. On the other hand, if designers concentrate too much on the limitations of coding, they risk becoming unable to think out of the box and provide original design ideas. Keeping the wise balance provides the harmony.

So, to sum up, a person can become a successful UI/UX designer not knowing programming and development; however, this kind of knowledge can be supportive if used wisely.

What is the relationship between UI design and icon design?

Answering the question in general, it should be said that icon design is an essential and integral part of UI design. Seeing the definition of UI design as the stage of the design process which provides a visual representation of all the concept, icons are the vital element of the user interface of the product enabling successful and effective interaction with it.

Working with loads of projects on UI/UX design, we see icon design as the significant stage in the general design process. Since this topic is now actual and popular, we have previously published the article called Iconic Simplicity. The Vital Role of Icons considering the part of icons in creating an efficient design.

Basically, an app or desktop icon is an image that having a kind of symbolic and metaphoric potential that becomes the element of navigation in the process of interaction. In a deeper explanation, the icon is the visual symbol representing some real or virtual action, thing, person, etc. In many cases, icons are able to stand up for the text, and this ability makes them so popular in the world of modern web and app design. If you replace the stretch of copy with an icon, it saves the place for other elements of interaction on the app screen or webpage, therefore, making it more functional without being overloaded. Also, it makes the interaction faster as in most cases people need less time to see and understand the icon than to read and understand the piece of text.

Moreover, the icons efficiently move the limits as they enable people who have the problems with copy perception and recognition, such as those who suffer from dyslexia or the like, to interact with the product. And finally, icons can successfully combine the functions of navigation and explanation with being the aesthetic element of the visual representation of the product, supporting the general style, and having their own character.

Here is an example of the icons set by one of the Tubik designers. It can be used in different apps keeping the style consistent and harmonious.

Multimedia Icons Set

So, the role of icons design as the part of general UI design is very important that makes designers put considerable time and effort into the creation and adaptation of clear, meaningful, and recognizable icons, which at the same time will become nice graphic elements of the layout in general stylistic concept.

Is it worth learning icon design as a UI designer?

On the basis of ideas in the previous answer, we tend to give the answer “Yes” to the question. Icons are the vital element of the user interface of the product enabling successful and effective interaction with it. Therefore, it is worth learning how to deal with them in case the designer wants to work effectively and create high-quality interfaces.

Concentrating on the aspect if it’s necessary to learn the icon design, actually, now with numerous sets of diverse icons created by professional graphic designers it is possible not to create handcrafted icons but use ready-made icons corresponding to the style of the app. So, to some extent, it is possible to create UI design not getting dip into all the secrets and peculiarities of icon design. However, there can be a bit of a trap, as nowadays with growing functionality and inventing new features the bulk of ready-made icons can appear not to satisfy all the needs of the particular interface. Using icons that do not perfectly fit the general style of the app or website, a designer can risk losing the feeling of harmony.

Understanding the vital role of icons, our designers in the studio not only create original icon packs but also present concepts to demonstrate how well-thought-out icons can support general UI solutions. Here is an example of such a presentation based on the set of icons you could see in the previous answer.

Multimedia Icons Presentation 

We deeply believe that it’s really essential to study and practice icon design for designers who set high aims in their career ladder and want to be ready for complex design tasks and creating efficient and original interfaces. The experience of work on various UI/UX design projects, dealing with customers, and research of existing design products show the precious nature of the ability to create meaningful and symbolic icons which would correspond with general stylistic solutions of the product and would become the harmonic tool of successful interaction.

To become successful in such a dynamic sphere, you need to be strong and competitive in your field. Practice shows, that skill of icon design inevitably makes a UI designer stronger and more flexible in the accomplishment of different design tasks.

Can anyone be a graphic designer?

Physically any person, with hands and eyes working properly, is able to try himself or herself in the sphere of graphic design. As well as anyone who is able to write can try writing and anyone able to communicate can try, let’s say, management or teaching. In any sphere, there always is a chance to become successful (or not) if you have the necessary basic physical abilities. However, it can often be not enough to become professional and efficient in this field.

Being based on the diverse experience of communication with graphic designers, it is easy to see that to become a professional and bring home the bacon with the efforts in the sphere of graphic design, the person needs to have a number of characteristics. And first of them, as for any creative job, are passion, talent, ability to work hard, and readiness for constant learning and self-improvement. Having all these traits, the person will be able to practice necessary skills, master needed software, gain a solid basis of theoretical knowledge, and so on. Behind the passion, we mean sheer and sincere interest in the field of design and feeling it as the source of inspiration and ambition. Without it, designers are able to solve the tasks and provide the results, but they will be technical, without any soul and heart. A book without a soul is just a set of words. Image without a soul is a set for shapes and colors. Communication without a soul is just a set of sentences. Design without a soul is just a set of features. To breathe in life into all of them, the passion of the creator is a key factor.

