What to do when entangled in textures
Tips for beginners about how to start a career as a designer, on the Internet a lot. It becomes much more interesting when you realize that you are no longer ready to just draw pictures. Our former colleague Pavel Baturin , who worked for 2.5 years at AT Consulting on the “Electronic Government” project, told why it’s important to be able to sell your work, how to start a department from scratch and share other practical tips that will help those who reached the ceiling in design profession.
My first design work for money - 1993, I was 15 years old, I made the logo of a television company. Markers. Then he worked in the press, outdoor advertising, printing. In 1998, made his first website. In 2003, he launched the advertising agency DvGolovy, in 2006 he drew the Habr logo.
Thus was born the logo Habra.
')
Then there were a lot of interesting stages that hardened me for good reason - in the end, all this baggage of unforgettable experience led me in 2011 to AT Consulting for the Electronic Government project. At the time of breaking up with the company, there were three designers in my division, one usability specialist who grew out of a designer, two developers (front and backend) and one technical writer - a girl who just sat with us in the same office, but eventually became an integral part gangs.
For two years, my colleagues and I from the block managed to remake the main portal of “Electronic Government”, launched into productive, it seems, the eighth version of the design concept, and also did everything related to mobile applications for “Electronic Government”, and a dozen other projects Not included in the ES (including AT Consulting own projects). Given the number of tasks and, especially, the deadlines, this was a truly difficult stage in my career.
So my department fully revealed the essence of the slogan - we were called when it was necessary to quickly do the impossible. It is clear that without more or less competent work with the formulation of tasks and minimum time management, all this would be completely impracticable.
I came to the practice of "e-government" when it was a freelance designer. Two developers came with me: a great pair of employees - a frontend and a layout designer. This is what I now use rude notation for skills in order to simplify the description of the situation. In fact, both of these people could have much more than they declared.
And now, the three of us in a month fixed 70% of the jambs, which we managed to fix by our arrival. After that, it became clear that we need to expand, since a little more than one project hung on us.
It is very important in the search for people to understand not only what matters can be entrusted to this person right now, but also how he can develop, what to do with it, when the current tasks end.
You'd be surprised, but the best designers came to me "from the street."
My best designer, a find of a decade, came for an interview with oily hands. It turned out that on the way his car broke down, and he repaired it somewhere near our business center. Maxim had a very strange and small portfolio, but I immediately realized that he had a “brain on the right wave”, and a year later he not only grew as a designer, but already managed design projects, led them from beginning to end on his own.
What to look for when interviewing designers? Many people look at the pictures. But this is not enough for me. I look at my eyes: alive, with humor, sincere - my man. Caught, shy, afraid to speak directly - not mine. I can teach photoshop. Compositions can typography too. I cannot learn to receive joy from life. And working with cheerful people is easier, more fun and, as a result, more effective.
An important point: if you work in a large company, then HR will most often select employees. Be sure to talk to someone from there before they start wearing your resume. Example: I really needed another coder. Opened a vacancy in the personnel department, wrote the specification: html5, cross-browser, everything is as usual. The next day they bring me a pack of resumes, of which 8 were layout designers of multi-band publications. Newspapers and magazines. It turned out that the recruiter is working not so long ago, and just drove into the search on hh.ru the word "layout designer". You can not be lazy and hope that everyone around you understands you perfectly. And Eychara, and programmers, and testers - all you need to love and explain the nuances, if you want them to give the result that you expect.
I worked in a practice that in six months grew from 7 to 500 people. It is obvious that with such growth it is difficult to organize communications and processes effectively, and in combination with large-scale tasks it is impossible at all. But there is a positive moment in such growth. When I came to the company, the practice that was involved in state projects was “plasticine”, and I tried to immediately adjust the ecosystem for myself.
First, I had to cut off everything that interfered with effective work. When I came, I had some time to lead a division of 70 (seventy, Karl!) Programmers. C too much time was spent not even on managing tasks, in which, thanks to the rich experience of working with the web, I understood something, but some kind of inevitable problems for a large family, almost domestic in nature. Therefore, I explained to the management that this would not end well, and they removed my duties, which I could fulfill, but could not develop in them.
Thus, having given the leadership of a large team into the hands of more professional colleagues, I was able to focus on my design gang. I wrapped in my department all the tasks related to the external shell of sites, services and applications. First, according to the “Electronic Government” project, then the tasks of neighboring practices were drawn. In most cases, we tried to produce a ready-made layout as a product in order to exclude peculiar interpretations of the design, which are sometimes born from downloaded programmers.
In addition, I started “selling” on my own: direct communication with the customer turned out to be more efficient than through several layers of management. And it turned out that getting tasks easier is straightforward - there are no losses in translation, which often happen when communicating through salespeople and managers.
