12 Hardskills for Creative designers to level up your game 10X

Why do we have to really have not many hard skills being a designer? Okay, in my previous episode, you could have understood the soft skills part of it. Let me tell you, hard skills is definitely, definitely mandatory. Okay? So today we are going to learn 12 different hard skills. What a designer needs to know, designer needs to learn, designer needs to implement, designer needs to take action. Okay? So this particular podcast is not just going to give you 12 hard skills and also along with that, action points some materials and resources, some takeaways that you can implement it in immediate one or two days. Okay? So with this context, we'll start diving into the 12 different hard skills. Guys, welcome, welcome. This is Jagdish staying tuned with me. Thank you for Design for Change podcast. Okay, so I've just put a little bit sentence here and there. Just adjust with me because it's, it's. I wanted to make it as natural as possible. Okay. It's not like I've already practiced and all these things are happening. I, I just have an intention to set that this podcast is going to have a lot of value for you. Okay, so just a little bit here and there, some mistakes, there are just. But try to get the points what I'm trying to say. Okay? So before diving into this 12 hard skills, we will have to first know some basic funda. See, design is a dynamic field. It's continuously evolving, changing trends. We all know that, right? So whether if you are an experienced designer or a beginner, you need to understand skills are the mandatory things. Let me tell you two sentences, guys. Motivation is temporary. Skills are permanent. If you hear a motivational video or if you hear from somebody else, seeing a lot of work, design and all these things, that is not going to impact anything in your life. Learning skills is permanent. My mentor, Rajiv Taldreja, he used to always say, motivation is just temporary. Skills are permanent. Skills are going to make you live. Skills are going to give you food, living, your career, growth, everything. If you're not learning any skills, even if you do any job in this world, you will be removed. That much of dynamism is happening. So learning skills is must, guys. Okay, so now we'll jump into the 12 different skills of a designer. The very first skill is actually sketching and communication. You need to be a very good sketcher, guys. You need to know how to draw lines, draw circles, draw some basic human figures, at least a stick diagram. You need to communicate your ideas effectively. The moment you put a pen and paper or a pencil and paper, you start flowing. Lot of your ideas Try it guys. Try it out. If you are, if you are very afraid of sketching, just start with putting some basic lines, basic pencils, sketches, some, some circles, just make a scribble. Make sure you start that because that is an important skill which a designer needs to learn to communicate his ideas. Let me tell you why sketching is damn important. See, sketching is actually to make other person understand and make a bridge between your imagination and something which is going to come as a concept. You cannot tell everything by verbal. You need to show something right? So it allows you to quickly get down what you're trying to say and your audience is going to understand it. It's a very, very powerful tool to receive more ideas. See, if you rather make a lot of 3D models or prototype or mock ups or wireframes, it's much difficult for you to change at that point of time. If some feedback is there, or maybe if you would have missed something very important to consider. But when you have a sketch, it's very much easy to explore that. And do not scrap that exploration. Keep that as a process and document it in your projects and portfolio. That becomes an exploration to show your customers and clients or even recruiters so how you can master this skill. See, you need to practice regularly like it's actually a muscle memory which you need to develop if you are a good. If you wanted to become good in sketching, go and observe people who are doing gym exercises, people who are building body, people who are building muscles. What they do is they do exercise repeatedly with a proper posture, okay? Having tumbles and lifting here and there is not called proper exercise. You need to know how to stand, you need to expand your chest, you need to inhale your breath tight your abs, you need to little bit bend and then you need to form that particular exercise. Like let's say if you are doing a bicep exercise, if you had a proper coach for your gym, he would have instructed you more than what I said. Now if you do that continuously, you form that momentum to create that exercise and you do it continuously, your muscle builds same like that. Your sketching has a proper protocol to do. If you do it properly, then your muscle will build sketching muscle, right? And if you do that continuously, automatically your sketches will pop up. You will be good in lines, you will be good in circles, you'll be good in communicating faster ideas. So learn from experts. Do not do here and there. Some binge watch here and there. YouTube this that have a consistency. Use digital tools also. See there are good tools in iPad you can use like Procreate. You can use some sketch version. You can use free version itself. That's totally cool. