designers

Why Are Online Portfolios Suddenly Vanishing?

March 21, 2020 Design

Nothing personal but it’s worth observing this recent phenomenon of certain designers maintaining online portfolios in private, and it’s a question that has baffled me the most. Until I meet someone who has kept the ‘daggers’ hidden under a cloak of secrecy I will never get conclusive evidence. I was reading an interesting and highly insightful article on Medium from a UI/UX designer talking about grid systems for mobile/desktop UI designs. There was no doubt in my mind that this individual had done immense research to validate an approach of using a grid system, and I was impressed enough to look at his body of work. His online portfolio link had been provided but my eagerness soon turned into despair when I found everything except for the design work was public! After creating an impression with your writing and intellect why would you want to hide your designs? And this isn’t the only instance where I found the portfolio ‘locked up’ for a private viewing it’s become a trend.

It defeats the entire purpose of maintaining an online portfolio that is meant to be accessible 24/7 and aimed at like-minded designers, peers, and most of all, recruiters and employers who might be looking for a talent like yours. Online portfolios can be a great way to project your individual talent not just for exploring job opportunities, and for the industry at large to comprehend what a design process resembles in an individual’s capacity! But the core question still remains unanswered – why are designers turning secretive all at once?

  • I believe there are a couple of factors and the most important one feels like the designer’s work for an organization is covered by an IP or a non-disclosure agreement. Designers aren’t allowed to showcase their visual thinking process in public without breaking the law and it’s a precarious situation they find themselves in all the time. So it’s only inevitable that they strictly make their work ‘on-demand’ to skillfully dodge the scrupulous eyes of the employer. So this applies to specific client work, but what about side projects which are independent of an employer’s discretion?
  • Another version could be to prevent employers, recruiters, and peers or colleagues from unfairly judging their work. UX is a pretty subjective domain having a nuanced process that’s dictated by the culture of the company. For instance, designing a ‘persona’ could end up within multiple formats across the industry and could still make sense in their individual capacities. If employers or recruiters were seeking to judge the designer on the basis of the perception they carry about a standardized ‘persona’ format they might well be disappointed. In such a case, candidates may prefer discussing the portfolio on a personal level by blocking access to the portfolio.
  • In relation to my previous point, some designers may also have a misguided personal view about their own work, finding it archaic and unfit for public viewing.
  • And lastly, some designers, in general, might be scared their work is at risk of getting plagiarized.

Be as it may, portfolios in any form are actually articles to be judged. They’re also seen as a ‘gateway’ to your innermost beliefs and design thinking processes, and might largely differ with an individual’s mindset. But it’s critical that that difference should be presented boldly and to position your unique qualities in the market. Aiming to build a career in design I miss the point and find no logic or prudence in keeping your talent confidential. The mantra should always be to stay open-minded, invite diverse opinions, and spreading the knowledge of design.

The 3 Types of Designers According to John Maeda

March 18, 2018 Design

Designers are moving into mainstream business and as a key element of an innovation strategy, I have pondered on the definition of a ‘designer’ moving beyond their traditional roles of delivering aesthetics and prototypes, though that’s just one way of approaching design. Just recently, I discovered a unique categorization on Time by the renowned designer and technologist John Maeda. It was interesting to gain insights into the groups which he calls Classical, Commercial, and Computational, each coming with a unique set of skills and perspective.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“classical” designers, who create physical objects or products for a specific group of people (think architects as well as industrial, furniture and graphic designers); “commercial” designers who innovate by seeking deep insights into how customers interact with products and services (think teams of researchers huddled around whiteboards and mosaics of brightly colored Post-it notes); and “computational” designers, who use programming skills and data to satisfy millions or even billions of users instantaneously (think tech firms like Amazon and Facebook).

Classically trained designers are apt to look askance at the artistic abilities of designers from the other groups. Commercial designers question how computational designers can empathize with millions of people they’ve never met. Computational designers complain that the methods of the other two groups can’t be scaled.[/perfectpullquote]

Though every organization has a tailored in-house design plan (or not) to meet its tactical objectives, from a strategic viewpoint, it’s prudent to delineate the role of a ‘designer’ that’s based on a certain competency framework which would enable managers to structure innovation opportunities by optimizing the proficiency of the team to effectively meet the targets and to also build the competencies relevant to a project’s long-term vision.

