Counting the days, I’ve been a UI designer for over a year now. Recently, several friends around me are planning to change their profession to UI design. After talking with them about my career change experience, I also plan to record my experience of this year in words. On the one hand, I hope to help more friends who are planning to change careers. On the other hand, I can also mark the pits I stepped on and fully learn from my experience.
Try to work as a team
After more than a year of hard work, I have come to a deep understanding that designing in a team is very different from doing design alone. The biggest difference is that I need to cooperate with others in the team (including but not limited to product manager and front-end engineer) to push the project forward together.
For example, it’s easy for designers to stumble over the boundaries of design when trying to create a high-fidelity design from a prototype — underdesign where detail is needed and overdesign where effort is not required. In this case, it is necessary to maintain smooth communication with PM students to avoid useless work.
In the connection with the front end, the design notes and materials you provide to them will greatly affect the restoration of your design draft. In my previous job, tagging was often the driver that caused the design restore to roll over! Even if the annotations are detailed enough, it’s hard to cover everything. The front end will always come to you and ask: Why is this spacing not marked? What is the width and height of this icon?
After a year of trial and error, I recommend a new design collaboration platform — ** Copyer, which can help you effectively collaborate with product managers and front end engineers.
Often the first draft of the design is relatively large changes, in the review of this version of the design draft, online review must be the most efficient way. All you need to do is upload your design draft to the copyheist platform, where the product manager can conduct an online review and mark the content that needs to be modified. You can quickly change the draft according to the review suggestions, which will be more efficient.
In the process of delivery with the front end, annotation and graph cutting can also be efficiently completed by using the copyer. The first is labeling. The automatic labeling of copyers can free the hands of designers. It can automatically identify the cutting diagram in the design draft.
Of course, for special design styles in the design draft, such as animation and interaction, manual annotation is required. However, in general, after the delivery of guest annotation, the number of front-end calls to me is significantly reduced, and the page restoration degree is also greatly improved.
In addition, from the part of cutting map, all materials are marked and cut map in the design draft and uploaded to the copy platform. The front end can download the cut map of different platforms (iOS/Android/Web), different rates and different formats (PNG/WebP/SVG/JPG) independently in this design draft according to their own needs. No need to call me to repackage his cutout.
Reasonable use of tools, the whole design work with all posts, efficient cooperation with product manager, front-end engineer, improve work efficiency, this is the most touching place for me to work for a year!
The soul of design — color matching
Color matching is literally the soul of design. There are many tutorials on color matching online, so today I want to share with you about monochrome color matching. I have read the practical operation methodology of monochrome color matching shared by a designer of a big factory. Adhering to the 60/30/10 rule, he can design a high-quality color matching.
The 60/30/10 rule specifically states that 60% of the applications on a website are made up of primary colors, 30% are secondary colors, and 10% are accent colors.
Limit your palette with monochrome to avoid design difficulties and “color clutter” by having too many colors, and adjust the brightness of the main colors in a 60/30/10 way to make your design look cleaner and more advanced. Monochrome matching color is very practical for the design of small white, we can practice a lot, quickly improve their aesthetic ability!
Actively exercise their development thinking
Talk to the front end as much as you can. If you can learn from them, it will help you produce quality design. Don’t be confused by online jokes about the relationship between the front end and UI design, like fire and water, fighting every day…
At least the front ends I have contacted are nice, and they are willing to teach me some basic knowledge of front ends. For example, for some seemingly simple layout designs, the front ends need to be rebuilt with box models. In fact, they will use a lot of margin and padding to restore the distance relationship in the design draft.
In the case of the UI, knowing a bit more about the front end will allow you to think about the implementation of the page in your design and communicate with the developers so that they don’t lead you around by the nose
Take spare time to polish your portfolio
The portfolio is the most intuitive display of the designer’s personal ability and aesthetic appreciation, which can not only serve as a summary of the designer’s own creation and growth, but also an important basis for the employer to judge you during the interview. Having a good portfolio is crucial for every designer, because it can determine not only how many opportunities you get, but also how much money you get paid
So, polishing the portfolio over and over again must be routine. I usually refine my previous work every month, including work projects and materials I draw on my own. I uploaded my portfolio to the copywriter platform, and then directly shared it in the form of public links, so that others could view my complete portfolio.
This is a design guru I read on the Internet to share the experience of the method to make the portfolio form more innovative, can effectively increase the chance of interview ~
Keep typing and keep learning
Whether you work in design or any other position, continuous learning is essential. After all, in today’s job market, if you don’t work hard, you’ll be out sooner or later
My input methods are divided into two kinds: one is daily browsing industry websites, the other is copying excellent works. I spend 20 minutes every day browsing websites such as Zhanku, UI China, Chase wave, Behance, etc. Although the time is not long every day, if I stick to it, quantitative change will always affect qualitative change.
In addition, I will spend time copying some excellent interfaces, dynamic effects and small ICONS on weekends, mainly to improve my design and aesthetic ability. Through continuous practice, I find that my operation proficiency has also been improved, ha ha ha!
Ok, the above is my work over the past year to share the experience, I stepped on a lot of pits, now slowly on the right track, I hope this article can be helpful to you! If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask questions in the comment section, see will reply, partners come on!