For those of you who don’t know, I stumbled my way into the digital design industry through Udemy courses and after hours self-study (this was my first ever course).
When I compare myself to peers who’ve had a formal design education, I can quickly see the difference it’s made to their capabilities.
It made me realise that it’s entirely possible to skip past the basics and hack your way through towards cool designs, but it won’t be long before you hit your head against a skill ceiling.
Knowing the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind your design decisions is what an education in foundations and principles teach you.
This training in fundamentals allows you to be considerably more deliberate in your design decisions, helping you achieve a level of quality and end-result that just feels a lot more solid.
Since joining MakeReign last year, I’m finally getting the opportunity to go back and learn about those fundamentals.
The fact that it’s coming from some of the most established, knowledgable and forward-thinking designers in the industry, is just plain wild luck.
With these new learnings of essentials, I’ve been able to systematically disassemble the rickety, duct-tape, chewing-gum and lollipop-stick knowledge structure I’ve set up for myself (which has held up well), and build something a bit more durable from the ground-up; with certified concrete, red bricks, thick wooden beam support and a dark-wooden floor.
This has been pretty rad.
After four years of “faking-it-’till-making-it”, I’ve been able to start getting a better understanding of the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind my design decisions, which is slowly pushing me towards feeling more like a professional rather than an imposter, which frankly, has been pretty nice.
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