If you have just started your career as an industrial designer, recently graduated or got your first job, it can be difficult to understand how to achieve the best results, to control all stages of product creation and where your responsibilities end?
Our advice for young designers can help you get your career off to a good start.
Improve Yourself.
A career of a beginner designer does not develop immediately, to achieve a high level of excellence you need to work hard and constantly replenish the amount of knowledge. You must be passionate about what you do and constantly improve yourself. Use every opportunity to rationalize your design solutions and be honest with your colleagues if you don’t know something. Sometimes, though, to find the answer, you just have to listen to your intuition.
Ask your team colleagues to criticize your work and thank them when they point out flaws and omissions.
Get Involved In All Stages Of Product Development.
One of the most important lessons for beginner designers is to be involved in all stages of product development and creation. Attend meetings with customers, management and colleagues. Does the project manager make up the TOR? You should be there. Develop a concept? There’s nowhere without you. Aligns the end result with the management? Be sure to take part in it and do not agree to launch the production if you have any doubts and complaints.
Get Feedback At An Early Stage.
In industrial design there are always doubts or complaints about the appearance of the product, so get the first prototype as soon as possible. So you can solve all issues in time, last-minute surprises have not yet pleased anyone. Useful advice for a novice designer – remember, no matter how diligently you have developed a product design, there is always the possibility that you missed something.
Get The Finished Product
One more advice for the designer – do not think that the work is done after agreement on the prototype. You should control all further stages of the work on the product. Evaluate what happened in the end and what customers got.
Things Can’t Be Perfect.
You should say goodbye to the habit of making things perfect. There are often cases when the work has to be done quickly, otherwise, the company will suffer losses or lose its reputation. This is a great opportunity to use tools such as mockups (https://www.ls.graphics/free-mockups/flyer-mockup). You can always go back and bring your idea (sketch, report) to perfection.
Design Of A Famous Studio Or Designer
One of the most important questions for a beginner designer is how to fill your portfolio? Where can I get my first clients? How do I get my first projects?
You can take a task that your colleagues have already solved. Look at the works of famous designers and studios, choose what you think is badly done and do better. In addition to the experience and good case you can count on some resonance in the design environment (wow, a student has done better than studio X!).
Some of these recommendations will be provided to you easily, others will take time. In any case, be patient and keep working on yourself. After all, you will learn the profession, design techniques, work experience, how industry and business work. This is very important because then you will be able to prioritize and do things faster, meeting the needs of the market. So, once you get to work, you will learn the industry as best you can, and you will always keep an eye on trends and technological innovations.
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