Vol 10

I'm coming up on my first year as a full-time designer, and I've been reflecting on my growth. I can clearly feel the growth in problem decomposition, systems thinking, and product strategy. But visual craft is harder to articulate. After talking it through with others, I think I finally have a better handle on what it actually is.

There's a foundational layer to craft — hierarchy, typography, color, spacing — the stuff you can study. And then there's taste. The part that only comes from repetition, from looking at a lot of things, from testing and being wrong over and over.

It's tempting to think good craft just means making something look cool, but in UX, craft is really about making something feel the way it was supposed to feel, and making sure it actually works. I keep coming back to the cooking show Culinary Class Wars. One judge never scored dishes on his own taste; he scored them on whether the dish delivered what it was trying to deliver. A curry that tastes punchy and loud but was supposed to taste like home has failed, even if it's delicious. It didn't tell the story the chef intended.

My mentor told me every visual decision needs a rationale. If you can defend it, you're probably doing good design. I believe that too, but sometimes two defensible choices point in opposite directions, and just a "reason" stops being a useful tiebreaker. When that happens, prioritize the user. Everything below that is taste and testing. Ship it, watch what happens, and learn. That feedback is the taste you're building, an instinct you're accumulating one rep at a time.

The clearest way I've found to measure my own growth is looking back at old work. Stuff I made two years ago looks bad now, but a year ago, I couldn't have told you why. I hadn't built the taste yet. Now I can look at it and name exactly what's off: the hierarchy, the spacing, the gap between what it was trying to feel like and what it actually feels like.

If I strip away the principles and the rationale-chasing, here's what I think craft really is: it's storytelling. Every visual decision is a narrative choice. Along the way, it's important to ask: what am I trying to make someone understand and feel, and does every choice on the screen serve that? That's craft.

My advice to early career designers is to get as many reps as possible. A lot of becoming a stronger designer comes from building your skillset, expanding your range and developing your eye through practice, feedback, and critique.

I also think understanding how things are built helps you create better work. Learning the technical side and collaborating with different teams gives you more context behind the decisions you make.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to explore different types of design, teams, rotation programs or industries!! Trying out these different combinations helps you learn more about yourself and where you want to grow. And always have a plan. But don’t make it a one step plan. I’d recommend thinking about the different paths that can help you get where you want to go.