My #1 Design Tip for When You're Feeling Stuck
If you’re an entrepreneur, I’m sure you’re no stranger to that frustrating feeling when you can’t seem to come up with a creative solution to save your life. You’ve been pushing text boxes around Canva for hours, nothing looks right, and you’re at a loss for what to do. I know that feeling well. 🙈
Nearly 10 years ago, my mentor sat down with me over a coffee as I lamented over similar struggles and nonchalantly gave me the piece of advice that changed my approach to design completely. 💡
Always draw first. ✏️
When in front of a screen, it’s easy to lean on tools and techniques that are easier to execute but might be less effective at communicating your message. Getting all of your ideas out on paper first let’s you think more creatively about the solution and generate a number of ideas more quickly than you could execute on-screen.
Since that initial conversation, I know start every project with a sketching phase in one of my favorite notebooks. I’m definitely someone who used to get caught up in trying to work through every little detail of design on-screen and my process took so much longer. I would get decision fatigue after working on just one concept. These days I’ve learned to embrace the fact that messy progress is better than wracking my brain trying to lock down every detail of one design that honestly might not even be the most effective solution to begin with.
Also, don’t focus too much on what the sketch looks like. It’s only purpose is remind you of one potential avenue to explore further on-screen. My sketches are horrendous but their job isn’t to look beautiful, their job is to get me closer to the best design solution for the task at hand.
BONUS TIP: If you have some perfectionist tendencies like I used to, make sure you use a pen for your sketches. This will keep you from trying to perfect your concepts on paper and force you to think about the big picture first.