November 17, 2023
Kris: hello and welcome. . This is an ask Kris and Don episode where we are answering the question. How do I know if I’m a good designer? You’re listening to design and prosper episode 101.
[Intro Music]
Hey, everyone.
Donna: Hello everyone, welcome. So today’s question, we believe will resonate with a lot of designers out there who are self taught.
Okay. So the question is, I’m self taught and I second guess myself a lot. How do I know if I’m a good designer?
Well, good question.
Kris: It is a good question because how do you know?
Donna: How do you know? Absolutely. Well, there are a few little cues that we can help you with today. But it is one of those things that is so subjective, right?
Kris: It is.
Donna: To one person, you’re going to be the most fabulous designer literally in the entire world. And to somebody else who does not resonate with your style, they won’t see you as being that best designer in the world, right? Doesn’t mean you’re not a good designer. That just means you’re not a match for their aesthetic, right?
And I think a lot of the time we get conflicted with what that actually means.
My aesthetic doesn’t match what’s out there, everybody’s loving the current trend, say, for example. And you’re going against the grain, you’re not designing with the current trend. Does not mean you’re not a good designer, just means that’s not your aesthetic.
It’s a nuance, but don’t get caught up in the aesthetic being the measure.
Kris: Yeah. And also, we have come across so many designers in our careers, right? We’ve taught many designers. We were graphic design lecturers. We have met many business owners and. So we see a whole gamut of design skills and design business success and all the things, right? And there are so many designers out there who are quite fabulous, like really next level high end designers who arecharging too little, who have confidence issues, and who aren’t really succeeding in business.
Donna: Yeah, their lack of confidence literally undermines every aspect of their business.
Kris: Yep.
Donna: And it’s like, what? You’re amazing. You’re an amazing designer.
Kris: And then the flip side of that, we have come across businesses out there who, you know, say they do design
Donna: Yeah!
Kris: We might not even like call them designers, but yeah. There’s businesses out there who are doing very well. Yeah. But they’re actually not good at design.
Yeah. So why is that? You know, and it’s really interesting. So, we’re kind of not answering the question.
Donna: Ah! I think we’re, I think everyone is getting
the picture. yeah. Yeah.
Kris: So, so how do you know if you’re actually good at what you do?
Whether you’re like super skilled as a designer on winning awards, or if you’re just like, you know, not that skilled at it as a designer.
So the main way is getting positive feedback and repeat work.
Donna: Exactly. The proof is in the evidence. Repeat work is everything. If you are getting repeat work, you are a good designer. You are good at what you do because people, your clients are loving it. They want more. And that positive feedback as well from clients is very telling, so telling that you are doing the right thing.
Kris: Yep. That’s pretty much the answer. Like you can’t measure this stuff. It’s not measurable. It is subjective, but if you are giving your clients an amazing experience and they are feeling like they’re getting value and they are feeling like they’re getting results and they want to come back again and again, or they’re referring you to other people or whatever it is, you’re a good designer.
Donna: Yeah.
Kris: You’re running a good design business.
Donna: Yeah, absolutely. 100%. And I think if anything comes from the thing that we want you to learn with all of you is that if you are in this career, and you have clients, and you have repeat business, you are good at what you do. It’s literally that simple. And you do not need to win awards. To be seen as a good designer and I just want to say that’s probably one of the biggest mistakes, not mistake, but one of the biggest it was something I was chasing early on in my career. It was one of those things that felt a little bit elusive as a designer.
Kris: the ultimate goal.
Donna: It was the ultimate goal. It was the ultimate goal. And I can, I’m proud to say, yes, I have won awards. So that’s exciting, but not as many awards as I applied for.
Kris: Yeah.
Donna: Let me tell you, they’re an expensive exercise. They are not only expensive in terms of the fees that you are charged to enter the award, but it’s really and it takes its toll on of the time and impact that it has on your business to enter an award.
