7 Hacks every designer should know

In this article, I present some of the challenges I had to face upon starting as a UI/UX designer and how I solved them.

If you work as a visual artist, graphic designer, freelance illustrator or related, then you share my passion for digital art. Being a designer or a visual artist is exciting! You get to put all of your ideas and inspirations into a visual piece and make people’s lives more entertaining and apps — easier-to-use. However, along with the perks, this work path has its downsides (trust me, I speak from experience!).

I have been in the field for a few solid years already and during my course of experience, I have had my share of revelations. Here are the challenges I faced most often on my journey from a junior to a full–fledged graphic and UI/UX designer, and the hacks I’ve come up to overcome these.

Being a designer or a visual artist is exciting but it also has a lot of ups and downs (trust me, I speak from experience!). Here are the challenges I faced most often on my journey from a junior to full–fledged graphic and UI/UX designer, and the hacks I’ve come up to overcome these.

#1: Move from small tasks to big projects

When you are still a junior designer, you are not usually working on smaller projects that make a smaller difference, and even more often you serve as “help”ing hand to the more experienced designers on the team. The thing with these smaller and less significant tasks is, they tend to pile up and transform into a never-ending list.

How to hack this: It’s simple: ask to be assigned projects with want to be involved with — even if you only participate partially. Go into those decision-making meetings, listen and observe. By doing so you will gradually step into the project and when that happens, creativity is going kick in by itself. When a good idea is born, it doesn’t matter who it came from. And trusts me, nothing is more valuable by good ideas, especially in startups.

#2: Manage your time

Even if you start working on bigger, more massive projects, you would still have a ton of small tasks that can easily overthrow your schedule. This means that often it will be to swiftly manage your time.

How to hack this: Learn to prioritize. I am not talking about only focusing in the bigger tasks, but finishing the projects that you have started. By taking on only the most time-consuming design tasks in your projects, you risk being dragged down by those small, unfinished things you need to design. Focus on one task at a time and never forget that it is better to have 1 completely finished project that 3 projects that are 90% ready but not done. There will always be work left to be done, so better first finish what you have started.

#3: Recharge and avoid burnouts

Let’s say you have become a wizard at time-management and more often than not you stay on schedule and finish all your tasks by the end of the week. Then you get assigned (or assign yourself) more work, and the fun park starts — you need to generate new ideas, and everyone expects the best from you (after all, you are the one with a creative mind and you’re expected to have pockets full of fresh ideas). But what happens when creativity doesn’t strike and you fall victim of a creative burnout? Ouch.

How to hack this: Lean back and take a deep breath. Go grab a coffee, take a walk, just hit the pause button. Your creative brain just needs a break. Take some time to clear your mind and get distance from the previous concepts you’ve worked on. Search for some inspiration, it doest`t even have to be on the same topic. My personal go-to places are Pinterest and AWWWARDS — these are packed with good ideas and always help me get a fresh look on an old design challenge.

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