Lessons in my design career, from my mentors and design gurus. Their words help me to stay close to where I come from.
About the way of working, thinking, fear, determination, etc. I also publish articles on Medium for design knowledge sharing, welcome to read.
01
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
— r. buckminster fuller
A screenshot from slack's conversation
A conversation from the work channel. Mike, my former creative director at ibm, used this classical quote to warn designers that only relying on logic and research doesn't guarantee a good design. The creative process also involves intuition and a gut feeling.
Mike Abbink is the creator of the IBM PLEX typeface. It's fascinating to see how a type designer, with his broad knowledge, conducted the whole digital product design system – Carbon Design System.
02
Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
— chuck close
The episode of Christoph Niemann, from Netflix’s Abstract: The art of design
A great episode of Christoph Niemann, from Netflix’s Abstract: The art of design.
03
If you only see one solution to a problem, then you don’t really understand the problem.”
— john maeda
By the time you've arrived at the perfect solution, usually the problem has already changed.”
— jessie shefrin
04
A design project is a series of decisions.”
A screenshot from slack's conversation
Erika Hall, the author of “Just enough research”, talked at a design conference in 2016.
For me, this statement becomes so true under AI-driven circumstances. The designer's key role is "decision-making." AI expands the possibilities – good or worse. Design education should focus on this role's training. Where do they come from? Are there any shortcuts? Nope. Some of the exercises still need to undergo craftsmanship training by hand, detail-eye training, and design history knowledge.
05
Design system vs. Design history
Advice to young designers
This quote is given by Jesse Reed in a Design system related talk at Google in 2018.
I archived this screenshot in my desktop's folder for years. It is mainly to remind myself to spend time reading design history books. It's also good advice for all my design folks :)

Just like the example from Google's Material Design, it interweaves an array of design disciplines with development and does not approach it from a single disciplinary angle.
06
A design project is a series of decisions.”
A screenshot from slack's conversation
Erika Hall, the author of “Just enough research”, talked at a design conference in 2016.
For me, this statement becomes so true under AI-driven circumstances. The designer's key role is "decision-making." AI expands the possibilities – good or worse. Design education should focus on this role's training. Where do they come from? Are there any shortcuts? Nope. Some of the exercises still need to undergo craftsmanship training by hand, detail-eye training, and design history knowledge.