This article was authored by Arjit Singh, Luis Dominguez, Arbresha Ibrahimi, members of WDO’s 2023-2025 Young Designers Circle.
We may not all agree on font choices, but one thing most designers can agree on is that design school teaches us how to multitask and work late hours as we aim to hone our craft and strive for success. And for many of us, the habits developed while studying to become a designer often shape what kind of practicing designer we become in the future.
Ultimately, as we can attest, the habit of working hard never truly goes away.
When in school, designers are taught to problem solve — we’re taught to think of problems from 0 to 1, from inception to completion, from sketch to product. We’re taught to meet deadlines and defend our design decisions, often in front of professors whose opinions are hard to change. It can be challenging but those experiences help prepare us for client meetings and tight deadlines (and the last-minute, inevitable changes), and knowing when and how to protect our own intent and authenticity as a designer in the process.
From student to professional, making a habit of knowing our boundaries can help safeguard our creativity in the long-run.
There’s no doubt that the habits we build as design students affect how we perform in the industry in the first few years. At the start of our careers, designers can sometimes feel lost — from documentation to delivery, the real world asks for more. Navigating that journey from design student to professional designer is difficult, especially the jump from storytelling in an academic setting to delivering more tangible, technical outputs.
In the beginning, you might feel like you have no power, or are lacking the confidence and sometimes the refined design skills to make an impact, but ultimately you must remember why you are a part of the conversation.
You must continue honing in on the habit of being a confident leader.
Good designers are those that help the ‘right’ decisions win — while they let some things go, they know when to articulate their design decisions and mould them to win stakeholder agreement. Similarly, good mentors are those that know when to let the creative juices flow — while they offer valuable feedback when it’s needed, they also allow for freedom of expression and exploration…because that is where true design is created.
In the end, it is the habits we build early and responsibilities of ethical design that we take upon us that will help us transform from good students to good mentors, and enable us to continue moving towards building a better future together.