Breaking into Design
How to grow as a designer and land your first position in the field
Product design is one of the most interesting fields to get into right now. Despite its popularity in recent years, aspiring designers still have trouble breaking into the field. I get multiple emails every week asking for advice on how to get started in user experience. There’s an interest, but beyond reading a few Medium articles and watching some YouTube videos, people aren’t sure where to go next.
I like to think of this as a guide for how to start thinking like a designer, how to make valuable connections in the design industry, and how to land your first position in design.
Let’s first begin by defining what I mean by a designer. When I say designer I really mean anyone interested in product, user experience, visual design, user research, or any other area of design. If you want to play a role in building digital products, this article will be helpful for you.
Okay, now let’s get started.
Build your design toolbox
A design toolbox is something that every designer has. Just like a construction worker building a house, a designer needs a toolbox to build digital products. Luckily, we don’t have to haul our “tools” to work every day. A design toolbox can include things like empathy, visual design, and technological capability. Having empathy is an important skill as a designer because at the end of the day you’re designing something to make someone’s life better. In order to do this, you have to empathize with the people you’re building for.
You can practice these skills and build your toolbox by writing, listening to podcasts, reading books, and learning to code.
Podcasts: High Resolution Podcast is a must when building critical design thinking skills. Design Details is another favorite of mine for finding who to follow in the industry.
Books: The Design of Everyday Things, Don’t Make Me Think, Hooked, Sprint, and any psychology book you can get your hands on. Don’t be afraid to start digging deeper into certain areas of design that interest you.
Visual Design: The best way to develop your creative eye is by admiring the design of things around you. Go to the museum, watch movies, observe fashion. Read books on typography, color theory, and spacing. When you’re ready to create, download a design tool and watch some tutorials. My personal favorite is Sketch, but if you’re a student I recommend checking out Figma. It’s free for all college students!
Technology: If you’re collaborating with software developers, it’s good to be able to communicate with them. Learning the basics of code and how your designs are actually built will prove to be incredibly helpful. I recommend learning HTML, CSS, and Javascript when starting out. Framer is also a great tool to look into.
Practice daily
When you’re starting out in the field of design, it’s a good idea to get in some daily practice. Whether it’s opening up Sketch or reading books on design thinking, it’s important to improve your skills every day when you’re starting out. Websites like DailyUI help to sharpen your visual design skills. When I started out, I found websites that I liked and completely re-created them in Sketch just to get familiar with popular design frameworks. It’s also helpful to critically analyze all of your favorite apps. Try to find things you like, things you don’t like, and compromises that were made. If you find something that could be improved, don’t hesitate to try to fix it yourself.
Meet other people in design
The key to growing as a designer is to surround yourself with amazing people that push you to grow every day. It’s helpful to have friends with similar interests so they can give you feedback on your designs and keep you up to date with the industry. If there’s no one like this in your area, trust me, I understand. I come from a small town in Oklahoma where working in technology means working in the IT office of a big oil company. Luckily for us, there’s this beautiful thing called the Internet. If you’re reading this article right now, you have access to almost everyone you could ever want to meet in design. Regardless of the physical community you live in, you can build a community of awesome design friends online.
In terms of online communities, Twitter and Facebook Groups (HH Design, Designer’s Guild, and Designer’s Lounge) have been the best places for me to find a community of amazing designers. In fact, I think Twitter is one of the most important tools to learn as a designer. Every job I’ve gotten has started as a conversation on Twitter. Once you create an account, I suggest following people that I’m following, following people they follow, and then continuing from there. If you find someone you’re interested in, don’t be afraid to DM them! Almost everyone in the design community is down to chat.
If you’re lucky enough to be on a college campus I recommend joining clubs related to entrepreneurship, design, and technology. These clubs are bound to have people with common interests that you can collaborate with.
Ship product
Just build something. It doesn’t matter what it is, but if you start building now you’ll have a huge step up when you go to apply for jobs. This is a step that most people won’t do, one that often gets overlooked. Creating something from nothing can often be intimidating, but that’s what makes it so exciting.
Think about an area you’re passionate about and try to make a small impact with your limited knowledge of technology. The first project I ever built was a website called Matching Donations. With the help of my friend Alexandre Mouriec, who I met from Twitter, I built a website that multiplied donations to the ACLU. It may seem like a simple project (it was), but it got us recognized by some big publications like Fortune, Lifehacker, and Fuse. The point is, no matter how hard we thought about those ideas, there’s no chance we would be featured in those publications unless we just started building.
Learn how to work with people
One of the most important things you can learn is how to work with people. Even if you end up not continuing down the path of design, this skill will be essential to any job you have. Learning how to work with people can be tough. It’s inevitable that your team will have disagreements about something you’re all working on. Learning how to deal with these disagreements and be productive in addressing them is what makes the difference. In order to learn to work with people, I suggest getting on a team as quickly as possible. Whether this is a job waiting tables, a club at school, or a sports team, any environment involving a group of people working together will prove to be super helpful.
In terms of working on a design team, learning to sell and learning how to give and receive feedback will prove invaluable. I recommend reading How to Win Friends and Influence People if you’re new to working with others in a corporate environment.
Apply for jobs
Finally. Assuming you’ve followed the rest of the steps you should have a solid foundation on design thinking, a few projects under your belt, and a network of designers to reach out to. Start thinking about making a portfolio site. My awesome friend Hasque made a site called Cofolios to help showcase the portfolios of design interns at top companies. Check it out for inspiration on how to craft your portfolio.
Apply to traditional applications, but don’t be afraid to create your own application. I personally know a ton of people who have gotten jobs by re-designing the website of a startup they‘re interested in and emailing it to the founders. If the founders are hiring, chances are they’ll ask if you’re looking for work. Hard work impresses everyone. Keep an eye on social media as well, designers always post job openings on Twitter and Facebook Groups.
I sincerely hope this helped. If you need feedback on your portfolio or want to chat more about how to get your first position in design, feel free to email me (mar@marianoavila.com) or reach out to me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.
I wish you the best on your journey into design and I can’t wait to see the impact you’ll make.
