10 traits of world-class designers
Q: How can I find and hire top designers?
In a market where there are 100’s of designers available for work, it’s hard to decipher through 1000’s of applications and figure out who is going to elevate your current team.
I’m constantly curious what separates a great designer from a good one, especially as the needs are changing more than ever.
It’s easy to see a polished portfolio and want to interview the designer, but it’s not a guarantee they will fit into your culture and elevate your existing team. It’s not just about craft, it’s important, but I’ve found traits of great designers is down to how they approach their work.
Companies often ask me how they can identify top designers. Seeing as I speak to world-class designers every day, I wanted to share some insights I have recieved with you all.
I asked 10 world-class designers to share one thing that will make a designer stand out from the rest and become a better designer at the same time.
TL;DR:
Be proactive
Find your superpower
Practice, practice, practice
Growth mindset
Pause + reflect
Plan, plan and plan
Open communication
Keep designing
Focus on craft
Ensure business value
1. Be radically proactive
“To advance your career as a product designer, it’s crucial to engage in work that goes beyond the outlined roadmap or assigned tasks. Don’t wait for opportunities to come to you; instead, proactively demonstrate your skills and knowledge to drive positive change.
By stepping into undefined areas, you can spark discussions that lead to product enhancements. Even better, you get to be involved in work that you find interesting and impactful. This proactive approach is expected from designers at higher levels, who need to be both proactive and reactive.
A key fundamental skill that designers have is the ability to visually bring ideas to life. Ironically, I’ve seen many designers overlook this strength, focusing instead on showcasing their soft skills, proving their worth in meetings, or adding unnecessary layers of process. Make the most of your core skill - the one that’s unique to your role - by using your designs to communicate ideas and envision the product's future evolution. Illustrate as well as articulate.
Adopting these strategies not only highlights your value but also emphasizes what distinguishes you and the design team: the unique capability to imagine and shape the product's future without needing explicit instructions.”
- Jeff King, Principal Product Designer.
Find + exploit superpower
We all have a superpower, we need to find it.
“To be really good on a current market, designers should have super power — unfair advantage, like niche, expertise or hard skill. It can be either super deep knowledge in particular industry (e.g. understanding the whole construction process in US), particular hard skills (be among 0.001% in UI motion, iconography, work with colour), or expertise in specific ways of working (e.g. make mature companies innovate and stay fast).
I follow this advice myself: I positioned my design studio as “studio for AI experiences” with focus on early stage founders. I used to work with AI since 2016 and I have strong opinions that help my professional confidence. I’ve read more papers, than most of the founders who work in this space, which makes the discussion, pricing, and power dynamics easier to handle. The same goes for UI skills, I know my UI is good and it didn’t come easily. It took a decade of practice and being always outpaced by the taste building, that happens every day. No days off.
Once you have a super power, many other “designer problems” are getting solved themselves. It’s easier to sell. It’s easier to convince. It’s easier to hire. It’s easier to charge. It’s easier to get recommended. It’s easier to demand.”
- Alex Vilinskyy, 9x Founding Designer
Practice, practice, practice.
“Design is a practice; the more you design, the better designer you become, so never be afraid to iterate further.
When we're humble and vulnerable enough, we can experiment more, make more mistakes, and explore alternatives to solve problems. Repetition leads to quality, and making more versions and alternatives will lead to the best design we can do. As pilots need thousands of flight hours to become professional flyers, designers need time designing, exploring all the possibilities throughout their careers, and never settling for the average to become good designers.
The most common mistake is becoming a design leader with fewer design hours than a person needs to lead design; I suggest avoiding that path or leaders like that.”
- Arthur, ex-Meta, Wise Principal Designer
Grow or fade out
“Learn as a junior, apply as a senior”. An open-minded and growth mindset is one of the best habits I've picked up over the years. It wasn't until the present days that I realized just how important this was. Having the opportunity to work with super talented designers and creatives from different places around the world has definitely opened my mind to unlimited improvement.
“Learning as a junior, applying as a senior” - was a quote I’ve used during a presentation done to my team shared with my team after a major design process overhaul. It was incredible how much I learned with the team (especially junior designers). It opened my mind like never before.
My advice is to maintain an open and resilient mindset by asking, collaborating, making mistakes and open to adapt every day. It doesn’t matter how experienced these people are. They will always contribute for your growth if you’re open to it. In the end of the day, it’s all about perspective and contribution.”
- Tiago Alexandrino, Senior Designer at Whop.
Take time to reflect
"For me, effectiveness comes from waking up every day excited about the work I'm doing. All of the other aspects that make me good at my job—proactiveness, good communication, openness—are simply a consequence of that.
As designers, it's very easy to lose our excitement when facing difficult, ambiguous, or (frankly) boring tasks. So my advice for any designer is to find the thing that simply excites them the most about their work and use that as a driving force.
