Do you suck at design?
Dagobert Renouf
29 replies
Hey everyone,
I'm looking for people who suck at visual design 🤔
I'd like to know:
1. what's your main struggle related to the design of your startup? (visuals, fonts, logo, colors, etc)?
2. how are you currently solving the problem?
I'm in the middle of pivoting my design startup and would love to understand people's problems better.
Cheers 🙏
Replies
Joe Barbour@mistermeenr
Well hello, there strange man. For me choosing fonts and a colour scheme is extremely difficult and that’s because I don’t know the rules of typography and balanced colours like a good designer does.
And well UI, don't even get me started Dago
Share
1. Visuals and UX.
2. Keeping it simple - I feel it is fairly simple to make something that looks good enough if I stick to the very basic - basically mimicking the stereotypical design of whatever I'm building. Making use of icon libraries/fonts, logo just as a font, etc. The downside is of course that usually the design is not something that stands out or is creative.
@dagorenouf Anything that is not a generic icon or a screenshot. Any kind of graphical effect, subtle background images, more complex design than the generic white background and a few boxes, gradients, colors, also illustrations and custom diagrams, charts (that I want to look good - not just using a chart library or so).
Can you share more specifics? Is this product design or marketing content design for example?
@dagorenouf one of my challenges with ux design is that they don’t always translate to pixel perfect product experiences.
I want the actual UI developed to look exactly how the mock-up was designed. Open to solutions that bridge that gap as the cost is a lot of iteration on the actual UI which is expensive
1. Visuals - how to get a coherent look, that's nice on the eyes, fits the product and isn't just a Tailwind template
2. Panic.. Mostly panic. And then look for inspiration on the internet, try a lot of things.. Land on one that I like.. And then change my mind when I find another thing online that I like better.. So in other works, I don't have this one figured out yet..
Struggle #1 Logo --> express.adobe.com/express-apps/logo-maker
Struggle #2 Color palette --> coolors.co
Struggle #3 how to make those colors work together
Struggle #4 basic UX concepts, as when to use a component or another, or where to place a button and why, or should those two buttons go together?
for # and #4 --> Just copy/get inspired by, by a mainstream product I like and follow their design system if publish
Hope it helps
@carloschipi Thanks a lot Carlos, that's very helpful. For logo i'd invite you to try my product logology.co (it's free to see results). it only does logos right now but pivoting to solve bigger / wider problems like you listed here!
Canva - turned even me into a decent "designer" (meaning i can put together good enough ads, landing pages, etc.). What do I find most useful? background remover and editable templates (particularly the ones in which i can change the color to fit my style format)
Hi Dagobert,
For me when I do not work with a UI/UX designer it would be general structure of the page. Knowing how to assemble elements to make a well balanced page (right paddings, right sizes, how to place information to make the user get the message easily, how to avoid clutter). I found the book refactoring ui a few months ago and it was life changing.
To give a more precise example, I had to build a stepper recently to perform a task with several steps and the result was really subpar. I am still looking for inspiration on how to improve it without having it look like the old installer program from windows.
Short answer: Canva for icons and images. Pinterest and Dribbble for "inspiration."
I’m a terrible designer, and UX is what makes me waste more time on my projects. Worst thing? Even if I copy others' designs, I still have the feeling that the UX of my projects sucks.
@mongonauta Thank you Jose Maria. Yeah making a good UI is one of the hardest parts, I will try to help solve it with my upcoming product 😀
It would be better to have component library for reactjs. Design it, sell your services for custom designs and custome flows.
We mostly use Canva to start with and modify through Powerpoint :) This is mostly for email marketing visuals, product screenshots and covers, content images etc. Logo and branding is a rabbit hole that we always postpone to go down.
We would enjoy outsourcing all our design stuff to someone. And we tried it as well. The main problem is, understanding our business and expectations is a huge investment from designer side which companies/freelancers don't want to dive into (understandably). And in the end, outcome is mediocre and needs a trillion revisions.
And this is the plot: I hate making revisions! (let alone the "number limit of revision rights issue" third party gives us. That can be handled. The problem is the time investment. I would do it myself instead of briefing > revising > revising > revising > getting bored and giving up with a mediocre output)
Sorry for the mostly negative reply. I think this is all due to astrological retros or something these days lol =)
@onuryilmaz No problem Onur, this is actually the kind of "painful experience" I want to solve. Thanks a lot for sharing. Now i will try to build an automated solution to solve this 🔥
As a matter of fact, i do suck at design. And this is why i used a services of Branding Design Agency because neither i nor other people in my company simply don't have strong skills of branding design, and in my opinion going to professionals is much reliable option. Well you they have reputation and good reviews, so why not? And if you want to know, i think that many companies do things this way