Why Every Designer Should Do Side Projects
by Malthe Luda
first appeared on COBE
Being a designer means that you are the coolest and the most creative guy in your company?! — Hate to break it to you, but that is f***ing wrong.
First of all, being a designer means that you have the skills to implement ideas in a visual way. But, if you want to be a good designer, you need to push further and try to walk in someone else’s shoes — understand the intentions of stakeholders, motivation of each team member, and ideas behind the decisions of project managers. A good designer puts himself into the situation of the developer, and knows all tasks and concerns of a product owner. This article will help you to encounter all requirements, and push you into the next level of a real good designer.
The key is: be interdisciplinary.
How can you be a real good designer in every discipline?
Disciplines are not Photoshop, Sketch, After Effects, Illustrator, Flinto or some other tool. Discipline, in this article, implies seeing a project as a holistic thing. And to learn how to do it, you need to understand that you are a part of a team. Do not block the project with a thousand fancy transitions, animations and mind-blowing interactions. That will kill the budget, time and nerves. It is not a one-man-show. Put yourself into the position of stakeholders, project managers, concept designer, developer, product owner and so on.
And the best way to do that? Do your own side project from A to Z. Every designer has tons of ideas, concepts and thoughts that he or she would love to carry out. It does not matter if your ideas are digital or non-digital. Start a side project and push yourself forward. (Advice: While you are doing it, try out new tools and present a review of your practical knowledge to your colleagues.)
A designer does visual stuff. A good designer does visual stuff and thinks outside the box. He knows what his team members are doing and what their business goals are.
Doing the project from scratch will get you in the mood of every role in a project. It will show you how many different things are happening behind a successful project.
Please do not start with these questions:
Can I scale this thing?
What is the USP of this product?
Who has built something similar?
What is my product-strategy?
This is how and why you start your side project
- Write down your idea
- Search for a buddy in crime
- Do a timeline
- Define an MVP
- Create tasks
- Get sh*t done
- Ask more questions
- No ideas for a side project? — Here are some.
1. Write down your idea
Think about what you want to do and how will you do it. Write everything down by hand, or by using a text editor. If you are going to do it by hand, I really recommend Sharpie Pens, as they are the best to scribble, write down, draw and so on. Make mind-maps to get an overview of all the things that your idea contains. I love to work with MindMeister. That will help you to structure your idea, and this document will be a perfect root position for discussions with your brother in crime.
By the way: in this phase while writing a brief, you are actually the Client / Stakeholder! ;-)
2. Search for a buddy in crime
Nothing is a one-man-show. Really, nothing. Search for a buddy in crime. Why? You can not do everything by yourself, everybody has his own skills. And it will improve your teamwork talents. Also, you will have a mate who will challenge you on your project. „Your Product“ will turn into „Our Product“- sounds better, right? Your buddy in crime will push you forward, you will push your buddy, and the best: you will be better mates after this project, for sure.
You are still the Client / Stakeholder. Your task: screening for partners.
3. Do a timeline
I know, a side project is a side project, and it will get a lower priority time after time. In a few weeks or months of heavy workload at your company, your product will have the lowest priority ever. But, you don’t have to let it be like that, bro. This is the phase when you have to push your product and buddy in crime the most. An easy tool for that is a simple timeline. Draw it on a piece of paper and pin it to your wall. If you are working separately from your product-buddy, put the timeline into a Google spreadsheet or a shared folder on Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and stuff like that. Setup milestones.
For example:
- Project start
- Description of your product is done
- Set up an MVP
- Scribbles / Wireframes are done
- Start designing
- Start developing
- and so on…
You have just transformed yourself into the role of a Stakeholder / Product Owner / Project Manager
4. Define an MVP
MVP means Minimal Value Product. This is the lowest version of your product without any fancy sh*t. Cross out all superfluous, nice-to-have and oh-this-is-fancy features. Get the focus on the main function of your product. Do not design every feature there is. Do it hands on. The faster you do this, the sooner you will get into the production mood.
Well done, you switched into the mood of a product owner.
5. Create tasks
Timeline is set up, the MVP defined. — Sweet. Create tasks for your buddy in crime and yourself. Who is doing what and why?
Disassemble your features and create tasks like:
- Calculate project (time vs. budget)
- Set up server
- Set up Github repository
- Design screen X
- Write texts
- and so on
For side projects like these, I would recommended tools like Trello and Wunderlist. Both are so smooth to handle and quick to „learn“. Especially Trello, which is perfect for organization of tasks and work sequence. Creating a board with columns called „to do“ „doing“ „ready to review“ and „done“ is quite simple.
You are still in the Product Owner role, dude.
6. Get sh*t done
Focus on your tasks. Talk to your buddy in crime, keep each other updated by short calls and meetings. Do not do it via e-mail or Slack. Short questions can be answered by these two tools. Updates are better via calls or meetings, because it is more easier to explain your points, your problems and your progress. — And you will see, if you put (for example) a tiny searchfield into your design, which is not included into your MVP, the whole timeline and progress will get stuck. Sometimes it is better to do an 80% of the solution in the 30% of the time.
Try to get your product to the market as soon as possible, and make sure that it is of a good quality. The market could be your own pocket, friends or family. If you don’t want to publish your idea, app, website, service, etc.- do user tests, ask your colleagues and friends what is their honest opinion of your product: how it feels, how it looks, how it performs. And try to see what’s wrong if you see that some users have trouble using your product. Testing, asking questions and refining things are the main tasks of the Get-Sh*t-Done-Mode. But do not lose sight of your time and budget.
Booom! You are a Concept Designer, Copywriter, Designer, Researcher, Product Owner and Project Manger in one. — Depends on your tasks defined on №5. Wow, that’s a lot of roles, right? Being interdisciplinary rocks, believe me!
7. Ask more questions
Tight coordination is crazy important. — Ask your buddy in crime why is he doing things the way that he is doing. Explain your points on your tasks. Play ping-pong with your buddy. Try to get deep into his work. If you have no idea about coding, ask how things will be coded and why. The more you ask, the more you get a feeling for the role of a developer, for example. And let your buddy in crime get deep into your work. Tell him why are you doing things the way you do them. And the answer can not be: „Well, because it is beautiful.“
Every pixel you nudge, every vector you draw, every word you write has to explicable.
Done. — What’s next?
Done? — My opinion is a that a product is never done. If your MVP is successfully launched, go back to beginning and ask yourself the standard questions like „Can I scale this thing?“ or „How can I get money out of this?“.
Why now?
Hands-on-side-projects are the best way to improve oneself and get a feeling of how other people in different disciplines work for a successful launch of a product. — The more you work, the more you will know about the holistic process. Now you know that „Designing a product“ is not nudging a pixel, it’s much more.
8. No ideas for a side project? — Here are some
It is that easy. For a “simple” digital side project I love to use third party data. Friend of mine and I created FlakeUp, a beautiful alarm and weather app. FlakeUp wakes you up if there’s powder nearby. We just grabbed the weather via the Darksky API and implemented them into FlakeUp. Weather data combined with Push Notifications are a great way to get a wake up call, when there is fresh snow nearby.
If you do not have any ideas for a side project, take some trivial ideas.
Here are 8 launching prompts for you:
- Create a weather app
- Create a ticker for your favorite sport
- Create an alarm clock
- Create a quiz
- Create a time tracker
- Create a chat-bot for …
- Create a diary
- Create a music player
- Create a smart mirror
- …
