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How Can I Develop My Design Skills?
by
Abdul Hamid Chowdhury
Please Give Me Some Useful Tips.
Buy "Refactoring UI" and read it. If you can afford it, buy the whole package, along with font recommendations, components gallery and some "design makeover" videos.
The authors make design so simple that even a programmer could learn it :)) — I'm talking from experience.
Then there's learnui.design from Eric d. Kennedy and look through some of his YouTube videos.
I bought refactoring ui and it was perfect for me as a front end developer. He is able to explain design tips in a more scientific way other than just "it looks good"
Did this resource really serve you? Are you a programmer? I am a dev that always really struggled with frontend, not because of the code but because everything I do on my own looks really ugly.
Yup, I’m a developer. And yes, it did help me. I must admit I am inclined to do design, but I always second guess my decisions and doubt myself, probably something you’re suffering from as a programmer who has to design stuff.
Really read the book at least.
Thank you for the feedback, I will check the book.
Books, Blogs, Videos and Just Making things.
Here are some useful stuff
Books (Beginner)
Some List I Curated
Some Personal List
I should warn you they're mess.
Some Blogs and Youtube Channels to Follow
And most importantly, find a problem then solve it with Design
I've a lot to learn as well maybe we can help each other to sort things out. So, feel free to reach out. (Shouting to anyone interested in Design as well)
You just gave them the full career path for a web designer. The resources you mention are amazing but I’m guessing the OP only wants to suck less at design, kinda like us all(nondesigners) do.
I partially agree with you.
And thanks for your comment :)
Disagreement is great, it leads to improved understanding if handled appropriately. I get your point about UI/UX and I think it’s essential we become better product people, not just better designers.
Indeed they’re for beginners but most people when they ask for design advice are not looking for that many resources.
The list is actually quite good, but I’m not sure that in our quick-fix, get-it-done-fast world people would stick around to read all of that. Unless they’re infected with the “learning” bug, in which case you won’t see much output from them as they’re always learning something new.
Sorry for the late reply :) Still partially agree, I believe you're write even I have dozens of tabs I had to check out.
But "learning bug" is not a bad thing. Actually, I think you should have a 2 periods, and periodically change you cycles between each other.
First one is learning, and second one is making. They feed each other. So, you can still consume a lot of resources, and build those skills by making something. You just need to cycle through different periods.
A few people have already recommended Refactoring UI which is absolutely superb: https://www.refactoringui.com/ Worth every penny.
In the same kind of vein (practical design tips rather than reams of theory) is Erik D Kennedy http://erikdkennedy.com/. I get his newsletter and he has some good advice but of the two, I really like the Refactoring UI guys.
This article has some similar, easy to digest tips on Ui and UX without delving into too much theory (if that's what you're after) https://uxdesign.cc/ui-ux-micro-tips-the-ultimate-collection-a07d56c9e98
Check out Victor @Akcium he is actively tweets about UX and writing a book https://twitter.com/vponamariov. He got a skill to explain things in simple and creative way.
He is a successful indiehacker, built and sold Pinger.
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-i-grew-my-twitter-9k-and-newsletter-6k-in-3-4-months-ama-544b1b5ff2
I also recommend https://www.refactoringui.com/ It's really good!
For inspiration, you can check https://dribbble.com/
And, I made a little website if you are looking for some design systems https://copy-paste-css.com/
You can read books, blogs, articles, watch videos and even listen to podcasts!
But it will not help you if you don't practice!
What's even more important is to get feedback.
So, the plan could be:
Step 1. Learn something
Step 2. Create something
Step 3. Get feedback (for example, on Twitter)
Step 4. Improve
Step 5. Go to the step 1.
Here you can visit https://apkhom.com/ and get the idia for the developments
I am a full time developer and refactoringui.com has helped me a lot in understand designing principles.
It is designed keeping developers in mind who are getting into design. You can also follow the authors Steve and Adam (Creator of tailwindcss) on twitter.
They keep posting regular design related things.
For me the best way to level up my design skills was to try and imitate elements of popular designs (imitate then innovate). Go on Dribbble and find cool Hero, Landing Pages, Benefit/Feature Sections etc and try to design them from scratch.
@ahamidchowdhury
Good design comes from asking the right questions.
👉 What is my goal for the design? What do I want to accomplish?
👉 What emotion do I want to evoke in the audience? (It’s usually best to focus on one singular emotion per design.)
👉 How can I earn my audience’s attention and give them an enjoyable journey through the content?
👉 How can I make utility more beautiful? How can I add more utility to beauty?
👉 Is this element necessary? Does it add value, utility or meaning to the design?
👉 How can I delight the viewers?
Designers are problem solvers. Approach design with this in mind, and you’ll do great 👍
Abdul,
I'm a software engineer+expert visual designer and I'm launching a design course that will fast-track people's design skills using an engineering approach to visual design. I'm going to be offering totally unscalable free one-on-one training for the first few weeks while I get the kinks ironed out. If you want in, send an email to paul (at) airbox (dot) ai
Will your course include code or what technologies will you be using?
My plan right now is to focus more on generic design principles (i.e. knowing WHY something looks bad, and knowing WHAT to do about it) that would work in any design program (Photoshop, Sketch, doesn't matter). Although I may include some app-specific stuff as well for people who are totally new. I can also get into replicating complex effects in CSS too if there's interest. What would you like to see?
Very brief tips from my experience.
In the meantime: read some theory and follow people on Twitter. Be curious, patient and experiment a lot.
You can also join some challenges, for example Daily UI Design Challenge.
It’s a flow that worked very well for me. Good luck.
The slow way unfortunately: practice. A good way to do this is by using fake briefs (goodbrief.io, etc.) or by doing work for free (which I think a lot of people would probably take you up on).
Check this out https://www.refactoringui.com/
🚀Long-term:
--------------
Try to imitate nature. Nature is the best designer. If you think magenta and yellow don't go together, ask nature (birds and flowers) you will see how beautiful they look.
If you think asymmetric design doesn't look good. Observe nature.
🚀Short term:
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✅ Make yourself aware that it will take time.
✅Design. After you have completed it, check if you can design better. If yes, repeat.
✅Share your work, and don't get offended by initial feedback.
✅All advice you will receive will be good in some particular context. It might be wrong in another context.
✅ Design is more than Colors and Shapes. understand it.
✅ Master 1 or 2 tools. I would recommend Figma(vector) and Photoshop(raster).
✅Pay massive attention to Typography, layouts, colors, white-space, context.
Hey, @ahamidchowdhury.
What kinds of design skills do you want to develop? Why do you believe enhancing your design skills will help you on your journey?
^^ this. Design is a very broad field. Product design, Marketing design, Web design, Advertising design, Packaging design, Photography, Industrial design, ... just to name a few differences in focus and emphasis. Of course, there are also technical skills, like layouting, tool knowledge, creativity, and much much more.
Based on your question, I would assume, you are mostly asking in terms of general website design. Look into Photoshop tutorials on how to create web elements, get on Dribbble and start following people with design you adore and try to dissect and analyse their designs in the following categories: