Re: Honing Your Craft

Jasmine is posting from PARIS for heaven's sake, so I think she wins.

Anyway, I can totally relate to this post: I tend to have lots of grand ideas that I don't have the know-how to complete. And it drives me crazy because I'm the kind of person who thinks I should be good at everything.

As I mature, though, I think I'm feeling more at peace with the fact that I'll be good at some things, bad at others. Or maybe I'm just getting lazier.

In all seriousness, I think there are three things we as designers can do to handle our gaps in knowledge:

1. Make friends.

This is a less "LinkedIn" way talking about networking. Networking is not only invaluable during the job hunt, but also when you're more established as a designer and starting to take on more projects on your own. When you make friends with different skills, you won't have to turn down a project just because you don't know how to do every little thing it requires.

But, that doesn't mean you should take on every project, which leads me to my next tip:

2. Just say "no". (Sometimes.)

Not every project is going to be for you, and it's really important to determine what you can realistically teach yourself for a specific project. Consider your past self-taught skills record, the resources you have available to you (money for classes or software, like Lynda), and the time you can spend on learning a new skill - if you think you can realistically teach yourself how to illustrate in a certain style with all that in mind, go for it! Always be honest with yourself and, most importantly, with the client.

And, so, finally:

3. Always stay true to the three R's: 

    Read. Research. Repeat.

I just made this adage up, but, hey, that's how sayings get started, right? Pass it on. Anyway, doing a realistic cost/benefit analysis of teaching yourself a new skill is a good thing. But, realizing it might not be worth your time to learn the new skill does not give you a pass to be totally ignorant about it. A good designer should know the terms and trends for a wide array of disciplines, so do your research and read everything about design you can get your hands on.

Resource (a 4th "R")

I subscribe to Communication Arts and I really enjoy reading their columns every issue. They have people from a variety of disciplines talk about the creative work, and you get a lot of interesting perspectives from areas of design you might not be the most familiar with. Here's a link to the feed of CA columns.