Jono's Blog

Don’t confuse design with art.

Design, to most people, is thought of as visual styling on a digital canvas, and this misconception isn’t all their fault (whoever “they” are). Lots of designers fall right into this category – they feel most at home with Photoshop open, often starting with art direction long before it’s time. In fact, focusing on style too early can be detrimental to the overall success of a project. Wireframing and sketching are highly important steps in the journey to great interactive design, but that isn’t where a project should begin either. Design is every single decision made from conception to completion (and beyond). As designers we must commit to the practice of making decisions early, writing these decisions down and iterating along the way. 

When I start a new project the first thing I do is open a text editor, gather my thoughts and write down everything I know; thinking as high level as possible, ignoring the inner artist in me wanting to concern myself with where I can use that new font, or what color scheme I might use, or what new technology I could implement. I feel like a big reason why many designer’s (including me) personal projects never see the light of day is because they haven’t demanded this discipline of themselves when no one else is there to do it for them - failing to plan, planning to fail.

If you are an interactive designer beginning a project, challenge yourself to become more complete at your craft - build the great habit of ignoring the instant urge to begin “designing” and instead start with decision making. Write out your objectives, consider the biggest parts of the project first, and give yourself a much higher chance of seeing that project succeed.