26 Things Any Designer Should KnowAs someone who has called himself a designer for the better part of my existence, I’d like to share 26 things that have helped me hone my craft, expand my understanding of design, and grow both personally and professionally in the field.Of course, there are more than 26 things that should be included in a list like this. These may not even be the most groundbreaking things to pay attention to. But for the sake of making a nifty A–Z list that is clickbaity enough to spark interest on this platform—and also gets to feature my wife’s beautiful artwork—this will have to suffice.AccessAAfter nearly 15 years in this industry, it has become quite apparent to me that design has a problem we rarely talk about. Access. It is the unspoken entry ticket to the design world — a baseline that’s often taken for granted by those already practising in the field. Let’s talk about the basic requirements to even enter this industry; A functioning laptop, decent software, a stable internet connection. While these might seem basic to most of us, they represent the first barrier between talent and opportunity, and they are unfortunately things that are still inaccessible to millions of people.Beyond tools and technology, access to people, networks, and institutions shapes what opportunities even appear on your horizon. If you’re a young designer, take stock of the access you currently have and consider how you can expand it — whether through seeking out mentors, resources, or communities that can help open doors or provide opportunities to learn and work. If you’re a seasoned designer, think about how you can expand access for those who lack it.BrandB Understanding branding goes way beyond the realm of graphic design, and is a lot more than just logos and bleak guideline documents. Brands—especially good ones—are great at turning intangible things like values, emotions, aspirations, and motivations, into tangible things that you can feel, touch, see, hear, smell, or even taste. (One of my favourite books about the subject is Brand Sense. Check it out!). Brand is a bridge between psychology and design. Whether you’re starting a new restaurant, dropping a new clothing line, introducing a new agronomy service to smallholder farmers, creating a new product at a legacy insurance company, moving your company into a new geography, or even positioning yourself to a potential employer, understanding the basics of branding can help you connect with people on a deeper level.Some of my most rewarding projects have been helping organisations understand that their brand exists in every interaction, every touchpoint, every moment. Brands can influence how people perceive and interact with products, services, and experiences, making this an essential skill across any design discipline.Collaboration Co-DesignC Great design seldom happens in isolation. Even if you’re an incredibly talented individual, collaborating with others—whether they’re fellow designers, developers, clients, artists, just people in general—is guaranteed to elevate your work. Bringing in diverse skills and perspectives can transform a good idea into a groundbreaking one—just ask any jazz musician. Think about any successful company or product out there; rarely is it the work of a lone genius.This philosophy reaches its fullest expression in co-design, where your clients, customers, or “users” become active participants rather than passive subjects. Co-design flips the traditional power dynamic, recognising that the people who will use our solutions often have the most valuable insights to offer. Projects completely transform when you invite community members to the design table as equals — their lived experience cutting through assumptions that the design team often aren’t aware of. Some of my most impactful projects have been the result of our teams creating the conditions for others to contribute their expertise and experience to shape solutions. Embrace designing with, not for in your future endeavours.Design ThinkingD Ah yes, the ex-IDEO guy shilling his IDEO Kool-Aid all over this blog post. Hear me out. Yes, Design Thinking has become a ubiquitous corporate buzzword, and today, it is both revered and reviled by design practitioners. In recent years, it’s been turned into a sort of punching bag by an industry looking for the next big thing, calling it a failed experiment, total bullshit, syphilis, or worse — a tool of white supremacy.To me, design thinking is akin to the scientific method (notice the lack of caps on these terms). It’s a way of approaching discovery, experimentation, and problem-solving, and it’s a basic process that any designer should have experience with. It’s not a magic bullet or a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather a tool that’s effectiveness depends entirely on the skill and intent of the practitioner (much like any other tool). Used thoughtfully, it helps ensure that you’re designing the right solution for the right audience. Misused, it can feel like a shallow or performative check-box activity. Treat it as one of many tools in your toolbox as a designer. Remember, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.EmpathyE Design isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about solving real problems. To create solutions that resonate, empathy — genuine, deep understanding — is essential. Yet, much like design thinking, empathy is often misunderstood and reduced to tokenistic research or checklist tasks (“we’re in the empathy phase”). True empathy in design goes beyond just imagining what people might want — it requires genuine curiosity about human behaviour and a willingness to challenge your own biases.True empathy involves spending time with people, observing their behaviours, understanding their fears and motivations, and very importantly, listening without jumping to solutions. It mandates setting your ego aside throughout the entire design process (and, I’d argue, throughout life) and being humble enough to be open to insights that may clash with your worldview. Without empathy, design risks becoming an exercise in self-expression rather than problem-solving.FeedbackF Feedback is the lifeblood of good design. No matter how talented you are, it’s unlikely