Not Your Average Serif

Find out how to use color, font, update templates and image filters to improve visual design and build recognition for your brand on social media networks.

Reading an article entitled Glossary of Design Jargon – New & Old (Part 1) on Design Shack.

I woke up last Saturday morning at 6:30 am to go to the Adobe Headquarters and listen to speakers talk about design until 5:30 pm. That same day, my friends were headed to bottomless mimosa brunch. When my alarm went off, I regretted not joining them. Until I made my way to the hikecon which proved to be one of the best Saturdays I have had in awhile!

This was the first hikecon ever and I must say I was incredibly impressed by the hosts Jason Schwartz and Laura Helen Winn, who met for the first time ever this weekend for the conference. The two of them had great chemistry with differing backgrounds that complimented each other well (Laura new-ish to design while Jason was a veteran). Often it is hard to pull off an event for the first time without disorganization, but the two of them (and their team) hosted a well executed event from start to finish. 

hikecon's mission was to be a one day educational design conference for new designers looking for insight, honest answers, and solid solutions to help you go pro. Not only did it do that, but it exceeded my expectations. hikecon provided inspirational speakers and a friendly environment to meet and mingle with a lot of designers. 

A few of my biggest takeaways from the conference:

1. Just start already: Starting is the hardest part for new and veteran designers. I was incredibly impressed by Alice Lee, a new designer and illustrator at Dropbox (also of the best public speakers I have heard in awhile). Alice talked about the "start" and her journey from an unfulfilled college experience in business school to finding her true passion in design.  One of her quotes was from a coworker of her saying "We are all noobs" meaning that everyone is a novice at any given time, even if they are very far in their career. The biggest takeaways were to make your own opportunities and to just do it already. She talked about turning a business internship at Path into design experience by asking for design projects that no one wanted to do. She got her experience by turning anything into an opportunity opposed to waiting and being afraid she didn't have enough experience. 

2. Relationships are everything: This is definitely something I have learned first hand during my career to date. The first speaker to kick off the conference, Christopher Simmons took the attendees through a timeline starting with his high school girlfriend, addressing how each person he has met along the way has impacted his career. He had a great quote: “F*ck talent—go with personality. Go with the person you want to work with.” Obviously you have to have some standard abilities, but many skill can be taught. Interpersonal skills cannot. This applies to every industry and every job, so make sure to foster the relationships and make sure you are the best version of yourself as someone desirable to work with. Alice Lee also brought up a good point about internships and taking the role at the company where you will learn from the best people in the industry. That is why she chose Path where her internship was not design oriented but she knew she would be surrounded by some of the best designers out there. 

3. Passion is the best ingredient for success: Brian Singer  led a talk "How to get rich in design." This wasn't quite what I expected (no tips on rates and hustling your way to your top), but far exceeded my expectations. Brian pretty much showed how he focused on projects he was passionate about. One of the examples that really stood out to me was his 1000 Journals project which connected people across the world through journaling. This project then got picked up for a book, a movie, and an SF MOMA exhibit. Now it is a way to help patients fighting cancer. Another example is how Brian took photos of people driving while texting and posted his designs on billboards. This went viral and got picked up by Time, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, etc. His point illustrated through his projects: the best way to get rich (literally and figuratively) is to focus on meaningful projects to you. 

4. Everyone has doubts; learn how to handle them: This came up through a few presentations, but was the focus of Marc O'Brian's talk. His presentation was titled "What to do if a glacier in Iceland throws a rock at your neck which automatically leads you to doubt your talents and question your confidence." He took everyone through an example of when his own confidence was shattered through a failed project. His biggest points: confidence is not a given, success is not a given, doubting your talents is a given, humility is important, stop comparing yourself to others, and the voice in your head is never leaving. The most important thing is to remind yourself that having doubts is normal and "to proceed and be bold" (Samuel Mockbee). 

5. Designers hold great power and obligations to the world (more than they think): By far the most electrifying presentations of the day, Mike Monteiro really made designers aware of their responsibility to the word. His speech "How Designers Destroyed the World" focused on how much power designers hold and how it is imperative to be conscious of this responsibility. Mike Monteiro showcased the Bobbi Duncan incident, where Facebook privacy settings basically outed her as a lesbian to her parents, as an example of how bad design seriously impacted someones life. Monteiro had a great quote: “Designers need to fear the consequences of their actions more than they love their ideas.” He had another point that industrial design used to be the most dangerous form of design until the internet. He brought a lot of awareness to the responsibilities of a designer outside of just making products pretty and usable. 

For new and seasoned designers, the speakers were incredibly inspirational. I highly recommend looking up some of their presentations on Vimeo, etc if recorded. Mike Monteiro's presentation can be found here: http://vimeo.com/68470326

There is more to infographics than a bunch of scattered numbers and pictures in a long image. Different types come with their own strengths. 

This year marks another step in the typographic diversi­fi­cation we observed in our previous annual. The global spread of independent font makers and the variety of new ideas in type desig...

In a survey conducted by Econsultancy and Redeye earlier this year more than half of client-side respondents said that conversion rate optimisation is crucial to their overall digital marketing strategy.

The age old question, how much do I charge? Whether it is for freelance work or a full time position with health and benefits, what is the right rate? Overprice yourself and companies will think you are out of budget. Underprice yourself and companies wonder what is wrong with him/her? 

This came up last night at a career workshop for portfolio help from #AIGA San Francisco from Mickey Pucko at Giant Staffing. Her advice: Know the job and company you are applying to and figure out the right rate. Smaller agencies or startups will pay less than large agencies or big corporate companies.

So how do you go about doing that? Glassdoor, AIGA, and other sources have online calculators to help. At least this will give an estimate of where to start. 

Pricing is tough. From someone who worked in monetization for advertising, a lot of pricing has to do with supply and demand. Same goes for the job market and sometimes this is hard to gage. If there is a lot of supply (or jobs), then it is more of a job-seekers economy. If there are a lot of designers and not many great jobs, than the rate determination lies with the companies. 

John Zeratsky gives pointers on the importance of crafting those little bits of text in the UI design of software products.