MY FIRST WEEK AT DESIGN101.
Hi guys, I’m Deborah OLUGBADE. I’m a young creative, and a design enthusiast. I enjoy the specialty of Logo and Brand Identity Designer, also aspiring to be a UI/UX designer. Design means a whole lot me, you could say it means life to me.
I signed up for SENPAI DESIGN101, to acquire more knowledge on basics and essentials of design for myself and also to be able to impact others who want to go into this field.
DESIGN101 has been awesome and interesting. It’s been an eye opener. I’ve learnt, unlearnt and relearnt. It’s been really amazing, just in one week.
What I’ve Learnt So Far…
WHAT IS DESIGN?
I learnt that design is a method of problem solving. There are good and bad designs. Good designs have the following principles:
Innovative
Your design should be unique. You should bring your creativity to function. Innovative ideas can never be exhausted. This involves the use of technology.
Useful
Your design has to satisfy certain criteria, not just functional but also psychological and aesthetic, such that the intended user would be able to make good use of it.
Honest
Your design does not manipulate its consumer/user, it should not make a product appear more than it really is.
Long-lasting
Design is not fashion. Your design should avoid trends so it can stay relevant.
Thorough
Your design should thorough down to the last detail. Do not leave anything out. Go through every process carefully and have a reason for each process. Care and accuracy in the design process shows respect towards the user.
Unobtrusive
Your design should leave room for the user’s self-expression.
Understandable
Your design should be self-explanatory. The user should be to see it and know what it is for and how it works. It should be easy to understand. In other words, the product should be able to speak for itself.
Environmentally friendly
Your design should be able to make a positive influence in the environment, conserve resources and minimize physical and visual trash.
As little design as possible
Your design should be less, but better. It should not include non-essentials but be concentrated on only the essentials of that product.
Aesthetic
A good design is one that is beautiful. But this can only be achieved after meetingul the principles of the design being understandable and usable. Which can be related to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Applying It to Design
According to Maslow, if you try to satisfy the needs of one level without having first met the needs of the prior level, your place in the hierarchy would be unstable. This can be applied to design, a design has to first be functional, then reliable, then usable, proficient, and then creative.
There has been criticism to this though, does everything have to follow the order, and can’t more than one be pursued at the same time.
But then I feel the product and the idea behind it would actually determine the process and hierarchy.
DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
This is a process that utilizes empathetic, creative, innovative and analytical skills. i.e It keeps the end user in mind, whereby the designer puts himself in the place of the client or a non-designer, defines, analyzes the problem, the designer then plans, ideates, makes research. After these he begins to apply creativity to create, comes up with prototype, and then test and review the prototype before finally coming up with the final design.
SEEING DESIGN
Learning to See
To my own understanding, this is learning to recognize both good and bad design. It is seeing beyond what just non-designers would see. Being able to appreciate and critique not just your design but others. A good designer must be able to study other people’s design work. You have to develop a sharp eye. A good designer should be able to see design with the eyes of a user/non-designer, this is the place of empathy.
WHAT I HAVE CREATED
We were given an exercise to work on, using the figma design tool. It was an awesome process, using the tool was smooth thanks to the youtube video made by Henry Senpai.
The exercise was to go online, study websites and take a screenshot of 2 that we like and 2 that we don’t, and give reasons why.
Here’s mine;
In conclusion, Design is not just about how it looks, it is also about how it works. It’s not the hand that makes the designer, it’s the eye. To be a good designer, you have to learn to see.
Thank you for reading.
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