Tools

How planning can help you as a (starting) designer.

On 30 / 03 / 2023 / by Oriana Calemi

As a junior designer at Born Digital, I quickly realized how crucial planning is in our day-to-day operations. It helps you outline your ideas, prioritize tasks and meet deadlines. In the article below, I write about the importance of planning within the design process.

Obstacles you may face as a starting designer.

As an intern, I focused on developing my technical - and design skills. However, I realized that there was much more to being a designer than just that.

Starting your career can be overwhelming. One of the main reasons was facing much shorter deadlines. As a result, I worked under pressure to design high-quality work as quickly as possible. That did not always turn out as I wanted. Another reason was working on multiple projects at the same time. On top of that, each project has a different deadline that you need to consider.

Go your own way.

Finding your way of working means figuring out what methods and routines work best for you. Learning to manage time provides peace of mind during your design process.

Here are some tips that help me to plan effectively:

Define your goals. Before planning, you need to know what you want to achieve. Be specific about your goals, and make sure they are realistic and achievable.
Prioritize tasks. Once you have a list of tasks, prioritize them based on their importance and urgency. That will help you decide which tasks to tackle first.
Set achievable deadlines. Setting deadlines for each task will help you stay on track and ensure that you are making progress toward your goals. But consider leaving some buffer time in between tasks to prepare yourself for the unexpected (like a creative director that changes his mind again;-)).
Dare to ask for feedback. Regularly reviewing your progress will help you stay on track and make adjustments as necessary.
Use tools like Notion or Productive to keep track of your schedule. They'll provide a good overview of your tasks and their status.

I learned quite a lot during my first year at Born Digital. While it has been a rollercoaster ride with some stress and insecurities, structuring my tasks and sticking to planning has helped me grow immensly as a designer. It helped me to manage my time and work at a good pace, giving me the confidence boost I needed in my design work.