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I would suggest some recommendation, guys. There is a book called Sketching for designers. Okay. See, when we are in design institutes, we used to sketch hundreds and hundreds of concepts in new sprint sheet, which is a bigger sheets. Okay. Normally you will get it in design art tool shop, not a normal stationery. You can get that particular newsprint sheet. News print sheet is something you guys know newspaper. Right? Before the news is printed, the paper will is very big, right? It's a very low quality paper because you don't have to use a four good quality to sketching. You can use that paper to form that lines. The advantage of using newsprint is it's very big. You can stretch your hand and you can practice it. Okay. You can use Wacom for digital tools. You can use Procreate. You can use simple pencil and paper also. That's totally fine. Okay. This is action points. The second important skill is visual sensitive sens sensitivity and color theory. See, if you are a designer, it's very crucial to see through colors. You'll have to deep dive into color theory and understand what kind of a color communicates what kind of a message. If it's a medical field, sometimes blue will be most predominant. In different culture, blue might be different. Try to understand what is white conveying to you. Try to understand what red conveys. In some culture, red is harmonious, red is love. In some culture, it is danger. So understand that visual sensitivity of a colors and then try using that. See, it is very important if you choose good elements and if you are a very good visual designer or very good product designer, but your color scale is bad. You will not be able to resonate with your audience properly. People will feel something is off. You will not convey your message properly. Either it will be too jarring or it will be minimal in communication. Or it will be nothing in communication so that people will not able to get what you're trying to say. Okay. The action point to improve your color skill is learn color theory, guys. Simple. You want to go deeper into it? Jump into my course. I'll help you out. But if you already know color theory, just brush up your knowledge. Simple. Okay. Just brush up it will try to tend to forget that. So practice with palettes. Always have a proven palettes to you see, there is a material called coolers.co.inc o o l o r s.in coolers.in okay.co.in sorry. So you can use. There are some proven like 50 plus thousand gradients have been available. You can use that to practice with palettes. Okay, there are. Those are all some proven palettes which you can templately use and use. Psychology of Color Try and understand how people behavior change. See, using colors, people have did lot many magics. Guys in one of the jails, okay, in criminal jails, they used to paint certain colors so that the behavior of a. What do you call that criminals will change behavior of the inmates cell. Inmates in the prison will change. See that much of impact it can create. What kind of impact? You can create your app, to your website, to your product colors, to your form colors. So think about it. You can read a book called Interaction of Color by Joseph Albers. It's a very classical book to just get inspired. If you're a designer, use Adobe Color Wheel for creating color palettes. I've already given you coolers.co.in so you can do that. If you want, you can enroll in some short term course also and learn it. No problem. Okay. The third important skill is composition. Hey Jagdish, what is composition? Yes, sketching. I can understand color. Composition is something. If you say something is beauty, what it is making you to learn and say it beauty. See, there is something called rhythm, harmony, balance, Gestalt law. There is a separate podcast I've recorded in this topic. You can listen to it. But in nutshell, composition is something which is making you believe that something is beautiful, something is not beautiful. If you know how to decipher that science, you will be able to recreate that science and make a better looking products and services. Simple. So good design is not just about placing elements on the canvas here and there. It's about understanding and deciphering the visual hierarchy. Text, images and then how in which order it has been placed and how well our eyes are trained to see that. Okay, if something is put in linear way, we'll see it's linearly arranged. Super. If it's something here and there, we'll see it's disorder. Right? So how do you understand that? That is development of composition skill. Okay, how to master it? You have to analyze lot of posters, analyze lot of websites, analyze lot of composition. Put in Google and YouTube and see compositional products. Try to understand how people are understood composition. As if you have that kind of a clarity, then you will be able to experiment it more. You have to experiment also, guys. If you're not experimenting it, you will not be able to do again these two Things will be effective only when you learn from a proper persons. Have a mentors or teachers or seniors who can guide you properly. And then read about that. You can read book for Data Rams. Okay? He has set 10 