How to Standout More Than 99% of Designers

You're not making as much money as you want as a designer because probably you're not being yourself. In this video, I'm going to break down what that really means, why it matters, and why it's holding you back. And finally, what to do to actually fix it. And if you don't know who I am, my name is Charles Postiaux. I'm the founder and designer at Baboon.studio. I work with companies worth over $160 billion, and I basically redesign products from startups that have raised a few millions to Fortune 500s. And publicly traded companies. So let's talk about what this even means. Like, what does it mean to not be yourself? You do not have an opinion, whether it's in the process that you follow, but it can also mean in the designs that you make, the features and the flow that you create. There are a lot of components to it. And I think the easiest way for me to express in a different way what that means is to think about a chef, because as a designer, you're pretty much like a chef. And so any chef in any restaurant They have to be good enough, like market level enough, even more than that. As a designer, that's what you need. You need to be really good at all of the basics, from wireframing to prototyping and presenting. You need to be great at those things. You need to be market level, which means that when someone pays you to do the job, they expect like a certain quality to it, a certain precision in what you do. That is market level. A lot of young designers, junior designers, They're not succeeding, they're not evolving because they are missing some of those pillars. They can be good at some things. And I think that if you're self-aware enough, you know what you're naturally good at, what are some skills that you can do faster and easier than others. But just like a chef, you have some facilities, but you must be great at everything. You must be good enough at everything. You cannot think of a chef who's good at some things and then really bad at others. Even if they don't like some elements of the cooking and the process that is required in a restaurant, they are still good enough at them. But then think about a chef that is well known around the world, someone who's famous, someone who has restaurants with Michelin stars, multiple restaurants even. Do you think that being good enough, being market good enough, is actually enough to be at this level? Probably not. And maybe I'm wrong here, but the way I see it is that you need to have Excellence in whatever you do. And even if you do not take care of everything, you need to keep that standard, that excellence in whatever you're going to deliver to the client. Even if the chef doesn't do most of the cooking for a meal in a restaurant, they still keep that standard extremely high, whether it's through communication, presentation of the dishes, the dishes themselves. And they are extremely thoughtful and intentional with All the decisions that they take, like what ingredients to put, what meals to show on the menu, what providers do we take over others, what products we select, how do we cook them, right? Like every single detail is thought out and is intentional. And that's what I want you to think about as a designer. You cannot be yourself, you cannot be unique, you cannot stand out as a designer if you do not have the foundations right, if you don't have that rigorous standard that you keep. For yourself, but also for others you're working with. And the easiest way to think about that is just to think about a flow that you can design, a product that you redesign, maybe. Like, that's what I go through. And it's not just about making one cool-looking screen, one cool-looking prototype and experience. It's about think about the whole product, the core experience of the user. How do we refine all of that? What elements, what details, what features do we show on each screen? How do we keep it to the most essential fundamental form and shape it can take so that the user has the best possible experience. The client gets the best possible result out of it. That's what it means to be extremely good at what you do. And this is the moment where you stand out, where you become unique. Because again, like when I told you to think about that famous world-renowned chef, like those chefs probably have that excellence in their skills and that standard that they keep for themselves and for the people that are working with. But at the same time, What sets them apart, what makes them stand out, is their uniqueness. The way they think about cooking. They have a unique take. They are opinionated about the way things must be done and the way it must be presented and the way it's being cooked. And that's how they bring that uniqueness. You can only bring your uniqueness when your fundamentals, when your pillars, when the foundation of your skills as a designer are strong enough to handle going up. And I can imagine that. You know, some of you watching, a fear that you might have is, but if I'm unique, if I do things in a certain way, if, if I say this is the way I want it to be, some companies might not want to work with me. And that's completely valid. And I think that this is a good sign. The same way, if some people disagree with your opinion, if some people don't like what you do, it usually means that you're on the right track because you cannot do something unique that's yours and expect everybody to like it. But just to reassure you and to motivate you to follow that path, There are over 140,000 design agencies that I could find online so far that have between 1 and hundreds of designers working for them. And all of those agencies probably have clients. Maybe they're not, you know, the best, but they're still active. They're still making money. They still have projects and clients. And so there is the potential, there are opportunities, and there is money to be made. And the other thing is that, and that might be a fear, and that's a fear of mine, is how do I stand out in a sea of so many designers? How do I stand out? How do I Let my ideal clients know that I