However, with my words above you can get caught in a trap. The passion which is being talked about is not something that just strikes you one day and tells you “Stand up and go to design”. In most cases passion is like appetite: it comes when the process starts when you try and feel that THIS is something you would like to do and grow in. Even more, there are many professionals who got into a deep and sincere passion for their craft in the process of improving their skills or accomplishing the projects.

No doubt, it’s possible to become a graphic designer only through hard work: the person will get the technical ability and will be able to accomplish the tasks requiring, perhaps, a lower level of creativity. And in this process, people sometimes open great interest and particular talents needed to achieve high results and appreciation in the sphere of graphic design.

One more thing to mention is that the job of a graphic designer (again, as any other creative work) sometimes looks so romantic, inspirational, bright, and deeply creative that people do not see hard and thorough work with developing some small details over and over again, with tons of iterations and great effort of creating not only good-looking but also effective and meaningful design. This job is not just the firework of bright emotions, creativity, inspiration, self-realization, and happiness. It is also hours of search, sketching, polishing, staring at the computer screen with non-seeing eyes, communicating with clients, keeping the deadlines and guidelines. The ability to combine all those sides of design reality is one more vital skill to make a successful professional.

So, summing up, we tend to answer: no, not anyone can be a graphic designer. But everyone can try if he or she wishes. This attempt, in any case, will be the gain as for someone it will open the door to the diverse world of graphic design, while for the others it will close that door opening the others at the same time and giving an experience which is anyway useful.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Insights into the Diversity of Design Jobs появились сначала на Design4Users.

Stereotype 1. Designers are usually messy and untidy (as well as other creative guys)

There are decades or even centuries of thoughts that real creators are people never bothering about housework or other chores. They are believed to be out-of-earth, flying in their dreams and projects far from wasting time on putting things in their places. And for some people of the trade it can be true, but, being honest, most of them are rather far from success and fame.

Successful designers are always busy. Having their hands full, they have to be productive. That means they can never allow themselves to be untidy and messy because that is the death knell of their productivity. Design needs not only creativity but also deep concentration and thorough focus. Getting distracted from the process to find something as decent as a pencil not returned at its place will slow down the designer noticeably. When it happens several times a day or (no way!) an hour, you can forget about speed. Speed and efficiency mean more work, more customers and that is more money. Time is money, no joke. So why lose it in a mess?

The same should be said about the mess in a computer brain. Working with any project, a designer has to accomplish tons of updates. And if you are good at your craft, you are going to have several projects at the same time. That means that you HAVE to be organized and teach yourself to keep everything in order. Otherwise one day you’ll get stuck in loads of files, subfiles, and “the-newest-very-final” files on your desktop. In this case, deadlines are literally going to become dead.

Experienced designers often say that even your desk should be as tidy as possible because nothing should distract you and break your concentration. A cluttered desk means a cluttered head for many people. Think about it organizing your working space.

Tip: Want to be productive? Keep mess as far from your desk, computer, and brain as possible.

Stereotype 2. The customer is always right

This thought is typical not only for the sphere of web and app design but for any field where you create or sell products for customers. Although, in the area of web and app design (maybe more often than in others) this rule doesn’t work in every case and context. This happens because the customers mostly see the product from their own perspective, with the target of profit or conversions as the priority. It is natural that customers will think about their own benefits. But, keep in mind, the customer is mostly not the final user of the product. And the aim of a designer is to view the task from the perspective of future users, otherwise, the customer’s priority will be failed.

So, it is very important to work in tight collaboration and always remember: your customer doesn’t have to know all the nuances and peculiarities of the design process. That is why THEY are customers and YOU are a designer. Be attentive and sensitive to everything that your customers want, but don’t let it go beyond the limits of reasonability and sensibility.

Don’t be too soft but at the same time don’t be too hard. If you are too gentle or just indifferent, if you only follow your customer’s wishes not analyzing whether they are potentially efficient, you risk not creating a good working product that will make your name and bring you more customers. If you are too hard, your customer will feel you are too intrusive and bossy, so not respectful enough to your client — and you risk not only losing this particular project but also getting notorious through word-of-mouth references from customers. Therefore, it is vital to find a happy medium.

