Designer Shares 10 Lessons He Learnt From Working In An Agency
Agency life is not for everyone. The fast-paced, deadline-driven environment saps your creative juices faster than you can say “brand positioning”. You do however learn a lot – like how to go three days without a shower, how to claim free meals by billing them to the client, etc. It’s definitely an experience that every creative should go through before switching to the client side and losing all creative credibility in exchange for work-life balance.
After working with Melbourne-based creative agency Yoke for seven years, designer Nikko de Jesus decided to jot down certain lessons he learnt in his design career – certain methods and attributes that’ll help everyone become better designers, so that they can take some workload off him while he gets promoted to creative director (that’s when all the work stops and the good life begins).
Jokes apart, these pointers offer some good, relevant advice that’ll help you get ahead of the curve and evolve as a designer. Check them out below.
1.
Rationalise everything you do with design thinking and reasoning.
2.
Your personal taste may not be what is needed for the brief in front of you.
3.
It’s important to understand the bigger picture to figure out a solution.
4.
Everything’s different, nothing’s the same. Learn to move and bend with the brief (or the people).
5.
It’s very easy to go off the rails on creative tangents. Be careful. Stay focused.
6.
Make sure you have a system and process in place, and stick to it.
7.
Do not assume – this leads to miscommunication and wasted time and money.
8.
Learn the hidden tricks of the software to improve your workflow.
9.
Enjoy yourself. No one wants to work with jerks.
10.
Always be searching for more knowledge.
Use the comments below to add to this list and share this post with a fellow designer. Source: DesignTAXI
