All modern design - web, typographic, product, motion design -
is interesting in that it combines the classical concepts of color and composition with concern for the convenience of users.
You also need to be able to draw icons, figure out how to show actions or explain functionality in visual images, and constantly think about users. If you draw a logo or create an identity, you must convey the philosophy, mood of the product, emotions, and at the same time calculate how consumers will look at the product, think over how they will use it.
Therefore, the designers who appeared at the beginning of the XNUMXs were completely different. Now the designer is a universal soldier. A person who can go into both digital and typographic design. It can make web, applications, and animation. Sergey Chirkov, a teacher, told us more about the profession and founder of CHYRKOV studio.
What are designers and what do they do?
A UI designer draws the interface elements and cares about beauty first. His task is to create projects that will be pleasant to use.
A UX designer makes sure that beauty is not at the expense of convenience and functionality. He thinks in terms of convenience and directs the work of other designers in this direction, so he must understand how and why they make their decisions.
A product designer is a person who can not only draw and design, but also build the entire work logic. He understands and studies the metrics, looking at them, sees what can be improved. For example, that it is difficult for people to use the interface, they do not achieve business goals. According to the metrics, he understands what needs to be changed and where and how to redo it. That is, it has a more integrated approach to the product.
What should a designer be able to do?
I received art education in New York, studied painting, drawing, sculpture. It was all analog, no digital. And now, when I teach a coloring course, I say: "Just buy gouache and play with it, mix the colors with your hands." It seems to me that it is not quite right when the designer works only with the mouse. I think he should be able to do something with his hands, create sketches with his hands and only then go digital. This greatly develops the brain, fine motor skills, throwing something is faster and easier than with a mouse. You donβt fixate on technology, you donβt think about where to push.
When I started doing web design, there was no Sketch and Figma yet. Everything was done in Photoshop, and it was hellish hell - you had to draw a separate PSD for each page, and if the site consisted of twenty pages, it turned out twenty PSD files that could weigh a gigabyte. And then the client says: βYou know, I donβt like this color,β and you have to change the color in each PSD. It took a ton of time, everything takes a long time to load, a bunch of layers is a nightmare. Then came the sketch. It's like walking all the time and then buying a car. Sketch is already like a mobile phone, you can't imagine life without it.
But I think you need to know the basics. Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects are a must. The next stage is Sketch and Figma - knowing one thing is enough. You don't have to learn XD - it's a highly unpopular program. She was released after the Sketch, as their answer. At first they stuck artboards in Photoshop, but it only got worse, then they released a separate program, but it still does not work well, and few people use it.
I would recommend learning programs like PowerPoint and Keynote. At work, you have to do a lot of presentations for clients, customers and the team. You need to know the basic skills of html, css, js to understand how the site will be created. If you only make a shell, not knowing how it works inside, you can come up with something that will never be created. You need to know the basic concepts of the frontend. Often you need to quickly finish something or fix it yourself - and this is already one of the requirements of the market.
And in order to pump in terms of UI / UX, you need maximum visibility. You need to disassemble every application that you meet, study, write down, pay attention to how it works, why it is done that way. Take into account all possible nuances - how the user will use it, right hand or left. Which hand will it be - female or male. Under what conditions will people use the application more often. That is, to develop analytical thinking.
How to look for a job
Portfolio is very important in this area. You can only work as a freelancer, just show a portfolio, for example, βLook, I made a website for Coca-Colaβ - and everything is immediately clear, you can take it, a serious level. During the course, we make a landing page, and students immediately put them up on their Behance and show it when they are looking for a job.
At the very beginning, when there are no projects, the coolest thing is to make concepts for websites or applications. So it's best to fill your hand and portfolio. You can do all sorts of things freelancing. Different projects are constantly being thrown out on the exchanges, you respond, negotiate with the client and fulfill it.
In job interviews, it sometimes happens that a great portfolio doesn't automatically get you a spot on the team. There you already require a number of specific skills. As elsewhere, they look at your soft and hard skills. Often a personal factor is important here, whether you and the team fit each other in mood, characters, vision and tastes.