It is important to always have the image of the customer. Not only in government orders, but in general always. If you understand how he will look at your layouts and prototypes, what intonation will meet each icon - it helps save time. You should always strive to communicate directly with the person who makes the decision. This eliminates all distortions introduced by the own competent opinion of all other participants. Management on the client side and on your side are wonderful people, always true professionals. But they do not make decisions. So, in communication on the topic of visual communication, they are an extra link, with all due respect and sympathy for them.
Designers and geeks are said to be sociopaths. I will say more: only sociopathy makes you a good designer, and especially - a usability. Of course, most people are terrified, they say, “this man was doing public services!”. Will explain. The more you dislike live communication with millions of people, the more motivated you are to make such an interface, when working with which millions of people will not have the need to call you in a human voice. So from your sociopathy the maximum level of humanism is born: you make the most effective solutions for most users in an attempt to avoid unnecessary interaction with them. Even if you are not a sociopath, usability should have a KPI. It is necessary to put such at which the speed of the user increases, and the number of his questions that arise along the way decreases.
Another point: how can a sociopath build a successful communication of his department with the rest of the company, in which 2000+ people? For example, you automate the development of interfaces and make guides so that developers can use your pictures as a framework. And this removes the need to draw each screen. Yes, all this is from sociopathy, of course :)
Classic management design team: designers burn the fastest. If a programmer has the opportunity to master, for example, a new language and grow further, then the designer does not have such an opportunity. There was a girl in my team who started out as a front-end developer — first she put up pages in html, then she started attaching java-scripts to them, now she’s a great ruby ​​– developer. Here, this is a normal development. A designer draws pictures. From year to year, only their style and customers change. Moreover, if you work on one project, then practically nothing changes before your eyes. And at some point you either go on vacation for half a year, or learn some new technologies, beyond the design profession.
Therefore, designers need to give develop within the company, if you do not want them to go. Anyone want to be a UX specialist? Great, here are your tasks. Someone to mobile, knows by heart the whole material design and guides iOS? Forward, the task is complete. Do you see that your designer is bored, and is clearly bored getting into conversations about profitability, revenue sharing and so on? Okay, be a man, here's a separate project for you, consider it, lead it, make a profit. He did it - well done, did not do it - draw yourself further banners. Again, I’m talking about opportunities that may not be possible if your company’s name is different from AT Consulting. I had these opportunities, and my designers did not go beyond holidays.
The designer is also a very toxic profession, especially if your phone number has not changed for several years. Just imagine that you came to the ministry, and in the midst of a meeting you have a phone ringing: a client to whom you made a $ 150 poster 10 years ago asks to draw a website. I have to answer: “I'm sorry, I'm at a meeting with the minister, I'll call you back.”
Are you late? You buy pies. A delicious element of the game in controlling the arrival of employees to work.
The world has changed, and the design has become a business where you do not only to put it on the behance, but with the help of your work someone earned money. On any screen, each button has a kpi, it can be calculated. Sometimes it is much more important not to conform to the latest fashion trends, but so that the grandmother in Syzran can easily find this button, understand why she is, and click.
There are markets where it doesn’t matter “how it looks”, but it’s important to understand what to do with it.
And yes, it was not for nothing that Ogilvy said that "if it does not sell, it is not creativity." So the real challenge for a designer is not how to make an effective decision. And how to make an effective decision.
Everything has a reverse side. A good designer is forced to immerse himself in the world of his client. Sell ​​not pictures, but problem solving. They called you to make a site, talk with one, with another client manager, then suggest what the site should be, from this, according to logic, a project of a communication strategy, including mobile applications, outdoor advertising, and, say, advertising in the subway. When you make a big project, you start to understand not only how many percents can be at the point of the layout for offset printing, not only how the grotesque differs from the antiqua. If you are not an idiot and love your job, if you care, after some time you start to distinguish between cgi and fastcgi, you know how long a normal programmer needs to run on a site, for example, Sphinx.
And with each new task you encompass a growing range of knowledge and skills. After that, calling yourself a designer is somehow inaccurate. It is like starting a car mechanic in his youth, and by the age of 38 becoming the director of a car manufacturing group who knows how every detail is made. And the next time when a programmer says that he will set up a month to search the site, you will simply fire him.
Open your eyes and watch. Listen. The world is big and filled with different noises. It is necessary to be at least curious to develop, and this curiosity is in no way connected with the straining knowledge acquisition. I never knew how to learn and did not like. Foreign languages ​​are exclusively attention and observation, design is tests and mistakes: I saw a cool thing, and until you understand how to do it, you will not calm down. Without something you just can not do, so it is without visual thinking. If you do not see the world in pictures, you will be doomed to engage in monkey labor. Do not let a live visionary in your head fall into a coma. Visionary can not be reanimated, remember this.
