How to become a designer without going to design school

I hope this doesn&#x27;t sound &quot;unnecessarily rude&quot; as an earlier poster characterized negative feedback, but I also found the design for Exec to be incredibly pedestrian. To be honest about my position, I do have a degree in design so I perhaps am biased.<p>That said though, I think the analysis is a bit glib. &quot;Learn to draw&quot;; &quot;learn graphic design theory&quot;; &quot;learn how to write&quot; - not really sure how this advice possibly can compare with the huge amount of lessons you accumulate from practicing design in college. The suggestion that reading &quot;The Design of Everyday Things&quot; is a significant step to becoming a practicing designer is overly simplistic. I would never presume that, for example, &quot;Gardner&#x27;s Art Through the Ages&quot; makes you into a museum curator.<p>The idea that someone could become a designer in 6 months reminds me of things like get rich quick schemes, get ripped in 10 minutes a week videos, or as was cited in the article, &quot;You Can Draw in 30 Days&quot;. It reminds me of this comic:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mccreavy.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2013&#x2F;02&#x2F;owl.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mccreavy.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2013&#x2F;02&#x2F;owl.jpg</a><p>You can&#x27;t draw in 30 days. It is said that professional cyclists don&#x27;t reach their peak for 10 years. This is also the nature of design.<p>EDIT: Found a better link for the image I was referring to.

Speaking as someone who doesn&#x27;t design much anymore, I think the key here is:<p><pre><code> 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. </code></pre> Being able to work with developers and being able to understand how their end of the process works will ultimately lead to much better design and UX (assuming you&#x27;re working on web&#x2F;mobile). There are too many designers that keep designing for web&#x2F;mobile as if it were print and it bothers the hell out of me.<p>EDIT: Formatting.

Thanks, I enjoyed the post, and I think it reaffirms the idea of controlling your own destiny. People seem to be missing the point just because they can&#x27;t see past the post title.<p>You can be whatever you choose to be and you don&#x27;t need anyone else&#x27;s permission. If you can show an employer that you produce good work and that you are <i>relentlessly resourceful</i> and tenacious, then why wouldn&#x27;t you deserve it?<p>Nobody discounts the value of a design school or a computer science degree. But there are other paths, as proven many times over by leaders in the field. In 5 years, imagine how good she&#x27;ll be, and how little anyone else&#x27;s opinion will have mattered.<p>(Also, shame on you shitheads with your judgement on her work. Constructive criticism is one thing, being vaguely dismissive is another. No jerks allowed.)

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Learning Photoshop mechanics and UX concepts isn&#x27;t sufficient, IMO. One can be proficient in $DRAWING_TOOL and still unable to compose something that looks good. As much as I appreciate sites like Tutsplus, they teach mechanics but rarely answer the &quot;why.&quot; Why do we add this 28% opaque drop shadow in step 37? Knowing <i>why</i> something looks good is essential to being able to create new works.<p>Two books I personally found very useful for &quot;why,&quot; both discovered via HN:<p><pre><code> &quot;The Non-Designer&#x27;s Design Book&quot; &quot;Design for Hackers&quot;</code></pre>

This is a great post. The only thing I would add is to learn to code at some level.<p>I remember a few years ago, I was at a large corporation and we had a large team of developers and designers. Things were REALLY bad, and people were leaving in droves. I had several friends who were designers and they were depressed because they had been interviewing and every single company wanted them to know how to code and understand how code affects design. My two friends were rockstar designers (both had won Webby Awards for their designs) and felt like there was no way out for them. They were stuck at a bad company because companies were now looking for more hybrid designers.<p>It&#x27;s great to know everything you pointed out, but knowing how to code will give you a leg up on other designers.

Perhaps this is a vote for design school?<p>I&#x27;ve always found Exec&#x27;s design to be terrifically underwhelming.

I&#x27;ve known Karen for a while now and just wanted to say that 6 months of learning for her is not the same as 6 months of learning for a normal person. There&#x27;s a hidden layer of superhuman dedication and focus that made it all possible as well.

This is an incredibly well written and useful article and it&#x27;s a travesty the site is down. Definitely don&#x27;t discount it because it doesn&#x27;t load at first.

Thanks, Karen. This looks like great guidance. There is certainly no avoiding the &quot;learn to draw&quot; step if one ever expects to generate original material.

&quot;A good designer is a good communicator.&quot; I&#x27;m really glad you mentioned this. To many people view design as making something look cool or pretty.

It would be interesting to have a post about how to get a design job after working in another field. What does your portfolio look like? What does your cover letter say? What happens during an interview? Did you know the people beforehand? (#1 way to get any job) What do you actually do the first month on the job? Is it better than your old job?

Really this post helpful and inspiring. As a long time developer&#x2F;tinkerer who has struggled at times to find good designer help, I&#x27;m inspired to spend some time seeing if I can get back into doing my own designs. At the very least, I bought the first book in your list!

My desire to really learn design has been slowly growing over the past year or so. I love programming, but I feel incomplete without being able to create an product with code, design, and copy that I&#x27;m proud of.<p>These tips will come in handy as I start my own design journey.

Just joi hackdesign.org

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iamexec.com&#x2F;feed" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iamexec.com&#x2F;feed</a><p>look at the left and right margins of the items in the center column, they are <i>way off</i>.