User Experience Design: How do you get a job as a designer without going to design school?
I got my job as a designer without going to design school.I wanted to change careers and become a designer, but I didnu2019t have four years and $100k to go back to school. So I decided to teach myself. At first, I had a lot of doubts on whether someone could teach themselves well enough to get a job.If youu2019re wondering the same, the answer is yes.I hacked together my own design education in 6 months while working a full-time job. I didnu2019t think I was ready but started applying for jobs anywayu200au2014u200aand got a job at a great startup, Exec.Iu2019ll admit, Iu2019m nowhere near as good as many design prodigies that come out of a 4-year education at an elite school. But Iu2019m definitely good enough to do my job well. I design a pretty wide range of thingsu200au2014u200afor the website, iPhone app, emails, social media, and print.Maybe you want to change careers and become a designer full-time.Or you just want to learn some basics for your startup or side project.This is a guide to teach yourself design.Update: I first published this answer over a year ago. Since then Iu2019ve gotten hundreds of emails asking for more guidance and easier to follow steps, and I finally found one: Designlab. This course wasnu2019t around when I was learning, but man do I wish it was u2024 it would have made the whole process a lot less daunting. What I really like about it is that it gives you project assignments, and then connects you to a design mentor who gives you feedback (they have really good ones who work at Facebook).Step 1. Learn to seeThe biggest mistake is jumping into Photoshop too fast. Learning Photoshop does not make you a designer, just like buying paintbrushes doesnu2019t make you an artist. Start with the foundation.First, learn how to draw.You donu2019t have to sit in a room with a bunch of other artists trying to draw a naked woman.You donu2019t even have to get that good at drawing. Just learn some basics so you can be comfortable sketching with a pen.You only have to do one thing to learn how to draw: get the book You Can Draw in 30 days and practice for half an hour every day for a month. Iu2019ve looked at a lot of drawing books and this is one of the best.Learn graphic design theoryStart with the book Picture This. Itu2019s a story book of Little Red Riding hood, but will teach you the foundations of graphic design at the same time.Learn about color, typography, and designing with a grid. If you can find a local class to teach the basics of graphic design, take it.Go through a few of these tutorials every day.Learn some basics in user experienceThere are a lot of books about user experience. Start with these two quick reads that will get you in the right mindset:The Design of Everyday ThingsDonu2019t Make Me Think!Learn how to writeDonu2019t fill your mockups with placeholder text like Lorem Ipsum. Your job as a designer is not just to make pretty picturesu200au2014u200ayou must be a good communicator. Think through the entire experience, choosing every word carefully. Write for humans. Donu2019t write in the academic tone you used to make yourself sound smart in school papers.Read Made to Stick, one of my favorite books of all time. It will teach you how to suck in your readers.Voice and Tone is a website full of great examples of how to talk to users.Learn to kill your workThis is the hardest step in this whole guide.Be prepared to kill everything you make. Be prepared to violently slaughter your precious design babies. The sooner you can embrace this, the better your work will become. When you realize your work isnu2019t good enough, kill it. Start again.Get another pair of eyes. Ask for feedback on your work from people who care about design. Donu2019t know anyone? Make some designer friendsu200au2014u200ago to designer meetups and events.Get the opinion of people who donu2019t care about design, too. Show your work to people who would be your users and ask them to try your website or app. Donu2019t be afraid to ask strangersu200au2014u200aI once took advantage of a delayed flight by asking all the people in the airport terminal to try out an app I was designing. Most of them were bored and happy to help, and I got some great usability feedback.Listen. Really listen. Donu2019t argue. If you ask someone for feedback, theyu2019re doing you a favor by giving you their time and attention. Donu2019t repay the favor by arguing with them. Instead of arguing, thank them and ask questions. Decide later whether you want to incorporate their feedback.Step 2. Learn how to use Photoshop and IllustratorHooray! Now youu2019ve got a pretty solid foundation u2024 both visual and UX. Youu2019re ready to learn Photoshop. Actually, I recommend starting with Illustrator first and then moving on to Photoshop after. Illustrator is what designers use to make logos and icons. InDesign is good for print design like flyers and business cards.Learn IllustratorThere are a ton of books, online tutorials and in-person classes to learn Illustrator. Choose the style that works best for you. Here are the books I found especially helpful to learn the basics of Illustrator:Cbp Form 823f /4416359 Goes Fast Card Illustrator Classroom in a Book u2024 Itu2019s boring, but if you get through at least half of it, youu2019ll know your way around Illustrator pretty well.Vector Basic Training u2024 This book teaches you how to make things in Illustrator that actually look good.Now for the fun stuff! Follow these online tutorials and be impressed by what you can make. Here are two my favorites u2024 a logo and a scenic landscape.Learn PhotoshopThere are a million and one tutorials out there. A lot of them are crap. Fortunately, there are sites with really high quality tutorials. PSDTuts by TutsPlus is one of them.Hereu2019s a good photoshop tutorial to make an iPhone app.Hereu2019s another good photoshop tutorial to create a website mockup.Carve out an hour or two every day to go through some tutorials, and youu2019ll be impressed by how quickly you progress.Step 3. Learn some specialtiesDo you want to design mobile apps? Websites? Infographics? Explore them all, and pick and choose the ones you enjoy to get better at them.Learn Logo DesignLearn how to make a logo that doesnu2019t suck: Logo Design LoveYouu2019ll want to take it a step further than a logo though. Learn to create a consistent brand u2024 from the website to the business cards. Check out this book, Designing Brand Identity.Learn Mobile App DesignStart with this tutorial to get your feet wet on visual design for mobile apps.Read this short but very comprehensive and well-thought out book on iPhone design: Tapworthy. It will teach you how to make an app that not only looks good but is easy to use.Geek out on the apps on your phone. Critique them. What works and what doesnu2019t?Learn Web DesignRead Donu2019t Make Me Think to learn how to make a website that people find easy to use and navigate.Read The Principles of Beautiful Web Design if you want help making a website look good.Make a list of the websites you think are beautifully designed. Note what they have in common. Some great examples are on SiteInspire.Now for the hairy question of whether you need to know HTML/CSS as a designer: It depends on the job. Knowing it will definitely give you an edge in the job market. Even if you donu2019t want to be a web developer, it helps to know some basics. That way you know what is possible and what isnu2019t.There are so many great resources to learn HTML and CSS:My favorite free one is Web Design Tuts.My favorite paid one (pretty affordable at $25/month) is Treehouse. If youu2019re starting from the beginning and want someone to explain things clearly and comprehensively, splurge for Treehouse tutorials.Step 4. Build your portfolioYou donu2019t need to go to a fancy design school to get a job as a designer. But you do need a solid portfolio.How do you build a portfolio if youu2019re just starting out for the first time? The good news is you donu2019t need to work on real projects with real clients to build a portfolio. Make up your own side projects. Here are a few ideas:Design silly ideas for t-shirts.Find poorly designed websites and redesign them.Got an idea for an iPhone app? Mock it up.Join a team at Startup Weekend and be a designer on a weekend project.Enter a 99 designs contest to practice designing to a brief.Do the graphic design exercises in the Creative Workshop book.Find a local nonprofit and offer to design for free.Resist the temptation to include every single thing youu2019ve ever designed in your portfolio. This is a place for your strongest work only.Steal, steal, steal at first. Donu2019t worry about being original u2024 that will come later, once you are more comfortable with your craft. When you learn a musical instrument, you learn how to play other peopleu2019s songs before composing your own. Same goes for design. Steal like an artist.Go to Dribbble for inspiration on some of the best designers. Check out pttrns for iOS inspiration, and siteinspire for website inspiration.Step 5: Get a job as a designerWhen I first started learning design, I went to a job search workshop for designers. I walked into a room full of designers who had much more experience than I did u2024 5, 10, 15 years experience. All of them were looking for jobs. That was intimidating. There I was, trying to teach myself design, knowing I was competing with these experienced designers.And yet less than a year later, I got a design job. There was one key difference between me and many of the other designers that gave me an edge: I knew how to work with developers.The biggest factor to boost your employability is to be able to work with developers. Learn some interaction design. Learn some basic HTML and CSS. Designers in the tech industry (interaction designers, web designers, app designers) are in extremely high demand and are paid well. Thatu2019s where the jobs are right now.If you donu2019t have any experience working with developers, get some. Go to Startup Weekend, go to hackathons, or find a developer through a project collaboration site.Make a personal website and make your portfolio the centerpiece.Go out and make serendipity happen u2024 tell everyone you know that youu2019re looking for a job as a designer. You never know who might know someone.Research companies and agencies you might be interested in. Look on LinkedIn for 2nd and 3rd degree connections to people who work at those companies and ask for intros. The best way to get a job is through a connection. If you donu2019t have a connection, thereu2019s still a lot you can do to give yourself an edge.Once youu2019ve got the job, keep learningIu2019ve been at Exec for a year now and have learned a ton on the job. I seek out designers who are much more talented than I am, and learn from them. I find design classes (good online ones are Skillshare, General Assembly, Treehouse, and TutsPlus). I work on side projects. I geek out at the design section of bookstores. There is still so much to learn and to improve on.Keep your skills sharp, and always keep learning.u201cNobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, itu2019s just not that good. Itu2019s trying to be good, it has potential, but itu2019s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesnu2019t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Itu2019s gonna take awhile. Itu2019s normal to take awhile. Youu2019ve just gotta fight your way through.u201d u2024 Ira GlassThis article was originally published on Karenu2019s blog.