Prehistory
My first design work for money - 1993, I was 15 years old, I made the logo of a television company. Markers. Then he worked in the press, outdoor advertising, printing. In 1998, made his first website. In 2003, he launched the advertising agency DvGolovy, in 2006 he drew the Habr logo.
Thus was born the logo Habra.
')
Then there were a lot of interesting stages that hardened me for good reason - in the end, all this baggage of unforgettable experience led me in 2011 to AT Consulting for the Electronic Government project. At the time of breaking up with the company, there were three designers in my division, one usability specialist who grew out of a designer, two developers (front and backend) and one technical writer - a girl who just sat with us in the same office, but eventually became an integral part gangs.
For two years, my colleagues and I from the block managed to remake the main portal of “Electronic Government”, launched into productive, it seems, the eighth version of the design concept, and also did everything related to mobile applications for “Electronic Government”, and a dozen other projects Not included in the ES (including AT Consulting own projects). Given the number of tasks and, especially, the deadlines, this was a truly difficult stage in my career.
So my department fully revealed the essence of the slogan - we were called when it was necessary to quickly do the impossible. It is clear that without more or less competent work with the formulation of tasks and minimum time management, all this would be completely impracticable.
Team and training
I came to the practice of "e-government" when it was a freelance designer. Two developers came with me: a great pair of employees - a frontend and a layout designer. This is what I now use rude notation for skills in order to simplify the description of the situation. In fact, both of these people could have much more than they declared.
And now, the three of us in a month fixed 70% of the jambs, which we managed to fix by our arrival. After that, it became clear that we need to expand, since a little more than one project hung on us.
It is very important in the search for people to understand not only what matters can be entrusted to this person right now, but also how he can develop, what to do with it, when the current tasks end.
You'd be surprised, but the best designers came to me "from the street."
My best designer, a find of a decade, came for an interview with oily hands. It turned out that on the way his car broke down, and he repaired it somewhere near our business center. Maxim had a very strange and small portfolio, but I immediately realized that he had a “brain on the right wave”, and a year later he not only grew as a designer, but already managed design projects, led them from beginning to end on his own.
What to look for when interviewing designers? Many people look at the pictures. But this is not enough for me. I look at my eyes: alive, with humor, sincere - my man. Caught, shy, afraid to speak directly - not mine. I can teach photoshop. Compositions can typography too. I cannot learn to receive joy from life. And working with cheerful people is easier, more fun and, as a result, more effective.
An important point: if you work in a large company, then HR will most often select employees. Be sure to talk to someone from there before they start wearing your resume. Example: I really needed another coder. Opened a vacancy in the personnel department, wrote the specification: html5, cross-browser, everything is as usual. The next day they bring me a pack of resumes, of which 8 were layout designers of multi-band publications. Newspapers and magazines. It turned out that the recruiter is working not so long ago, and just drove into the search on hh.ru the word "layout designer". You can not be lazy and hope that everyone around you understands you perfectly. And Eychara, and programmers, and testers - all you need to love and explain the nuances, if you want them to give the result that you expect.
Organization of work and communication
I worked in a practice that in six months grew from 7 to 500 people. It is obvious that with such growth it is difficult to organize communications and processes effectively, and in combination with large-scale tasks it is impossible at all. But there is a positive moment in such growth. When I came to the company, the practice that was involved in state projects was “plasticine”, and I tried to immediately adjust the ecosystem for myself.
First, I had to cut off everything that interfered with effective work. When I came, I had some time to lead a division of 70 (seventy, Karl!) Programmers. C too much time was spent not even on managing tasks, in which, thanks to the rich experience of working with the web, I understood something, but some kind of inevitable problems for a large family, almost domestic in nature. Therefore, I explained to the management that this would not end well, and they removed my duties, which I could fulfill, but could not develop in them.
Thus, having given the leadership of a large team into the hands of more professional colleagues, I was able to focus on my design gang. I wrapped in my department all the tasks related to the external shell of sites, services and applications. First, according to the “Electronic Government” project, then the tasks of neighboring practices were drawn. In most cases, we tried to produce a ready-made layout as a product in order to exclude peculiar interpretations of the design, which are sometimes born from downloaded programmers.
In addition, I started “selling” on my own: direct communication with the customer turned out to be more efficient than through several layers of management. And it turned out that getting tasks easier is straightforward - there are no losses in translation, which often happen when communicating through salespeople and managers.