Understanding Designers

November 11, 2015 Design Technology

I received yet another email today from a recruitment agency for a ‘UI Developer’ position, and lately I have begun to doubt the industry’s understanding of the difference between ‘designers’ and ‘developers’. It’s also discouraging when recruiters email you saying “Hey, I have this great position for you…”, only to be left disappointed when you go through the job description which clearly mentions programming skills as a prerequisite! Especially when my résumé or online job profile does not even mention the word ‘developer’ anyplace, I can’t figure out how those emails land in my inbox. Obviously there are some recruiters acting under professional compulsions and fulfilling a different criteria. But merely having an understanding or liking for a programming language doesn’t turn me into a developer. So I take this opportunity to explain about the Designers as I know them in some detail here. 

Designers imagine to create things, and developers engineer to make them work.

Designers apply visual talents in their methods to bring an idea to life while developers apply their mathematical acumen to make that idea work. Even if these roles appear to be similar for some individuals, it should now be clear from that simple description how their responsibilities and perspectives are poles apart. For instance, designers thrive on user insights, picking or rejecting ideas intuitively depending on what would and wouldn’t work for the product. Empathy comes naturally to them because without knowing who to design for they can’t begin to imagine and create visuals. Or even if they do create something just out of their imagination it may not work well with the intended audience in the market. This is quite different from the painters or fine artists who use their vivid imaginations, colours and forms on the canvas to express their inner feelings and thoughts. On the other hand when you empathize with your users you stand in their shoes to feel their physical and emotional needs and pains. Designers have an inbred mechanism which helps them translate those inert perceptions into tangible creations making use of design-thinking tools such as prototyping, iteration and design. When you remove these cherished elements from a designer’s inventory you risk losing the overall individuality of the product itself.

Why is a designer so important? Designers represent the uniqueness of the brand. They breathe, drink, sleep; basically exist emotionally with the brand while integrating it into their personality, and hence are able to imagine countless possibilities for the product. Having empathized with their product’s core value they are able to distill rationale through the quagmire of scrutiny. Good designers are an invaluable asset to the organization because they can transform a product’s narrative with their creativity and design leadership. So when designers are reduced to being just an ‘apparatus’ to fulfill short-term goals, it hurts the business objectives and sabotages the future growth of the brand conclusively. In fact, the best organizations in the world value the contribution that designers bring on the table. They are nurtured not just as employees but as the ultimate custodians of the brand’s ethos and sanctity.

Designers do not automatically become developers if they develop an understanding of how things work. In fact that signifies they are smart enough to cross over (empathy) and comprehend the challenges of the developers which is an advantage for organizations who are dealing with complex big-data and large IT transformational projects. It’s important to bear in mind that customers are no longer satisfied with systems that simply work, rather they are habituated to a continuous rush of apps offering delightful experiences. A user’s expectations to reach a certain level of gratification has already reached manic proportions which can only be delivered through a good design strategy. In a fiercely competitive industry riding on the theme of customer experience, designers are the only individuals who can technically connect the dots, unify the aspirations of product teams into a single sequence, and filter the undesirable perceptions to form a substantial product strategy. To expect them to do anything else but design is quite honestly, suicidal.

SUMMit Cancelled

July 4, 2005 General

It felt miserable to start something and end it yourself. The Surfunion MegaMeet 3 (SUMM as we call it) was supposed to have been a real ‘Mega’ event alongwith a workshop with prominent speakers from the industry. The hotel was booked, complete with microphones, projectors and the works. But it required a minimum guarantee of 25 members & they needed to be told a week prior to the event. All this combination was too large to handle. There are 550+ members but very few are active and most of them needed to come to the board to get information about the meet. Looking at this scenarios we might opt for some method to galvanise the cadre in the coming days.

Also I spoke to Tushar on Friday about arranging a stay at his farmhouse at Lonavla. July is the month when the rains are at its heaviest and going to Lonavla in the hilly Western Ghats would be an amazing experience :) Let’s see how it all turns out to be. Anyways there are going to be only a few invited guests so that we can all be at peace without any ego hassles to take care of.