CF #18: A designer's ingredients (cheat sheet)

3 useful tools

1) Midjourney

Imagine being able to generate an image for anything you can think up, no matter how creative or weird. That's Midjourney. Type anything and it'll create an image for it using AI.

This can be a massive time-saver for creating ANY type of content (like a thumbnail for a Youtube video, or a hero image for a blog post).

The beta is live and you can try it. It's happening inside Discord.

Below are some real examples from the Discord:

2) Polywork

​Polywork is the first collaboration network.

Discover all kinds of opportunities to collaborate with other ambitious individuals. Whether it’s simply getting feedback on your portfolio or brainstorming a potential new product.

Check it out–it could be the start of something great.

You ARE good enough.

3) EZgif

This is one of those underrated tools that I've been using for a while and never thought to share.

Quickly turn videos into GIFs and vice-versa. Resize, compress, speed up them up, slow them down. No login or anything required.

3 effective tips & techniques

1) Do you know your ingredients?

A cook uses ingredients to fulfill the job of food preparation. These are some of their most common ingredients:

• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• All-purpose flour
• Eggs
• Sugar

A digital designer has 5 ingredients to fulfill their job:

• Text
• Shapes & lines
• Icons
• Images
• Videos (+ GIFs and other motion)

Do you know each ingredient's strengths, weaknesses, and utility?

I made these video-game-character-stats-dashboard-inspired visuals to help with that:

2) A simple & quick daily exercise to give your life more direction

If you can link your daily actions to your high-level goals & aspirations you will go to sleep feeling terrific.

You'll go to sleep feeling like today made a dent and contributed towards where you want to end up.

Over the last two years i've developed some habits that help me do this.

One of these habits is the one I'm about to share with you.

The exercise:

At the end of every day answer these two questions:

1. How did today go in the following categories:
2. Health (e.g. Did I sweat today? Did I beat last time?)
3. Wealth
4. Relationships
5. What are my goals in the following categories
6. Health
7. Wealth
8. Relationships (e.g. Who do I need to meet?)

Much of happiness comes from progress and you can't know you're progressing in anything if you aren't measuring that thing.

3) When to break the rules and when to stick to the norms

A few weeks ago I was on Contently's website and their pop-up appeared.

Here it is:

Notice the peculiar location of the close button/icon:

I don't think I've ever seen the close button for a modal placed in that location. Maybe they were trying to be edgy and different, I'm not sure.

It actually took me an extra second or two (and slight annoyance) to locate it and close the popup.

The upper-right corner of a modal window is the unwritten rule for close button location.

This made me think:

"When does breaking the rules actually make sense?"

Here's what I think:

Don't break the "rules" when:

• It may lead to confusion/frustration because of deep familiarity
• It adds nothing to the layout both aesthetically and strategically

Example:

Bucknell University redesigned their website to be modern, minimal, and trendy

That's great and all but user testing showed the following:

• Students can't find the list of majors offered
• Students can't find the cost of tuition

It's too minimal and vague. Meaning too many important things are hidden.

Be different and trendy but not at the cost of purpose.

​Via nngroup​

Break the rules when:

• It adds visual interest to differentiate from the competition while maintaining great usability (Run mini usability tests to confirm)
• It has a net-positive effect on your business goals (makes the brand seem more progressive, increases conversions etc)

Example:

Huy Phan's portfolio website places the navigation links along the middle of the hero section. Super unique placement:

It's completely out of the norm but still very usable.

It'll make you go "That's different & cool" rather than "That's annoying, why would you do that?"

BONUS TIP: When you do break the rules, make it obvious:

3 ideas to think about

1) "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

- Soren Kierkegaard, Theologian

What do you think? Is life a mystery to be solved or simply a reality to be experienced?

I'm so curious to hear your perspective.

Reply to this email. Let's talk about it.

2) “Courage is being scared but continuing to go. It’s not being this super overzealous person that jumps out and does things. You can still be afraid, but you continue to follow through—that’s where courage lies.”

- Chef Kwame Onwuachi, Chef

3) Do not make the assumption that inaction has no price

- Jordan Peterson, Clinical Psychologist

Shower thoughts

1) The voice inside your head never has to stop to take a breath.

2) No one wants a used mattress for free but we pay hundreds of dollars to sleep on one at hotels.

3) Your tongue’s ability to detect hair is underrated

Via Reddit