Posts Tagged → clients

Design & Career Mentoring

Growing up as a teenager I hated mentoring. I couldn’t stand the fact that someone was trying to teach me something and coach me on life. Heck, I knew everything! So I thought. Being a typical teenager I never really allowed myself to be as teachable as I should have been. But luckily as I’ve grown older I realize the great benefit of having a mentor. I not only have one mentor, but several for different areas of my life. One for design, one for my career and one for my personal life. I have realized that I need to be mentored to grow. It’s good to be told when I am going the wrong way and also to be encouraged when I am going on a path that is beneficial.

What I wanted to share was having a design mentor and career mentor. Someone you can go to at anytime to ask questions, receive advice, listen and be teachable.

How to choose a mentor:

  • Find someone that is in your career field
  • Have admiration and respect for this person
  • Enjoy their work
  • Study their accomplishments


Choose someone who you admire and respect what you do. They should be accomplished in their field and have a good amount of experience. You’ll want to grow from someone who has already grown in their life. A lot of designers would be willing to help out another designer. When you find someone that you would like to be mentor just simply ask! What else is the community for? I see there is a lot more potential in us then just showing off our work and trying to get as many likes as possible on Dribbble. Or trying to gain some kind of popularity. My mission ever since day 1 as a designer was to help out the design community and give back. Sure, having an online presence helps a lot but that’s not what it’s all about.

A mentor should be someone you go to about:

  • Pricing for projects
  • Salary questions
  • And even deeper issues such as dealing with clients


You don’t want to exhaust your mentor so only go to them when you are truly in need of help or a certain kind of information you are unable to find anywhere else. It’s find to send your mentor designers to receive feedback, but remember sometimes it takes time to hear back.

Having a mentor for design and your career will help you grow a lot and also you improve professionally as time goes on. It’s even better if your mentor is close to you. Going out for a cup of coffee once a week and building that relationship is to profitable to not only you, but to your mentor as well. Being open and allowing yourself to listen and take in all that they have to say is vital for your career. Taking the right steps in the early stages of your career will make a strong and straight pathway to the rest of your life. These lessons learned will probably even pave you to the success of your own company or design firm. The possibilities are endless with your career and your dreams. Having a mentor and someone to help guide  you will make you hit your dreams even faster.

Your Thoughts
Who are your mentors, or who would you want to be yours? Do you have other ideas for mentoring?

Defining Personal Design Style

[image img=’http://hillary.haecceity.nu/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/tumblr_lv2xa9hItr1qetgv5o1_1280.png’ url=’http://hillary.haecceity.nu/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/tumblr_lv2xa9hItr1qetgv5o1_1280.png’ align=’none’ lightbox=’true’]

I went to CTN Animation Expo last weekend in LA. It was incredible to see so many talented artists. But it made feel somewhat inadequate in my field and also humbled. I started feeling down about myself, but then started to think “Hey, I have a career in this, must have a style that is specific to me, but what is it?”.

For about two months I have been trying to redesign my website. It’s been a contestant struggle for me. Asking questions to myself like “Who am I, what do I look like, what is my style?” It’s hard to represent yourself when you are so familiar.

After studying artists over the weekend, I noticed that each person had their own style. Something that fit them and they were very good at portraying. I realized that my struggle wasn’t that I didn’t have a style, it was that I was struggling to be so many.

I’ve been trying to be myself, instead of just being myself.

It always bothered me when people would say to me “I love your Style!” I would always appreciate their compliment, but deep inside I would ask myself “What is my style?”.

The past few days, I have started drawing again. Drawing my characters and objects that I enjoy. I started to study my own style. Realizing that this whole time, it’s been staring at me in the face. I went and looked at what I made last year. Again, the style was there. Complimentary color pallets, bright colors, cute characters with big eyes and textures.  I realized I love simple shapes, with subtle details. I use texture and color to make it more complicated. A lot of my work is simple and clean. I have never analyzed myself before. But it’s been eye opening to study myself.

I went through a lot of my files last night, starting from the earliest to latest. I watched how my work progressed through the months and how my ideas shaped. But there were always small indicators of my style. Doing research on myself, has really helped me personally. In a way my style just comes naturally, as I am sure yours does. This process has really helped to evaluate myself and it will help to make my style even stronger.

It’s also good to be well rounded and do other types of styles. But even that can be easier, because you can just study that style and copy it. But to define your own, I believe is more of a challenge because you are so close to it. It’s like you have to mentally pull yourself away, detach yourself from your work and look at it with fresh eyes.

Clients hire you and me for our particular style. It’s the colors we use, the shapes we put together, and the way we present information, that is unique to each of us.

Take projects when your client expresses that they love your style and you can see yourself creating what they are requesting. it saves for less iterations, better communication and the client knows what to expect. Perfecting your design style will bring work and you will be recognizable to people in your network.

Style is like a niche, it’s important to create, recognize and iterate it. It’s also good to try new ones, but still incorporate yourself into it. Designing what you are naturally drawn to will make you happy and your quality of work will greatly improve.