What Is It You Do, Exactly?

A cursory look at what being a web designer is like, and some soft skills for becoming a better all-around designer.

Transcript

1. What Is It You Do, Exactly?
4. Design Lead UX Designer UI Designer Product Designer Graphic Designer Visual Designer Art Director Junior Art Director Design Evangelist Web Designer Front-end Engineer Interaction Designer Communication Designer Production Designer UX Producer UX Architect
5. UI/UX Ninja
8. Every time a client tells me to “blue sky” something, or that they don’t want to “stifle my creativity”, I have to spend time undoing the myth of the magical creative. MIK E M ON TEI R O, “D ESI GN I S A J O B ”
9. Our aim is to design and build something that will allow users to do whatever it is that they need to do, then get out of their way. It’s not as fancy as I think we sometimes make it out to be—we’re not artists or poets. We just make websites. That’s my go-to response when people ask me what I do for a living: “I make websites.” I’m not a something-engineer or a whatever-architect, and I’m sure as hell no “rockstar” or “ninja.” I make websites. I’m alright with that; you should be too. MA T MA RQ UI S , TH E PA STRY B O X PR O J E C T
10. 1 Side Projects
11. Change of Pace Freedom ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! Sanity
13. Start Small Inside Your Organization Local, Small Business/Orgs
19. by starting a side project, you’re contributing to something potentially greater than normal circumstances would allow. RE LAT ED: S UC C ESS/ F A IL U R E IS 1 0 0% O N Y O U
20. The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life. JE SS I CA H I SCH E
21. 2 So Skills
22. So Skill: any skill that’s not the actual cra of design, but contributes to becoming a well-rounded designer
23. Facilitation Leadership Critical Listening Empathy
25. Writing Small: Company Blog Personal Blog Local Publications Large: Tuts+ Smashing Magazine .net Magazine
27. Speaking Small: Internal Meeting Client Meeting Local Meetup Large: Submissions for Conferences
31. the easiest thing you can do to help form so skills is to simply stay current L EA RN > SHA RE > MA K E > SH AR E > R E P E AT
32. 3 Support
33. Support Side Projects Easy. Talk to the people in this room.
34. Support Writing Read. Share, Like, Comment, Retweet, Repin, Repost
35. Support Speaking A end. Tweet, Give Feedback, Document, Apply
36. Support Staying Current Talk. Start a Podcast, Create a Meetup This.
37. What’s next for Sync?
38. SyracuseSync PRINT DESIGN RWD BACK-END DEVELOPMENT
43. SyracuseSync