It is important to always have the image of the customer. Not only in government orders, but in general always. If you understand how he will look at your layouts and prototypes, what intonation will meet each icon - it helps save time. You should always strive to communicate directly with the person who makes the decision. This eliminates all distortions introduced by the own competent opinion of all other participants. Management on the client side and on your side are wonderful people, always true professionals. But they do not make decisions. So, in communication on the topic of visual communication, they are an extra link, with all due respect and sympathy for them.
Designers and geeks are said to be sociopaths. I will say more: only sociopathy makes you a good designer, and especially - a usability. Of course, most people are terrified, they say, “this man was doing public services!”. Will explain. The more you dislike live communication with millions of people, the more motivated you are to make such an interface, when working with which millions of people will not have the need to call you in a human voice. So from your sociopathy the maximum level of humanism is born: you make the most effective solutions for most users in an attempt to avoid unnecessary interaction with them. Even if you are not a sociopath, usability should have a KPI. It is necessary to put such at which the speed of the user increases, and the number of his questions that arise along the way decreases.
Another point: how can a sociopath build a successful communication of his department with the rest of the company, in which 2000+ people? For example, you automate the development of interfaces and make guides so that developers can use your pictures as a framework. And this removes the need to draw each screen. Yes, all this is from sociopathy, of course :)
Efficiency vs. showiness
Classic management design team: designers burn the fastest. If a programmer has the opportunity to master, for example, a new language and grow further, then the designer does not have such an opportunity. There was a girl in my team who started out as a front-end developer — first she put up pages in html, then she started attaching java-scripts to them, now she’s a great ruby ​​– developer. Here, this is a normal development. A designer draws pictures. From year to year, only their style and customers change. Moreover, if you work on one project, then practically nothing changes before your eyes. And at some point you either go on vacation for half a year, or learn some new technologies, beyond the design profession.
Therefore, designers need to give develop within the company, if you do not want them to go. Anyone want to be a UX specialist? Great, here are your tasks. Someone to mobile, knows by heart the whole material design and guides iOS? Forward, the task is complete. Do you see that your designer is bored, and is clearly bored getting into conversations about profitability, revenue sharing and so on? Okay, be a man, here's a separate project for you, consider it, lead it, make a profit. He did it - well done, did not do it - draw yourself further banners. Again, I’m talking about opportunities that may not be possible if your company’s name is different from AT Consulting. I had these opportunities, and my designers did not go beyond holidays.
The designer is also a very toxic profession, especially if your phone number has not changed for several years. Just imagine that you came to the ministry, and in the midst of a meeting you have a phone ringing: a client to whom you made a $ 150 poster 10 years ago asks to draw a website. I have to answer: “I'm sorry, I'm at a meeting with the minister, I'll call you back.”
Are you late? You buy pies. A delicious element of the game in controlling the arrival of employees to work.
The world has changed, and the design has become a business where you do not only to put it on the behance, but with the help of your work someone earned money. On any screen, each button has a kpi, it can be calculated. Sometimes it is much more important not to conform to the latest fashion trends, but so that the grandmother in Syzran can easily find this button, understand why she is, and click.
There are markets where it doesn’t matter “how it looks”, but it’s important to understand what to do with it.
And yes, it was not for nothing that Ogilvy said that "if it does not sell, it is not creativity." So the real challenge for a designer is not how to make an effective decision. And how to make an effective decision.
Everything has a reverse side. A good designer is forced to immerse himself in the world of his client. Sell ​​not pictures, but problem solving. They called you to make a site, talk with one, with another client manager, then suggest what the site should be, from this, according to logic, a project of a communication strategy, including mobile applications, outdoor advertising, and, say, advertising in the subway. When you make a big project, you start to understand not only how many percents can be at the point of the layout for offset printing, not only how the grotesque differs from the antiqua. If you are not an idiot and love your job, if you care, after some time you start to distinguish between cgi and fastcgi, you know how long a normal programmer needs to run on a site, for example, Sphinx.
And with each new task you encompass a growing range of knowledge and skills. After that, calling yourself a designer is somehow inaccurate. It is like starting a car mechanic in his youth, and by the age of 38 becoming the director of a car manufacturing group who knows how every detail is made. And the next time when a programmer says that he will set up a month to search the site, you will simply fire him.
How to absorb knowledge?
Open your eyes and watch. Listen. The world is big and filled with different noises. It is necessary to be at least curious to develop, and this curiosity is in no way connected with the straining knowledge acquisition. I never knew how to learn and did not like. Foreign languages ​​are exclusively attention and observation, design is tests and mistakes: I saw a cool thing, and until you understand how to do it, you will not calm down. Without something you just can not do, so it is without visual thinking. If you do not see the world in pictures, you will be doomed to engage in monkey labor. Do not let a live visionary in your head fall into a coma. Visionary can not be reanimated, remember this.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/278319/
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