If a person has chosen this profession and he likes it, then he must understand that not everything works out right away. Some time must pass, you need to fill the bumps, and then everything will be in order. Often people take criticism very close to their hearts - as something personal, and defend themselves with phrases like "I'm an artist, this is how I see it," but taking criticism is a very important skill that, unfortunately, not everyone has. In team work, you are always given advice. Perhaps a colleague knows a little more and had a similar experience. It is better to consult with him and take note.
Very often, designers make up an illiterate resume. They want to go to the web designer, and send a portfolio with drawings and portraits. Make at least one site, draw, copy. They send us very colorful resumes, and they show progress, for example, βI know Photoshop 95%β. Explain to me, please, by what criteria? What is this 5% you don't know?
It seems to me that the main thing I would look at is the portfolio and the usual conversation at the interview. I eliminated half of the juniors on a test task, because many are too lazy to do something and invest this time in their future. But tests are needed, even if the junior has a portfolio. The employer does not know how many people worked on the project. He could make one button there, and other people in the team came up with everything else.
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What money to expect
In Moscow, trainee designers get 20-40 thousand. Many even train for free. An adequate salary for a novice designer in Moscow is from 60 to 80 thousand. The average level can count on 100 thousand, the signor and the art director receive from 120 thousand.
According to the My Circle Salary Calculator, the average salary for a designer is just under .
When it comes to UI/UX, the stakes are higher. The youngest starts from 60 thousand rubles, the average - from 120, the senior - from 160 to 180. And the art director is 200 thousand rubles and more.
Graphic designers are considered the lowest paid. They get from 50 to 100 thousand.
How will your career develop?
When you are a junior, you are constantly under the control of higher designers. You are their assistant. As before, the assistants completed the backgrounds and various details for the main artist, so here. At the first stage, super creative solutions are not required from you. More manual labor. This requires basic knowledge of composition, Photoshop, illustrator and Figma / Sketch, color, understanding of volume, trends, what is in demand now.
When you move to the next level, you will need more skills in thinking, designing, searching for ideas. The difference between seniors and juniors is independence. The first transition to a higher level can be within a year. To become a signor, I think, it will take three years. You can hardly become an art director until you have worked for at least five years.
In my job (and I'm also Creative Director at Intourist Thomas Cook) I'm very closely connected to the London office. They don't have anyone younger than 40-50 in their directors. In Russia, you can easily become an art director until you are thirty. When I launched my studio, I was not yet thirty. In the West, this is generally unrealistic. There, a person has to plow through the entire career ladder for ten years to the rank of senior, and only after fifteen years to reach the art director.
The market is much older there. The advertising market already existed there at the beginning of the 20th century, and we only had it in the 90s. And now we have very young specialists.
And here it is not a matter of biological age, but of experience and experience. They are firmly convinced that a person cannot go through as many rakes in a year as in five. In this sense, we are more fortunate. In Russia, young people have more opportunities to move up the career ladder faster than abroad.
How to choose between beautiful and right
We had an interesting project to create an identity for a clinic that deals with tattoo reduction. We imagined a biker style with skulls. They started to conduct a survey, showed options, color schemes, and did not fall into the target audience at all. It turned out that people want something completely different. They don't want gloomy scales and skulls, they want pure minimalism. Tattoo artists are moving towards the premium segment. Not just backyard basement studios stuffed in terrible conditions. They want to be like clinics, so that there is perfect cleanliness, everything is white. For us it was unusual.
The concept of "beautiful" is loose. For the first, one thing is beautiful, for the second, another. If you go into an ordinary store, look at the packaging - almost all of them are gaudy and bright. But if you take niche products, they will be more restrained, very accurate. This problem often occurs with the customer. They want to see something of their own, we offer a different solution, which we consider better from our professional point of view. You have to have a dialogue. It is very important to measure the many moments when it intuitively seems to work. We think so because of professional qualities, but for the user it seems unacceptable. Live audience testing is very important.
We make a product for people, not for ourselves, so I think it's right to take metrics as a basis. If the analysis showed conclusions that are contrary to your ideas, then you need to take them as a basis. We live in a very competitive world with a huge number of products on the market. A risky decision may turn out to be a failure, and no one will need our ambitions. But, of course, I would definitely introduce something personal, even focusing on metrics. This gives us the opportunity to change the world for the better.
Source: habr.com