that you wield all the answers, and fresh perspectives from peers, clients, customers, or even total strangers can reveal blind spots that you may have been oblivious to. Feedback ensures your designs are grounded in reality rather than just your own assumptions or tastes. Early in my career, learning to seek and accept constructive criticism (without being defensive) was easier said than done. But building the habit of seeking feedback, even for small things, builds a muscle, tempers your ego (a recurring theme, really), and helps you avoid becoming overly attached to your work. It’s one of the fastest and best ways to grow.Learn to ask the right questions, and seek specific, actionable feedback, rather than vague impressions, or empty platitudes. Design thrives in the space between your ideas and the world’s reactions to them. Feedback, when embraced, makes that space richer.GestaltG Gestalt principles are a graphic designer’s secret weapon. Earlier when discussing brand, I mentioned how design connects psychology with tangible experiences, and Gestalt principles help make that connection a bit more concrete. Rooted in psychology, they explain how we organise visual information and perceive the world around us. Essentially, they reveal the “why” behind things that feel intuitive, using concepts like proximity, similarity, continuity, and symmetry, to teach us how the mind seeks order and patterns. But I’d argue they’re not just useful to graphic designers making clever logos or polished print layouts — they apply to everything from how we tell stories to how we organise as communities. Of course, it’s also a really great way to learn how to make better slides (if that’s the sort of thing you do a lot of). Mastering these principles can help you craft solutions that feel well considered, and simple to understand, no matter the medium.HierarchyH This isn’t about org charts or team structures—that’s a point for another post. Hierarchy isn’t just a graphic design term; it’s the silent guide that helps people effortlessly navigate your work. Ever tried reading a restaurant menu that makes everything seem equally important? Nightmare. Of course, this is most obvious for graphic, UX, UI, and interaction designers, but again, applies to many more disciplines. To understand hierarchy is to understand structure, and ways to create clarity and efficiency in the work you do. It allows you to focus on what matters, while letting supporting details sit quietly in the background.When hierarchy works well, it’s almost invisible—people just naturally find what they’re looking for. The principles used in graphic design about visual hierarchy translate surprisingly well to service design, where we need to think about how people navigate through entire experiences. If everything is screaming for attention, nothing gets heard.InspirationI One of the most important aspects of being a designer is finding inspiration that helps you to create and imagine. It’s tempting to romanticise sudden flashes of brilliance that strike when you’re in a creative rut, or “aha” moments when you least expect them, but in reality, inspiration is often something that is cultivated over time. Design is, at its core, an act of seeking—exposing yourself to ideas, art, culture, technology, and people outside your immediate bubble.“Aha” moments often happen because you’ve put yourself in a state of active engagement with the world around you. Pinterest and Behance are great, but they can quickly turn into echo chambers or overused trends. True inspiration often comes from unexpected inputs — conversations with people you wouldn’t usually talk to, exploring unfamiliar environments, or simply closing your laptop and doing something else.JargonJ Wow, really? Jargon made it to this list? Hear me out, again. Think of it like traveling to a new country — learning a few key phrases, slang, or cultural norms naturally gives you an edge. It helps you navigate unfamiliar spaces and connect with the locals. The same goes for jargon in any industry. I used to cringe (I still do sometimes) at words like “ideate” or terms like “opportunity areas,” but quickly learned that these didn’t exist to obfuscate meaning, but rather to create a shared language for the sake of efficiency.Jargon definitely gets a bad rap, and more often than not is labelled as a way to sound smart without actually saying much. For the most part, I agree with this. When used sparingly and purposefully, however, it actually helps you connect with others in your field. As long as you’re using it to communicate with intention and clarity, go for it. However, if you need to circle back to move the needle on some low-hanging fruit, then I’d suggest you put a pin in it, and take this offline for a bit.KerningK Yes, I’m that designer who gets excited (and frustrated) about the exact spaces between letters. While kerning might seem like a niche topic that no normal person should care about, it represents a much bigger point: attention to detail. Just as we discussed with hierarchy and Gestalt principles, good kerning is about understanding how tiny adjustments can significantly improve a design.Whether you end up specialising in typography or not, developing an eye for subtle details in your craft is what will set you apart from others. It’s about training yourself to notice what others might miss. The ability to zoom in and focus on the tiniest of details is a skill that is universally appreciated, and something that translates to everything from user research to brand to designing service blueprints.LearningL The world of design, the tools, the trends, the jargon, the industry as a whole is in a state of constant evolution, and learning should not be something that stops the moment you graduate from university. The same openness and curiosity that is vital for doing good design should extend to our own professional development and growth. The best designers (and people) I know are lifelong learners, constantly looking for ways to pick up new skills, try new things, or even challenge their existing ways of working. To have curiosity about the world around you is an invaluable trait to have as a designer. It helps you make better connections, understands problems with more depth, and