Moreover, the thing, which has been practically checked by Tubik Studio designers, is the idea that communicating with your customer you should get not only his wishes but also try to get the ideas and reasons for these wishes. If you understand why your customer wants to see particular colors, shapes, or transitions, it will be easier for you (if necessary) to justify other methods of realization for these ideas which would give the result desired by the customer.

Tip: Be attentive to your customer. Be honest with your customer. Be helpful to your customer.
Never say: I am a designer, I know how to do it better — that is not the explanation of anything even if it’s one thousand percent true.
Never say: I am just a designer, I will do anything you want (and that is not my problem if your ideas and wishes do not work).
Justify, explain, and keep your head up.
Your customers MAY be not right, but they HAVE to be satisfied and that is YOUR job.

Stereotype 3. Designer needs to work alone for the highest productivity

Again, the first note to make should be “It is highly individual”. There are people in any creative job who are absolutely unable to work in a team and give the best result when they are not disturbed by other people. However, on the basis of our experience, teamwork is a great way for productivity in the sphere of design.

Sure, it is much simpler just to get several designers sitting together in the same room, staring at their own computer screens and not talking to each other for ages. They will be effective workers, but their effectiveness will be limited to the edges of their own desks, so the success of the company will be created by the number of individual separate energies. Well, why not?

Nevertheless, if you get them together as a united collective mind, it will be far more efficient. Believe us, we’ve checked. Working in a team doesn’t mean losing individual creativity or fame — vice versa, it up-sizes designers’ individual abilities and makes them work faster and more productively. Working in a team, you can gather your colleagues for a brainstorming session, you are always able to ask for advice or share the newest information and practical skills valuable for the whole team.

Designers of Tubik Studio: individual work always combined with tight collaboration and support

Tip: You can work alone if you want, and it will never make you weak or inefficient. But work in a team of soul mates will make you even stronger and faster in your job.

Stereotype 4. The idea is a key

Talking about the nature of the design process, there is a common thought among both designers and non-designers that the most essential and focal thing in any project is to invent (find, discover, work out) the idea. If you have a brilliant idea — you are halfway (or even closer) to success.

Practice shows that reality is very different. Your idea may seem absolutely brilliant for the first five seconds, hours, or days, and you can give yourself some time to be proud of your own geniality. However, then there will come the moment when you will have to consider your idea. And, for example, simple research can reveal that there are several more geniuses around having come up with the same idea. That doesn’t make your one worse — it just shows that it is not unique and to make it original you will have to apply some more effort. Moreover, your customer may not share your vision. There can appear awful difficulties in the practical realization of a new concept. So, the invention of the idea doesn’t automatically mean that it will bring a successful result.

Considering the specific features of the web/app design job, there also can be the problem that the amazing design of the interface, great animation, or bright branding elements in practice can become a total failure from the user’s perspective. If you don’t want it to happen, you should be ready to research, design, analyze, iterate, and maybe even redesign. We have told about it in detail in our case study on designing UX/UI for the Echo project.

Design and redesign of a user interface for Echo

Therefore, the idea is a key, but you have to rotate it a hundred or even a thousand times with hard work so that you could open the door to success.

Tip: Don’t relax after creating the idea. It’s not the time to open a bottle of champagne and celebrate anything. Be ready that most work is ahead.
Only hard work and its results will show if your idea was the right key to the right door.

Stereotype 5. Creating the concept is faster and easier than working it out

There are tons of legends about master artisans who need short seconds for creating immortal concepts for any idea or task. In practice, it is impossible to predict how much time a designer will need to create the concept — seconds, minutes, hours, or even days.

UI design sketching at Tubik Studio

Given to unbelievably high speed of design development, creating efficient, practical, original, and unique concepts for a project in the sphere of web/app design often demands a long process of thorough research of competitors, attempts, and working out loads of variants before there will be found the one which will satisfy all the sides of the process: the designer, the customer and the user. And when the concept has already been worked out and agreed upon, the process becomes more technical, logical, and predictable, so it is easier to calculate timing.

Therefore, sometimes creating the concept is easy and fast, but in other cases, it is a much harder and demanding assignment to come up with the solution of the concept than technically realize it.

Tip: Creating the concept, consider all the moments and details which will enable you to simplify and speed up the process of its efficient realization.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 5 Popular Stereotypes About Designers. Are They Right? появились сначала на Design4Users.