Battling the “designer ego”

I was in my friend Jemma’s art gallery today (shameless plug!) and she made a statement about artists who think they’re better than they are. Not her artists, if any of you are reading!

I got thinking about how that applies designers as well. The designer ego is essential and we all have it. If we thought our design skills were crap and that our work wasn’t worth being proud of, we wouldn’t make websites.

The trick is, then, to keep our swollen heads from exploding. I’m no saint, but here’s how I handle it.

When clients tweak our designs

Paul Boag mentioned in his talk at FOWD Bristol that clients often focus on the solution rather than the problem. For example, a client might say “The button should be blue and make it bigger” (solution) instead of “The button needs to be more prominent” (problem).

When a client tweaks our design as such, our initial reaction is, “I’m the designer-what do you know?!” and that can make us want to ignore the request just to spite the client.

In this situation I take a time-out, especially if my ego has flared up. Then I think about what the client has requested and 95% of the time I try it. Sometimes I realize the client was right after all and stop there.

But sometimes I try what I want to try and then show both options to the client. If I feel really strongly, I’ll explain why the second option is better using the Elements and Principles of Design or Don’t Make Me Think or some other credible source. Often they say “Oh, I never thought about doing it that way,” and then everyone is happy and life goes on.

Occasionally I’ll really lobby for my option and they’ll choose the big blue button anyway, at which point I remind myself that they’re paying and I’ve done all I can. I see this sort of thing on Miami Ink all the time.

When we have to work as a team

This one is a constant stuggle for me. Chris and I often have to collaborate on designs and it’s extremely difficult for us both. The important thing is that we have mutual respect – without this things would unravel quickly.

• Ask questions. Why is that there? Why did you do that? What would it look like if we were to try this? Every designer has a reason for why they’ve done things a certain way but you often can’t empathize until you ask them why.
• Realize that you have different, unique design styles. Right now I’m into minimalism. Chris is into grunge. The buttons he likes aren’t necessarily the buttons I will like, and we often have to step back and go, “Okay, are we nit-picking? It’s a matter of personal taste” rather than arguing over it. Pick your battles!
• Don’t make it a competition. Chris and I break this rule all the time. We’ll each have a concept design that we’re proud of and then pitch both to the client. The client will inevitably want bits and pieces from each design and then neither of us will be happy. To reference another annoying cliché, there is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM’. Work together!

When we have to self-critique

It’s easy to look at something I did yesterday and be quite chuffed with it only to look at it several months down the road and go “What was I thinking?!”

Self-critiquing is incredibly difficult when you have put so much thought and effort into your design that you feel you should be proud of it, even if it didn’t turn out very nice.

Here are some things I do when self-critiquing:

• Put myself in the position of the end user. Would this make sense if I were a first-time visitor? Where would I look first?
• Check contrast & balance. First I take a screen shot of the website and desaturate it, then zoom out and squint a bit. Overall, is it too grey? Is there enough white space? Is there a clear visual hierarchy?
• Question the colour. Does the colour scheme fit with the brand image? Do any of the colours compete (too much contrast)? Would the colours look as good on a non-mac screen?
• Can I make anything better? This goes hand in hand with “Is the design finished?” and involves taking time away from the design. Do something else: check out design galleries, flip through some magazines, go for a walk, sleep on it, etc. Then have another look at the design with your gained perspective.

General Rules

• If your design gets added to a gallery or someone’s blog post, give yourself a much deserved pat on the back and then move on. Don’t obsess about it! There are so many design galleries these days that it’s not a supreme honour to get a mention.
• Bookmark (Or Littlesnap, if you’ve hopped on the bandwagon) the most innovative web designs you come across and use those as motivation to design outside of your comfort zone. Try a different style genre. You’ll probably suck at it, but you’ll learn lots!
• Read up on web typography. It’s so flipping interesting, and seeing good typography humbles you fast.
• From time to time, look at work from several years ago and cringe.
• Look at magazine design and wish you were that good. Then try to apply some of the design techniques to web!

I hope this didn’t sound too preachy. It’s hard to stay critical and objective of your own work and I know it all too well. Having said that, some really great design is born from confidence and gut-instinct.  It just doesn’t come that easily to all of us.