I spent the last 2 weeks prepping for and interviewing 13 candidates for my “designer who can ship” position. I prepared 6 questions to ask each of them, and I pretty much stuck to that script in every conversation.
Of course, I also followed a few natural rabbit holes in every conversation, wanting to dive into more detail about certain things. One question I kept coming back to for almost every candidate was:
How did you pick that typeface?
Regular readers already know how nerdy I am about typography, so it’s something I’m almost curious about by default. But I learned a lot more than I bargained for about each person through their answers to this question. As responses, I heard things like:
- “It was part of the brand guidelines.”
- “I go with my gut.”
- “Let me show you my inspiration folder.”
- “Whatever the client wants.”
- “I spent a whole day looking through type foundry websites.”
I don’t consider any of these to be a right or wrong answer, as I don’t believe there’s a right or wrong answer to that question. What was so intriguing to me about any answer is how much it spoke to something I believe to be a crucial part of design:
Design is deciding.
I think the most important and difficult thing about being a designer is making decisions. There are 16,777,216 possible colors in the RGB color space; designers have to narrow that down to 3–5 to make a color palette for a brand. There are around 500,000 fonts available; designers have to choose 2 or 3 for any given project. There’s a multiverse of infinite combination of elements to consider when creating a composition or an interface, and we have to choose… 1.
How good designers get at this is a major factor in seniority. When I work with junior designers, I all but expect that I will have to help them make decisions (or sometimes even have to make decisions for them). The more senior the designer, the more I expect their ability to make good decisions autonomously and independently.
Some people I interviewed seemed to indicate that they’d defer decision making to a manager or a client. Some had a process for arriving at a decision. Some prioritized gut instinct.
I noticed that the people I most wanted to work with are the ones who have the widest range of tools to help them make decisions. They seemed to have the most practice with all of these ways, and they allowed themselves to use any of the options that suited a particular situation.
If you want to grow as a designer, be intentional about practicing decision-making. Start by putting yourself in situations where you have to make a lot of decisions, a lot of the time. Use the craft stuff: pay attention to how you pick colors, typefaces, and tools. What might begin as analysis paralysis will start to sharpen your confidence as you get better at narrowing and converging a multitude of options into solutions.
This is what separates the seniors from the juniors. The journey from junior to senior is paved with countless decisions, each one a stepping stone towards mastery. By honing our decision-making skills, we not only elevate our craft but also become architects of possibility. Next time you’re faced with a design choice, remember: you're not just selecting a typeface or a color palette. You’re choosing which future we get to live in.
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