Think-Then-Do: How to be a Web Design Black Belt
Want to be a web design black belt? Start with mastering your own mind.
In my experience, the single most difficult and important skill for a web designer is:
Remembering what you’re doing
It is incredibly easy to get bogged down on the surface level of design, pushing boxes and buttons this way and that around the page until it appears to have perfect visual balance.
This is…
A Complete Waste of Time
Sometimes I’ve spent half a day designing and only rearranged a page design and then rearrange it back again.
The times that I’ve most enjoyed my work have happened when I’ve managed to keep a certain professional distance from the design.
The difference comes when I remember my purpose and have a picture in my mind’s eye of “what success will look like” i.e. my GOAL.
That’s why I encourage you to get clear on what it is you’re working towards, and to keep clear.
The Seven Steps of Think-then-do
- Write down your GOAL and keep it handy as a touchstone
- Refer back to it frequently
- If, at any point, you can’t see the wood for the trees, it’s time to leave it alone
- Take a break, forget all about it, rest your mind, come back, read your statement of purpose touchstone again, get the mental picture back, then look at the design as it is
- Tell yourself out loud what’s right about it and what’s wrong about it
- Tell yourself what you’re going to do, or even better – write it down
- Then – sit down and do it.
With a bit of practice, you’ll soon be a black-belt in Think-then-do.
7 Comments Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Great post!!! I can see myself doing this all the time!! Thanks heaps
What theme is the clars.com on. Is it a theme or is the format all customized. Thanks, Dave
It’s a custom theme, based on our own Foundation default theme.
Hi Ben I would like to clarify some things. Is there a particular rule when designing a website that will be use for CMS and dynamic website. I mean, I want to be able to design a website that will not get messed up even contents are changed whether they reduce the content or add something. I want my design to adapt to those changes. Please give me tips on how to do that. Thank you.
Hi Jerome. If you use WordPress, or any other CMS, there’s always a risk of clients making a mess, but it should be limited.
A well-designed theme should be flexible and pretty much impossible for a client to break, if they can only add/edit posts and pages.
Hi Ben, I’m a complete noob at designing websites and have only been teaching myself HTML and CSS for the better part of 2 weeks and I feel I have progressed quite quickly… However I have just made a website for my father-in-law which is yet to be published and was wondering how after it gets published can my father-in-law update the content or will I have to do this?? Like I said.. I’m really new to all this!!
Oh yeah, I used Dreamweaver for creating the website. Not sure that bit of info will help at all!
Many thanks
Richard, the problem with Dreamweaver is your father-in-law will have to come & sit at your computer to edit the content. That’s why we build in WordPress these days. My course would take you through the whole learning process step by step if you really want to master this.