You don’t necessarily have All of the criteria wrapped up in one client project. So there might be some additional layers, additional hoops, lots of red tape, blue tape, orange tape, yellow tape in awards. So it really is a business in and of itself. And our business spent a lot of time investing in getting those accolades to prove what our clients were already telling us. They loved what we do.
Kris: the clients didn’t need the awards.
Donna: They did not. And it was like, wow,
Kris: They didn’t give two hoots.
Donna: They didn’t give two hooties. And I wish that I had have known that then. You know, and Kris and I, we’ve had a glass of wine and discussed this, a whole award journey.
Both of our businesses did this in our past lives. And we just want to say, if it lights you up, if the process feels easy, if you, uh, if it’s something that you are really coveting, then by all means, go for it. It can be a really exciting process, but underlying that whole motivation, we just want you to know it doesn’t mean that you’re not great at what you do if you don’t come out with an award. So by all means, give it a go if that’s, if it’s really exciting you and you’re really curious about the whole award process and that kind of thing. I don’t want to dis awards at all. I think there’s some really incredible, beautiful awards out there.
Kris: I still love looking at design awards.
Donna: Love it. Love looking at award winning design. We just want you to go into it with eyes wide open and we don’t want you to be defined. Or define yourself or your skill set or whether you are good or not based on whether or not you have received an award. So, there are so many other ways to measure the success of your business and of your work than with awards alone.
Kris: sure. I just have a question I want to ask you Don. Do you think that you need to be a good designer to succeed in business?
Donna: Absolutely no. Absolutely no is the answer to that and we’ve seen that Kris.
Kris: We’ve seen it in our local town where we are here in Newcastle, New South Wales.
Donna: Yeah. Ha. Absolutely. And from decades ago, you know,
Kris: Oh, yes.
Donna: Kris, you’ve told this story many a time. How you were going, what on earth is happening? We know you were pitching against
Kris: Quoting against.
Donna: Quoting against, sorry, yes, I have to note that there’s a big distinction there. Quoting versus pitching, whole other podcast. So yes, Kris, you were quoting and up against other businesses that did not have the same skill set that you did. And they would get the business and be like, what on earth is going on there?
Kris: Yeah. because they were telling the story better than we were.
Donna: Yeah.
Kris: they were telling the story of the results, and I mentioned on a previous podcast how it took me a while to step into my I’m going to advise you shoes. I’m the design advisor kind of shoes. I had to step into that. Like, it’s okay for me to give advice when it comes to design. And so that was part of it as well, having that confidence, but yeah, goodness. Do not let, you know, being self taught undermine your confidence. Some of our favorite designers are self taught.
It’s incredible. What you can do because your passion is there, right? You’re coming from it from a point of passion and you’re not Influence the same way as maybe if you’ve gone through a university degree, you might have been kind of molded and shaped in a different way. So embrace your uniqueness.
Donna: Yeah, love that. And there’s curiosity there, right? Explore the curiosity.
Kris: And who’s to say, you know, our lecturers knew what they were doing.
Donna: There will be designers out there saying that about us, you realise Kris?
Kris: I know.
Donna: We love you previous design students.
Kris: We do.
Donna: actually we had such great relationships with our design students. Yeah, I’m sure there were some though that, that found our marking or our process or whatever challenging.
Kris: Yeah, but do you know what we did that, what our lecturers didn’t do? So our lecturers would just, cause Donna and I had some of the same lecturers, they would just like stick a post it note on our thing and just like. No feedback, nothing. It’s just like slap a mark on there, you know, off you go and you’re like, gee, what? I don’t know. Was that good? Was it okay? Like how can I improve this?
Donna: Yes. And we went through at different times because I ended up going back and lecturing Kris after the fact. So I’d been out of uni for a bit. And those same lecturers who stuck post it notes on my work were sticking post it notes on Kristine’s work.
Kris: Yeah,
Donna: I have such high regard for a couple of my lecturers. Honestly, I attribute my conceptual creative techniques
Kris: and typographic skills too.