Although this might seem like a high-level habit, in reality it translates into the day-to-day activities of a designer. I frequently ask myself: "What's my favourite part about this specific project?", "How can I adapt this process to make it more enjoyable, yet still effective?", "How can I use this boring task to learn something new?"
- Dan Tase, Principal Designer
Plan + execute
“When you start new projects, always begin with a desired outcome, clear success measures, and a baseline. Then, create a system of daily habits, (bi-)weekly progress reviews, and relevant productivity tools. Crystal clarity on where you want to go and what you need to do helps you focus on what *actually* moves the needle. Begin with the end in mind and reverse-engineer from there.”
- Thijs Kraan, founder of Design Influence.
Open communication is key
“ The most effective designers will build trust in their work with open communication. We've all heard about building trust with users, but let's talk about stakeholders. This is the trust you need for a successful career. The most effective designers will make communication a habit. They'll create consistent communication loops with stakeholders and leave their ego at the door. This could look like a project slack channel with updates, emails, invitations to meetings, presentations, and 1-1 chats.
Instead of gatekeeping the design process, the designer will infuse every element of product building with design. They will bring stakeholders into the process, take the time to understand their goals and concerns, and deliver results. Specific feedback is sought after and welcomed regularly throughout the project. Every teammate brings their own expertise and experience; by considering each specialists' expertise you are building a more robust product. When in doubt, they ask clarifying questions.
Highly effective designers take feedback that challenges their own perspective as an opportunity to grow. Open communication should not be mistaken for not having boundaries on project ownership. Finally, designers close the loop — consider feedback, implement changes, or let stakeholders know (based on data) why it was not implemented, and rally the team around successes.
- Sera Tajima, Founder + Principal Designer at The Craft
Never stop designing
“When you think you're out of ideas, try designing one more idea. When you're really out of ideas, ask sto critique or collaborate with you.
I've noticed that I tend to feel stuck before I'm actually stuck. But many of my best designs have come from trying to do one more visual iteration, interaction option, or user flow. Generating multiple options means you're trying out the easy, obvious ideas—and the non-obvious ideas that can feel more fresh, innovative, and exciting.
Having multiple options sharpens your ability to critique your own work: by comparing the different options in front of you, you have a clearer understanding of why some work and some don't. And it also sharpens the core skills of a designer: visual design, interaction design, generativity, selectivity.
But what if you're still stuck? That's always when I'll reach out to another designer or cross-functional collaborator. Getting a new perspective on a problem (or even trying to explain the problem to someone else) also generates new ideas and options!
Early on in my career, I would often hesitate to reach out—I was afraid that I couldn't talk to anyone unless I had great ideas to show. But now I've realized that, when you're stuck, that's exactly when someone else's feedback will be useful. Getting over the fear of showing unfinished work is so key—because that's what will get you to the finished, great outcome.”
- Celine Nguyen, Senior Product Designer, Ex-Notion and Palantir
Be focused on craft
“One of the best pieces of advice I received as an intern designer was to develop an eye for good visual design. This invaluable tip shaped my approach and can be broken down into a few key steps.
"First, immerse yourself in visual design by observing as much as possible. Draw inspiration from great designers, agencies, books, and magazines. Every day, I would seek out inspiration, saving anything that sparked emotion in a dedicated folder. This habit helped me build a personal library of design references that continually sparked new ideas—and I still do this on an almost daily basis.
Next, discuss your findings with a mentor if possible. These discussions are incredibly valuable as mentors can point out details you might have overlooked and provide expert insights.
By consistently engaging in these practices, my appreciation for good visual design began to develop, and this process remains a vital part of my creative routine.”
- Axel Eerbeek, Freelance Visual Designer
10. Always be thinking about. adding business value
I believe in the synergy of business and design. Designers are amazingly creative, and sometimes this creativity can lead us too far away from our initial goals. To be more efficient, we need to self-check if we are solving the right problem, focusing on the right business goal, and reducing the iteration cycle, which sometimes becomes too long. For that, the habit I used with my team always involves asking ourselves — What are we optimizing for and what does success look like? (both for the user and in metrics).
A habitual use of this question and answering it at all stages of the workflow helps:
at the beginning, when you just start solving the problem
at the first design review session
while presenting it to a larger team and stakeholders, etc.
It helps to stay consistent and laser-focused on the main goal and avoid over-engineering for initiatives that require quick testing and validation (aka 'quick wins').
As a framework and a reminder for that, you can keep at hand a very simple project description:
Problem
Hypothesis
Solution/Prediction
What Success Looks Like (WSLL)
This helps to self-check with yourself before deciding to go in one direction or another and align the group with more structure.
- Kate Syuma, Founder of Growthmates, ex-Miro.
Thank you to Jeff, Alex, Tiago, Dan, Kate, Celine, Arthur, Sera, Thijs and Axel for taking the time to share with the community. Until next time!
Thanks for the invite to participate.