Why criticism is good for creativity

Design Why criticism is good for creativity One of the most popular mantras for innovation is “avoid criticism”. The basic assumption is that criticism kills the flow of creativity and enthusiasm from the team. Criticism aversion has spread significantly over the past 20 years, especially among design thinkers. In the ...

Working with deadlines for the designer

Design Working with deadlines for the designer Designers are most afraid of the two Ds – developers and the deadlines. While the former can be dealt with in some way (there’s nothing you can do about it), deadlines are much more difficult. I’m pretty sure there are people like me ...

What if you are ashamed of your portfolio?

Design What if you are ashamed of your portfolio? It is quite obvious that designers spend too much time decorating their work, which makes it even more cumbersome to perceive, and it becomes completely impossible to distinguish this work from others. To be honest, 90% of design portfolios look the ...

12 mistakes aspiring designers make in interviews

Design 12 mistakes aspiring designers make in interviews Every day I get from one to five job applications in my mail. I answer (or don’t answer) emails, give out quizzes, conduct interviews and see the same problems. The competition among experienced guys is not high. But inexperienced designers are like ...

How to communicate with people who don’t “understand” design

Design How to communicate with people who don’t “understand” design We designers often complain that non-designers “don’t understand design”. However, the reality is a little more complicated. Having created a design team in a company with 150 years of history, and discussed the situation with colleagues from startups, agencies and ...

The agony of an art director: hire a pro or upgrade a newbie

Design The agony of an art director: hire a pro or upgrade a newbie This is a question for which there is no correct answer, but I will try anyway. Together with Igor Koropov at Skillbox we are working on the second one. At the same time, I went from ...

Solve deadlines as a designer

Design Solve deadlines as a designer Stop setting ridiculous deadlines for your projects. A few tips if you’ve already set a deadline. It may sound like a rant, but I’m sure this applies to you too. If you are a designer who often misses deadlines, this article is for you. ...

How logos are created: 10 must-have steps

Design How logos are created: 10 must-have steps To order a logo design, you need to understand how logos are created. Only by understanding the whole process from the inside, it is possible to assess whether the work on the development of the logo was done well. We reveal the ...

7 free services for budding designers

Design 7 free services for budding designers Color matching, a collection of two million icons, and a font recognition tool. Find matching fonts – Fontjoy Fontjoy generates sets of visually matching fonts, such as heading, subheading, and text. The service takes examples from Google Fonts, and most of them are ...

How a designer can build a career in IT giants

Design How a designer can build a career in IT giants Sasha Ermolenko, one of the most outstanding women in the design environment, talks about a designer’s career in IT companies: Mail.ru, Yandex, Rambler. Formerly director of the Rambler design department, art director of external communications at Yandex and art ...