Issue 013: User Guide for You, Starting Designs in Google Docs, Design Criticism

I put these newsletters together toward the end of the week, usually on a Friday evening or Saturday morning. Sometimes a theme emerges from the stories I encountered during the week. The thread that emerged this week is writing. Whether it’s Julie Zhuo’s idea of writing a user guide to herself, Ted Goas’ suggestion of beginning each project with a shared Google Doc, or Ehsan Noursalehi’s own reflection on human-computer interaction by writing a micro-book. As designers, our job is to synthesize an idea and communicate it to an audience. That communication takes many forms: logos, websites, packaging, products, and even services. Writing is a way to work through a problem and idea. I hope you enjoy this issue, and these reads.

Roger

This is a brilliant idea from author and product designer Julia Zhuo—to write a user guide for others about you.

I started writing a “How to work with Julie” guide for my team about three or four years ago, and heard the phrase User Guide some time later. Instantly it stuck with me. When you buy a new camera, it comes with a little booklet that teaches you about the specifics of the gadget—what each button means, how to select the appropriate lighting, how to review the images.

A User Guide for a Person works in a similar way. It creates clarity on how you work—what you value, how you look at problems, what your blind spots or areas of growth are, and how to build trust with you.

You could say that we’re at peak design inspiration/writing/tutorials/news these days. Hell, you’re reading one of the culprits. I wasn’t able to find a good quotable snippet to include here, which I think is a testament to the quality of Jarrett Fuller’s writing. But his point is that while we—including yours truly—keep yearning for better design criticism and discourse, the conversation is already happening around us, just not about artifacts we traditionally call graphic design.

Writing became a part of my design process early on in my career. But many designers reach for the mouse and fire up Illustrator immediately when starting on a new project. Designer Ted Goas has a unique spin on writing as part of the design process:

Using a Google Doc lowers the barrier to entry and allows everyone to brainstorm on the same level. Hearing everyone’s voice at the beginning prevents work from becoming silo’d, invites different perspectives, and ultimately produces a better product. It also increases enthusiasm when folks feel like they’re part of the process.

Starting in a Google Doc also allows us to socialize the work at an early stage and bring people into the process asynchronously. It’s particularly well-suited for distributed teams and working across timezones.

Designing as a team early prevents designing by committee later.

Meanwhile, Heidi Adkisson pens “Documenting is designing: How documentation drives better design outcomes.” This piece is mainly about product design and how the decisions we make as we annotate our designs is designing.

Designer Leslie Mu has an idea for evolving Brad Frost’s Atomic Design idea in the age of enterprise design systems. It’s a little heady:

Combining this perception with the above bullet points from [Stewart] Brand brings my next two points: The Onion facilitates the DS [design system] decision making processes and buffers the risk of making more components during product evolution.

Product designer Ehsan Noursalehi did a deep dive into interfaces and their potential to change the human experience.

As a product designer, writing this was a way for me to both share but more importantly explore a variety of observations and questions I have been wrestling with the past few years about my own relationship with technology.

2020 AIGA Atlanta Poster Show (Virtual Edition) (Wednesday, August 26, 4pm PDT / 7pm EDT, Free) A panel of three judges will talk about the 20 gig posters they selected as finalists. Then there’s a live People’s Choice Award.

Breaking the Mold: Creating Long-Term Success for Independent Agencies (Tuesday, September 1, 9am PDT / 12pm EDT, Free) For small agency owners and leaders, this could be a great session on getting some ideas to survive the pandemic and recession.

Resume Building Workshop (Wednesday, September 2, 3:30pm PDT / 6:30pm EDT, $5) If you need some tips on how to brush up your resume and optimize for modern applicant tracking systems, you won’t want to miss this workshop hosted by AIGA Connecticut.

Exploring Design + Ethics (Thursday, September 10, 3pm PDT / 6pm EDT, Free) Leaders from IBM, American Specialty Health, and others will discuss our moral obligations as designers, who can have so much impact on today’s society. This thought-provoking event is organized by our friends at Nilll Design.

Adobe MAX (October 20–22, Free) This usually paid event from Adobe is free this year, so register and enjoy!

Lightroom App Update Wipes Users’ Photos and Presets, Adobe Says they are ‘Not Recoverable’ (petapixel.com) Adobe Lightroom iOS users faced a terrible bug this week when the app was updated to 5.4.

Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model (underconsideration.com) Starting August 24, Brand New, a longtime authority on brand identity design will shift to a paid subscription model.

Chapter 3: The Website (css-tricks.com) Jay Hoffmann continues his series about the history of the web. This week’s chapter is about the website. Designers, in particular, should pay attention to the section about GNN, the world’s first commercial website.

The Democrats pulled off a brilliant psychological maneuver at the convention (fastcompany.com) This past week was the Democratic National Convention. Because of Covid, this year’s political conventions are largely virtual. I think the Democrats made the best of it, and it was arguably even better because it was more focused.

UVA’s new memorial to enslaved laborers is exactly the public art we need right now (fastcompany.com) The University of Virginia opened a new monument, the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. UVA, including its famed serpentine walls, was built by more than 4,000 enslaved people. In Issue 005 we noted how a designer used those walls as inspiration for a logo for their sports team.

Designer and lettering artist Jessica Hische created a laser-cut mirror that says, “You are enough.” She was inspired by her five-year-old daughter, who sometimes “looks in the mirror and wishes she had a different and more beautiful face.” Since posting her mirror on Instagram, Jessica has decided to produce this beautiful mirror for sale.