principles of design and you can see brown products. You can learn a lot of composition from there. It's a very good example in a material. You can use it to find composition, balance, rhythm hierarchy, study your own culture. That's a very good way to start. What do you call learning composition? You can learn Gestalt, law of psychology. You can go through Pinterest for a lot of inspirations to explore a different different composition. And you can learn something called Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Joseph Muller Brockman. I've not read this book but it is suggested that it is really good. I've taken this reference from Chat GPT. It has helped me. So I believe you can trust and try this out. Okay? Because you're going to learn Grid system and you're going to learn composition in a more structural way. The fourth important skill is documentation and articulation. If you're not able to document anything properly, if you're doing hours and hours and months of research, nothing is going to impact in your design. See, articulation in meetings, in presentation is very, very important. See guys, we have a memory. It will tend to forget in 24 hours. You forget 80% of the things in next 48 hours. You even forget more than that. So how do you build that? Is just documenting and articulating it properly. There are very good importance. Guys. By documenting you will. You will not miss lot many things. You will put as much as important relevant information. And you will cover your audiences and guidelines and project scope and objective of the project very clearly without missing the essence of the project. And you will be able to consistently make a very good presentation. This is a very important skill which a designer needs to learn. You can use some trello. That's a very good application. You can use versatile project management tools like you can use skillshare. There is a course called Effective Communication for designer. It's a very good course. You can enroll in that and you can learn and you can really go in paper, pen method also for documentation. That's totally fine. You don't have to stress yourself. Okay? That's a fourth skill. Fifth is editorial and graphic design. If you wanted to really present yourself properly, you need to definitely learn some editorial design skills. Guys, you might be wondering, hey, I'm not a graphic designer. Let me tell you guys, if you are able to understand editorial skills and graphic design skills. To represent your typeface, to represent your layout, to represent your graphical elements. You will be able to create a far more better impact in your portfolios, in your designs, in your documents. Because understanding some basic elements in graphics is very important, guys. Okay? So do not think it's not my job. So you can read a very good book called Thinking with Type. You can use some software like Canva. It's very simple. Everybody can use it. It's a non designer software. So you can understand that. Okay? This is an action step. Sixth is travel and explore. You will not be expecting me to tell this topic. You will have to travel to a lot of museums, guys. You'll have to travel to a lot of different, different random areas to explore. This is a hard skill which you need to learn. You will get more fresh perspectives. You will get more clarity in what your system is already been biased. You will be making that unlearning. And you will rejuvenate yourself in a very proper way, right? Because if you're not adding flavor to your designs, you will not be adding any value to your customers also. So plan purposeful trips, plan unpurposeful trips also. So meet local guys like designers and local people, talk to them, take pictures, document some videos. If you wanted to add some blog, you can create a blog also and keep writing. Don't worry who reads? Who cares? I mean, nobody cares. It's for you. You're doing simple, that's it, okay? To improve your creativity and exploratory knowledge. It's a. It's. It's recommended that you can go for some Vanderlust, a very good book. It's a book that celebrates beauty of travel and adventure. You can learn a lot of things from that magazine. You can subscribe digital copy. You can subscribe physical copy if you want. You can get even graphical design inspirations from that. It's a very good article. National Geographic Travel. You can subscribe to that. You can watch TV shows in BBC and national geography for travel and exploration. So you will tend to explore lot many things, guys. Okay? So very good exploration. And also you can explore the blog of Nomadic Mat. I've not read this personally, but you can try that. Okay. The seventh is research and design tools. So you need to know how to research. You need to know how to do primary research, secondary research, tertiary research, how you have to send online forms to get desk research. How you have to travel to certain place to do research. See, you can use tools such as chat, GPT for doing research you can use something like what you call basic, what you call search engine which Google also offers. You need to know how to extract from that source and cross verify and make sure you do a proper research. Don't just copy paste what Chat GPT or Google is giving. Make sure to cross verify it twice or thrice. That's very important. And