appreciate the range of skills and people required to make any decent system work. In the over-quoted words of Steve Jobs, “Stay hungry, stay foolish”.MindsetM All the technical skills in the world won’t help you if you don’t cultivate the right mindset around your work. This builds directly on the previous points of learning and empathy — design requires a particular mental approach. The most prolific designers I’ve worked with share certain traits: they stay curious, embrace uncertainty and feedback, and view constraints as creative opportunities rather than limitations. A growth mindset makes you a better collaborator because you’re open to others’ perspectives and willing to learn from every interaction. When facing complex challenges, it often determines whether you’ll push through to find new, innovative solutions or fall back on safe, conventional answers. Nothing fires up a designer (myself included) more than when a client says something “can’t be done”.NetworkN The idea of “networking” makes a lot of us feel physically sick—awkward events, small talk, cold emails, forced optimism. Building a network is less about collecting profiles on LinkedIn like Pokémon, but more about building real, meaningful relationships with people. Over the years, I’ve come to learn how a solid network can become one of your most valuable resources. Some of my most interesting projects have come through casual conversations or following up with people I’ve collaborated with (or even just spoken to) in the past. It’s no industry secret, but a lot of jobs are filled through the recommendations of people in trusted networks, rather than through direct applications through a company’s website or hiring portal.Put yourself out there, and don’t just reach out to people when you need something from them. Invest in genuine personal and professional relationships, and they’ll pay off in ways you can’t predict.ObservationO Simple observation is a severely underrated skill and research methodology in design. It’s easy to get stuck behind a screen, relying on secondhand information, someone else’s research and assumptions, or even just trying to make sense of faceless raw data. The advent of AI and GPTs are furthering this trend. However, you can learn so much from just stepping out into the real world and observing how people actually live in, and interact with their environment.Spending my days observing people in office cafeterias, schools, parks, hospitals, and farms have all taught me more than any online research or reading ever could. Paying attention to how people move, their body language, the small frustrations they encounter, the hacks they invent to make things work—it’s super valuable information to process and integrate into your design solutions.PlayP Play is not the opposite of ‘hard work’. In fact, adults engaging in play, especially in traditional work settings, can feel incredibly hard to do. But in design, play is essential. It’s one of the surest ways to get out of boring, hyper-rational ways of thinking. It encourages creativity and collaboration, and allows people to make mistakes without the fear or judgement. If you watch children play (or invent) games, you’ll notice how imagination often sits at the core of it. Play with your colleagues (and clients) with no clear goals in mind—tinker with tools, share impractical ideas with each other, laugh. Follow the weird thoughts and see where they take you. More often than not, they lead to exciting new ideas. And even when they don’t, they often break down social barriers and create stronger bonds between teams.Check out this fantastic article by my ex-colleague, Michelle Lee, to read more about play at work.Quiet TimeQ Okay, collaboration and networking and design thinking workshops etc. can all end up being quite overwhelming. Remember to give yourself a break every now and then. Even as a somewhat extroverted person, I need time alone to recharge, reflect, and focus on deep work. Space to decompress, creatively recharge, or even just wander off in my own thoughts.And while quiet time during the day or a week is important, I would also advocate for taking some ‘quiet time’ during your career when possible. Whether it’s a break between jobs or a taking a sabbatical, a pause can help you reset, gain clarity, and reconnect with what truly matters to you. In a world that constantly demands our attention, sometimes the best move is to simply step away.RigourR Creativity thrives on spontaneity, but good design also demands a level of discipline. Having a rigorous approach means that you’re willing to spend time with hard problems, question assumptions, try multiple solutions, and constantly work towards refining your work.I’ve been the victim of complacency many times during my career, and I often see how this also affects younger design students and professionals. When you allow yourself to be satisfied with shallow or careless work, and get positive feedback for the same, you begin to stagnate as a professional. It’s important to develop your own high standards for your work if someone else isn’t doing it for you and look for ways to constantly improve yourself and the work you do.StorytellingS Again, I probably have a bias, but I believe storytelling is one of the most important skills to have as a designer. There are times when “good design should speak for itself” is a valid mantra, but even great ideas can fall flat if people don’t understand of connect with them. Storytelling helps bridge a gap between intent (on the side of the designer) and understanding (on the side of the audience). Being able to craft a compelling story can help you communicate your observations and insights with more resonance, create structure and clarity to something that is messy or hard to understand, or help you paint a vision for something that does not currently exist.Creating an emotional connection with your work can unlock both followers and funders, and spell the difference between an idea that is shelved or one that gets to see the light of day.TutorialsT Virtually every skill I have today, from how to use the entire Adobe Suite, to adding numbers on a spreadsheet, to making a fantastic pourover coffee, to playing a complex Jamiroquai bassline, I’ve learned by