Donna: And I really do feel like that. It was just incredible what they knew and what they shared was just really inspirational
Kris: Okay, so we just had a little interruption, then we’re back, and we have no idea where we were up to with our conversation, so we’ll just keep on going. But I think that what I wanted to say was like, why I brought up our lecturers who put the post it note on our work because it was physical work that we submitted in as well
Donna: Yes, I know, I actually wanted to say that. They’re probably going, what? How can you slap a post it note on? Back in the day when mock ups were required for every single creative project.
Kris: Big boards. Everything was on big board. But we did not mark that way. As lecturers, we were very thorough and I think it’s because we got marked that way. We didn’t want our students to feel like they were clueless about why they were getting a certain grade. So we had a really thorough rubric that we used and we were as objective as we could possibly be. But still, we’re humans.
We’re not the ones who are going to be getting you to do our design. You know, we’re not going to be saying, Hey, beautiful designer. Can you do this logo for me? Yeah, we’re not the audience. We’re not the client. So it’s like, I think the point that I want to drive home is that Don’t let that lack of self belief and that imposter syndrome, you know, wheedle its way into your business and undermine who you are.
Because it’s confidence, and I think that could have been one of the reasons why other design studios were Getting their estimates approved over hours in those initial days as well as confidence as well the way that we showed up with confidence Because clients want to know that you’ve got it. You know what you’re doing and They want to know what’s in it for them. All that messaging language is really important as well.
Donna: And the thing that I’d like to reiterate is objectivity is key here. So the first point that we made when we started the potty today. does your client like it? And do you have repeat business? And if that’s the case, then objectively you are meeting the brief. Yeah. Objectively your work is a match for your client’s needs and it’s only subjectivity that is getting in the way of you feeling or thinking that you’re a good designer. Back to students, my students were going to get a t shirt done, are you being objective or objectivity rules because… We made it so important that we needed to be objective, and so we would sit down and we wouldn’t just respond or react to a piece of work in front of us without knowing the brief.
As designers, that was our role to do that. So we can do that as an audience, we can. We can subjectively react to something, so whether we like it or not, or whether we like the colour or the font or whatever, and it’s just a personal opinion. But when you are designing to a brief for a client, you need to be objective.
So look at your work objectively and ask yourself. Hey, have I met the brief? Tick, yes. Does my client like it? Tick, yes. Does my client love it? Even better. Objectively, have you met the brief? And that will tell you that you are a good designer and that you are good at your job because you’ve met the brief.
So yeah, we’ve gone full circle to where we started today. But that’s really important to look at this assessment of self objectively, not subjectively.
Kris: Don’t feel like you can deliver the promise to your clients that you want to deliver? Well, then you can upskill. You got a whole life that way you can upskill and get confident. It might be design skills training. It might be just that you need confidence, because when you come along with that kind of confidence, there’s a real shift that happens as well. And of course we can help you with that. You know, we’ve got the Academy. We talk about the Academy all the time because it’s like most beautiful creation. We just love it so much.
It’s our life’s work. We’ve got all the business systems and all those sorts of things that will help you even to outsource if you think, well, I can’t do that part of the design because I’m really not confident and I don’t want to let my clients down. Well, you can outsource stuff you’re not confident with as well.
So you can absolutely thrive in business, being a self taught designer. You can thrive in business when you’re not even that good a designer. We even know design businesses that are run by non designers. You don’t have to be a designer to run a design business, you know.
Donna: absolutely. You have to be good at business. It’s a whole skill
Kris: It is. Alright. Well, I think that answers that question. I think it’s just that this designer needs a confidence boost. Yeah.
Donna: So trust and allow and like we’ve given you lots of little tips to upskill if you need to. We’ve given you lots to think about there.
But, to know that you are a good designer is to have repeat business, have positive feedback, objectively look at the work that you are doing. Is it making your client happy? Are they loving it? Are you getting repeat business? That’s it in a nutshell
Kris: That’s how you know.
Donna: And then you’re a great designer. Not just a good one, a great one. So revel in that. And yeah, I think that’s a wrap.
Kris: Enjoy being a good designer everybody.
Donna: Yeah. Until next time. Bye.
Kris: Bye.
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