exist. And so something that a lot of— I see a lot of designers, and I did that myself too, was to just do what other agencies that I found. And I thought, oh, they're successful, they're making money, they have clients, their pricing is high, I need to do the same thing. And so I see that online a lot, is just designers and agencies having the same exact pitch, the same exact service, the same exact offer. And so copying won't do anything for you because you need to imagine that the agency or the designer that created that initial offer, that initial service, made it for him or herself. And so you copying someone else is just copying what they want, not what you want. Something else you might say is that you don't know what you want. You don't know what kind of clients you want, what kind of projects you want to specialize in, what skills is the best for you, or you're just not good enough yet at those pillars, those foundations that we talked about. And so you just want to have something out there so that you can still practice and improve. And I think that's completely fine. You still need to make money at the end of the day. To stand out, you need to be unique, but to be unique, you need to already be good enough at all the things that we've talked about. So I'm not blaming you if you do that. I'm not saying that this is bad or this is wrong. I'm just saying that you are basing your income on another designer's ideal. And even by just copying someone, you might realize that, oh, actually this deliverable is not what I want. This pricing, it doesn't feel right. The way they pitch that is not what I stand by or is not what I believe in as a designer. And so that might already help you come up with some thoughts, some service ideas that might work better for you. Yeah. For who you are as a designer. And that's already a great way, a great step forward. I think that's something you should do anyways. And that's something that I've been struggling with and I've been working on myself is what do I want to work on? What are the projects that I really want to work on that makes me happy and creative, that makes me feel valued? And it's difficult sometimes to think about it. It's difficult to think, what do I want to work on? And one way that I think could be interesting is to reverse that. It's like, what Do I not want to work on? What would I hate doing? What projects would I really not want to do? What services would I not want to deliver? The problem that a lot of designers, I feel like, might have and that I've had myself, it's that we think that we have to deliver all of those fundamentals or do everything. It's like, I can do marketing, I can do a deck, I can do a website, I can do a product, I can do a mobile app, right? Like, you can do anything, but you're never going to be as good as someone who loves it, who's uniquely good at it, who's obsessed with it. Because again, like when you think about those chefs, they're probably obsessed with it. Like, you know, a lot of them don't have a life out of their job. It's work, work, work. They sleep and they work. They sleep and they work. And I think that obsession, you have to absolutely love it to do it. And so you thinking that you can compete against those designers that are obsessed with it, it's not possible. But again, at the same time, there are so many designers, so many agencies, so many clients that You can still do it. I'm not saying you cannot do it. I'm just saying you're not going to enjoy it, which is to some extent fine, but that's your life, right? So you need to enjoy it a little bit. And I would rather do fewer, more exciting design projects than a lot of boring work. So that's why I'm very clear with who I would not— I do not want to work with, what kind of projects I don't like doing and I will not do. But my point is that by copying others, by doing what others offer, you're going to make it more difficult for you to stand out. Naturally, because my goal as a designer is to find that right balance between my natural skills, what I'm interested in with what the market wants and ideally what the market is ready to pay for. That's another level of uniqueness is what kind of clients you want to work for. There you can probably see it online. There are companies that thrive and succeed from very small projects, very small budgets, and there are others that succeed from very expensive, very big projects. So it does not matter which one you want to go with, which one's going to make you the most money. Both can do that. Both can achieve that and have different challenges and problems and a price to pay. And so it's just based, like every path is possible. That's what we know with design, right? Like there is no one answer to design. There are many ways to design something. It's just what you want to do. And so it's the same thing with the process you want to take, with the designs that you want to make, the clients that you want to work with. It's all based on you because every path is possible. But following what you love, following your passion is going to be much more effortless than trying to be someone you're not. You don't have to sell. You don't have to use ChatGPT to pitch your whole landing page because you already know what you want and you can already imagine the conversation you would have with a lead, with a client. And if you don't know, if you're still a young designer who has no idea who to work with, what to work on, who to work for, you can just do a very basic general landing page with a service. I do everything. And then by doing everything, of course, you're going to be probably cheaper, but by being cheaper, you're going to find options. You're paying the price. The price is you not making as much money as you want, but the reward is that you're going to learn a lot more. You're going to get a ton of experience, testimonials. Real quick, if you are a product and you want to work with me, go on baboon.studio. You can learn everything about what I do and the pricing, the process, a lot of testimonials, and you just have to complete a form. To see if you're