there are a lot of design tools also which you need to learn. Guys, that's also a hard skill. Okay, so how to master is you need to have a hands on practice. You can install lot many tools like Chat GPT for research. You can use Miro for research and documenting it. You can use softwares called Mock Flow to create wireframes. You can use Adobe XT Figma for creating wireframes and mock ups. You can use Maply for creating some user flow and creating some story narrative. Smaply is slightly a difficult software but you can try that. Okay, but other softwares, what I told you is very simple. Mock Flow, Adobe xt, Figma, Miro, all these things are very cool softwares. You can learn because it's all very important. If you're a physical product designer, you can learn Rhino, you can learn Keyshot, you can learn Blender. See these are all some of the tools which you need to learn if you are. If you wanted to learn some hard skills, you can use some of the Adobe Creative Cloud. You can use students scholarship students version. You can use some free version for some limited time. Photoshop Illustrator Premiere Pro, Premiere Pro, very easy software. It's just a drag and drop. You can learn it very faster. After Effects needs a little touch, a little professional touch. But you can create and you can learn in that if you wanted to learn a lot of design tools and convert your research into a proper output. 8th important skill is design thinking. Let me tell you guys, thinking normally and solving a problem is one aspect. Thinking like a designer is something very very different. Guys, see this podcast is definitely going little longer. But you need to understand these are all the 12 mandatory skills which a designer leads to learn. Okay, I really appreciate you guys. If you're staying till long in this episode, you're damn serious about your design career. You're searching for good materials to learn and grow. Make sure you implement, not just listen so that you create an impact in your career. Okay, so the eight important skill is design thinking. So have a process to think, have a perspective to think, have a structured approach, use some double diamond process. You can take it from a book called Design of Everyday Thing from Non Norman, you can converge and you can diverge. You can converge and you can diverge. So this is actually called double diamond thinking. You can use that approach to think like a designer compared to a normal person who just give a quick fix. Jugaad. That's not called thinking, that's not called design thinking. So have a process, have a consistency, have a kind of mapping and then you understand your user and then you create a process and then you solve a problem that becomes design thinking process. Keep iterating. I told you, right? Convergent, divergent. So when you are able to apply these three things then you develop the habit of design thinking also. Yeah, I told you. You can read design of everyday things. That's a good material. You can read IDEO design thinking resources, go to a website called ideo. Okay, I'll be pasting you this link also and you can read there. You can use a lot of their case studies and toolkits. You can solve problem. You can use Stanford Schools design thinking bootleg. It's a very valuable resource for design thinking and methodologies and tools and exercises and case studies which you can watch. Additional hard skill. What I would say is, see these are all some of the additional hard skills. Okay, you can learn user experience, design skills. You can learn UX principles, heuristics, laws. Okay, Jacob Lori, Jacob Nielsen. Heuristics loss. You can learn. You can learn some usability testing. You can understand how user will navigate in this scenario. You can understand how user is going to have problem if he's interacting it with wrong. You can do some stay informed like let's say stay updated with latest trends and best practices in UX design blogs. See, user experience is very important hard skill which a designer needs to learn. You might be wondering, hey, that's UI UX here. Let me tell you guys, every designer needs to learn user experience. End of the day what you're doing is creating experience for your users, right? So you need to understand usability is unavoidable. You have to learn that principles properly to create better intuitive experiences. Whether it's a physical product or digital products, it's very important to stay in trend. Okay, you can read a wonderful book called don't make me think by Steve kru. It's an action point. You can note it down. Excellent book. Provan number one classical book. Second is you can learn heuristic loss. Right? Jacob Nielsen, I told you you can do that. Third is you can do UX Design Institute's professional diploma in UX design. That's a very Good institute I've heard of. You can try that. Okay. If you want a certification and all. And the 10th important skill is animation and motion graphic. This is an optional skill, guys. But let me tell you, learning cool graphics and animation is very simple. You can create GIF images and create some very good portfolios and small small GIFs in your portfolio. Website or portfolios. That attracts a lot of people, that creates a visual engagement even though it's a small micro interaction, what you're giving, but that tend to, that tend