Design process

How to feel more confident about your design

and why it has nothing to do with beauty and aesthetic.

Image credit to Unsplash

Since I joined ADPList as a design mentor, I have met a lot of inspiring designers and designer-wannabes and spent some time discussing about struggles of being a designer or pursuing a design career. One of the topic that was most-raised is about creative confidence. Not only new designers or juniors, it turned out that a lot of experienced designers are still struggling with their confidence and questioning the quality of their craft. Some finds their design ugly and not good-looking, some thinks that they are being impostors in a world full of talented visual artists.

One of the questions that people ask is: how can you grow confidence in your design? How do you know that your design is good enough? I will usually ask them another question: what do you think is a good design?

The first reaction that I will get is usually a long, paused silence. While there’s a lot of theories and books surrounding product design, I think this question is remain as a subjective and tentative issue to solve. I don’t think scholars and authors have agreed on the definition of a good design, and this is exactly the problem. We mostly think about our design quality from our own perspective, and…