a fit or not. If you're not a fit, no worries. You can just watch the videos for free and that's it. And if you're a designer, you have 2 options. You can either keep watching the videos for free. You can also become a member and get some extra videos for $5 a month. Or you can also join the waitlist for a design community that I'm working on. Just join the waitlist. It's just your email and that's it. And back to the video. And so the benefit of being opinionated, in addition to what I've just said, is that it's going to be so much easier to market yourself, to even sell yourself, and to explain to people why you are the best to do that specific thing that you're doing as a designer. And an amazing example for that would be with me and my content on YouTube, because I'm not forcing myself to do the content. I'm not like, I'm not reading off a prompt here. I have a few notes on my screen right there, but there is no prompt. It's the same with redesigning products on the channel. Last year and 2 years ago, I've tried making videos, I've tried making content which you will not find anymore, thankfully. But this content was extremely bad. The editing was terrible because I did not know what kind of editing was my editing. The same thing with the content itself. I wrote every single word, everything online, and it was exhausting. It was difficult. It was not good. Like nothing felt natural. Nothing felt right and balanced. And I think that's kind of like the example here is when you find that uniqueness, when you find what it means to be opinionated, to be yourself as a designer. And I think that's when you can stand out. That's where you can become different than 90% of designers and agencies that are just copying each other, being the same thing over and over again. That's your differentiator. That's your brand on top of your design taste and the foundations that we talked about. You can already succeed and stand out just by being good enough above market level at everything that the designer needs to do. That's it. You can make enough money, you can live comfortably just by being good enough. But I'm just saying, okay, how do I stand out? How do I push further? How do I become more than that? You will see. You can subscribe and you will see in a few months, in a few years, if I was wrong or if I was right on this. I've tried a lot of different ways to get clients. I've tried different ways to sell my service and to pitch myself, but it never felt quite right. It never felt natural. It always felt like I was forcing it or working with clients or talking with leads that I did not want to work with. And so when you have that shift, it really feels like your pricing is right because it's who you are. It's what you believe in. The way you pitch your service is natural because that's what you truly believe in. And I think in my opinion, success is all about you believing in something. It doesn't have to be right today, right now, but it can just be something that you believe in. Like, I started out as a designer because I thought I was really good at design. Plot twist, I was not good at design, but I believed it so much that I still somehow succeeded and got myself here. And I probably lost a little bit of that, that belief as I realized that, oh, actually there's a lot of work to do. It's not just designing cool screens. There's a lot more refinement and thinking behind it. But now I'm starting to believe it again. I truly believe that I'm really good at what I do. When you work with cheap clients or clients that don't have a big budget, they want everything, right? They do not have the budget to justify just having that expert coming in for that very specific thing, except if it's going to really financially impact their business for sure, 100%, which is never right. But when you work with big businesses that have a big budget ready just for that specific goal that they have, they don't want someone who does everything. They want someone who's extremely good at that specific problem that they have. Like if you have to get a heart surgery, for example, you do not want a generalist doctor who's here to treat when you have a cold, when you have an allergy. You want an expert, like a heart surgeon who's done this 1,000 times and who's extremely good at what he or she does. That's who you want to have to do that for you. And so it's the same exact same thing here as a designer. And so you being unique is going to help you stand out naturally as a designer and to work on those very specific problems that you solve extremely well. Maybe it's not going to be true for you. I don't know, but that's really what worked for me and what helped me succeed as a designer and not just succeed, but it's just about enjoying what you do as a designer because you don't have to enjoy 100% of what you do, but working on projects that are fun, interesting, exciting, in my opinion, is the best feeling. So remember, focus on those foundations, be extremely good at everything a designer is required to do. From wireframing to prototyping. You don't have to be the best at it, but you just need to be good enough. You need to be great at what you do. People can just say, can you do this for me? And you can say, yes, I can do it. And they will be happy with the results. That's what it means to be market level or good enough. Once you've achieved that, the next step is like, okay, how do I stand out? How do I make myself unique in my offer, in my service, in my process even? You just keep digging and I still have not found quite yet that uniqueness in my website, in the copy that I have. There's still always refinement, but I'm pretty much there. I know that redesigning products, finding those extremes, having that diverging thinking, but still having that extreme precision, rational and granularity in the designs, in the features. This is what I'm the best at. Thank you so much for watching the video. I really hope you liked it. Make sure to leave a like and subscribe. Also, YouTube thinks you will like this next video, so if you have not watched it already, Have a look. Bye.