to engage users for a longer time in your website. See, your success is to keep people in your designs for a longer time. That becomes a greater advantage for you. Right. And also the demand is like that I have a little knowledge in animation and motion graphics, but you can try that. It's a very good. There are a lot of good tools like after effects cinema 4D, you can try that. Okay, so how you can master animation is you can learn some basic software. I told you, you can try that. And you can experimenting with small, small GIFs, small, small motions, small small interactions you can try and then you can able to create a better ux. So you can do study principle of motion. You can tell, you can understand from animation designers how they're telling visual storytelling, how they're able to pace the timings of movements and motion basics. Guys, you don't have to dive deep. You can use some Adobe Animate, you can use some basic software and then you can try that. Okay. Yes. So the 11th important skill is 3D modeling and rendering. I already touch upon this. But just to touch upon again, you have to develop rendering skills and 3D modeling skills. Because it's very much vital if you are a physical product designer to show the color, material, form, finish, which is so called cmf. You need to be good in like let's say parametric softwares as well as non parametric softwares. Parametric softwares. I could say you can use SolidWorks, you can use Creo, you can use something like Fusion360. If it's non parametric, you can use Alias, you can use Rhino. I think Alias to a certain extent it's parametric also. I've not gone deep. I've just studied for three to four weeks. But Rhino is definitely a great software you can start off with. That's a great, great software. If you're a non parametric designer. Okay, non parametric, you want to explore some forms, curves and all. And you can use keyshot for rendering. That's a great tool to start off with. Okay, you can try using that. And next is you can do prototyping. See, you need to touch materials, guys, you need to touch prototyping, you need to touch plastic, wood, sheet, metal, plastic, then all this thermocol. Unless until you touch and prototype and showcase your ideas, you will will be not able to showcase yourself properly. Many times sketching and modeling and rendering is okay, but you need to prototype also. That's why I added it as a very great essential skill of a creative designer. If you're a visual designer, showcase mock ups, showcase some physical prototypes and just, just take a printout of your concepts and at least showcase to the user, hey, this is how interaction will happen. Try to create some basic mockups. That's very much enough. See, physical is something which is always unique. You can try to do that. Many big design studios, even though they do visual projects, they create some digital mock ups and try to do it. They put some hangs in the wall, they put some printouts and put it. That physical and tangible test will be very helpful even in refining and testing and getting feedback from other people also. Okay, so you can do that. It's a great thing. And let me tell you guys, these are all the 12 important aspect of a 12 important skill which a designer needs to learn. 12 different hard skills. Okay, I've gone slightly deeper, but I hope definitely each and every skill when you implement it will be great. Let me recap you quickly. So first is sketching and communicating skills. The second is visual color sensitivity. The third is compositional skills which is like aesthetics and aesthetics and what you call overall beauty of a product. And fourth is documentation and articulation skills. Fifth is editorial and graphic design skills, visualization presentation. Sixth is traveling and exploration skills, exploring yourself creative new. Seventh is research and some design tools. And eighth is design thinking. You want to apply design thinking. And ninth is user experience design skills. And tenth is animation and motion graphic skills and additional 3D modeling and rendering and visualizing skills. Finally, last but not the least prototyping skills, touch the material, do it physically and you will be able to create a greater impact in your design career. Even if you are a fresher, even if you're experienced designer, make sure you're applying at least half of the skills. If you're not doing it, then you'll not be able to sustain in your career very long time. Okay, so with this podcast and signing off with you guys, thank you so much. This is the longest podcast I've recorded. Thank you so much. If you're listening till now you're really serious. I first of all have a deep gratitude for you. Apply it and I be able to even get even more feedback from you. Because if you apply, you'll be able to come up with some iterations, you'll be finding out some tweaking out here and there. Feel free to drop an email to me. I'll be helping you out. I'll be helping you out in terms of retuning your habits and building these 12 skills. If you wanted my coaching and mentoring, yeah, you can also check out that same email and and also I'll make a qualification for you. If you are qualifying, I'll take you up for my mentorship and stay tuned for my podcast for future episodes. Thank you so much guys. Take care. All the best.