binge-watching tutorials at 2 a.m. At my first ever client meeting (at 18 years of age), I convinced someone that I could make a 100 page book on InDesign. After securing the gig, I spent the next three days on YouTube learning how to use InDesign. Today, with AI tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT reshaping the whole design industry, watching fellow explorers push the boundaries, and learning from them is invaluable.The internet has democratised learning, and YouTube is one of the single-best platforms on the planet to boost your education and constantly stay ahead of what’s going on in the world. And yes, falling asleep with the autoplay on still counts as learning (at least subconsciously).User ExperienceU UX is often misunderstood as something that just visual designers focus on. The truth is that everyone encounters UX daily. You will know this if you’ve ever wrestled with a “Norman Door” (those terribly designed doors that leave you pulling when you should push). Don Norman himself highlighted this universal frustration, which illustrates perfectly how good UX isn’t just digital — it’s everywhere.Every touchpoint a designer creates, whether it’s a website, service, or physical product, is ultimately about the experience of the person using it. When embracing empathy and observation into your practice, you will notice that bad user experiences are unfortunately way more common than they should be. Save humanity from pulling when they should push.VisionV Vision requires zooming out — way out — to see and articulate the big picture. As designers, we often live in the details (we’re called pixel pushers for a reason), but our real strength is balancing micro and macro views. Vision also gives us the courage and permission to push boundaries and explore new territory, a way to see beyond the current constraints.As a designer, being able to hold a big picture view of the work in front of you will help you see how multiple pieces fit together—how brand, UX, strategy, storytelling, all align to create something meaningful. Being able to present something visionary to an audience is what helps usher new ideas into the world.WorthW When I transitioned to being a full-time freelancer in my 30s, defining my worth felt absurdly daunting. How much do you charge for creativity? For insights and strategy? For a simple black and white logo? Honestly, I still grapple with pricing my work and the services I provide. But I’ve learned that undercharging for your work eventually puts you in a precarious position of undermining your confidence and the value of what you do.There will be people who can’t afford you, or will question whether working with you is “worth it” but being able to articulate the impact of your work helps others understand its worth too. It helps build your confidence, credibility and professionalism. There are no “right” answers to how much you should actually charge for design. Just make sure you aren’t leaving conversations feeling like you’re completely undervaluing yourself and your skills.eXcellenceX Excellence in design isn’t about perfection — it’s about the relentless pursuit of “better”. “Perfect is the enemy of good.” This ties back to everything we’ve discussed: the rigour to test and refine, the empathy to understand what truly matters to users, the vision to see new possibilities, and the worth to value quality work. Excellence means different things in different contexts, but it always involves going beyond the obvious solution to find the right solution. It’s about maintaining high standards while recognising that there’s always room for improvement.Design excellence is about setting a high standard for yourself and others you work with. It isn’t about falling down rabbit holes of achieving perfect solutions. It’s about making things that are high quality, thoughtful, and address actual needs.Yearly ReviewsY I hated doing annual reviews at IDEO. For more than a decade, this felt like a common fate that every employee had begrudgingly accepted, and it always felt like a bit of a waste of time. Yearly reviews in companies or schools often suck joy out of real, personal growth, focusing instead on other people’s agendas or KPIs. The problem with this is that you start seeing yourself as an extension of an institution or a company rather than an individual human being. You equate yearly goals and metrics to financial or title changes.The habit of regular reflection and goal-setting is crucial for long-term growth, however. Setting intentions and goals should be a deeply personal endeavour. It should align with how you want to grow, what you want to be doing more or less of, and what you’re excited to try.ZeitgeistZ Being aware of the cultural moment — the zeitgeist — is necessary for creating relevant design. This brings us full circle to the points around access and inspiration. Understanding the zeitgeist isn’t about blindly following trends; it’s about being tuned into the broader cultural, social, and technological currents that shape how people think and behave. Consume books, podcasts, and the news. Pay attention to where your inspiration comes from. And constantly build your bank of resources and references.But don’t stop there. Try to understand why a certain aesthetic or meme or social movement is resonating right now. What anxiety, hope, or deeper contradiction is it tapping into? Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it reflects (and sometimes critiques) the environment around it. As a designer, you’re both a participant and a translator of culture. You’re a sense-maker of the world.What I hope you take away from this isn’t just a collection of tips from an ageing designer, but an appreciation for the depth and breadth of what design truly encompasses.To any young designers reading this: your path will undoubtedly look different from mine. You’ll face challenges I never encountered and opportunities I couldn’t imagine. The design industry has been in a constant state of flux since the start of my career. But I hope these reflections offer some guideposts as you chart your own course through this endlessly fascinating (and evolving) profession.Now go forth and design!The A-Z of Design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.