Is Your Idea Making It To Your Audience's Hearts and Minds?
It's all well and good to have brilliant ideas.
But they're only as good as your ability to make people understand.
Many people think being a designer is all about putting shapes and colors together to make pretty things. But it's more than that.
Designers also have the exciting task of simplifying the complex. Making the intangible tangible. Retelling an idea in a way that resonates.
In my favorite book Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, getting a message across has two stages: The Answer Stage and the Telling Stage:
Scientists, inventors, and researchers are typically found in the Answer Stage. They solve pressing problems and come up with solutions.
Designers, writers, and marketers are in the Telling Stage.
We take the answers, convey them, and make them come alive in people's hearts and minds. We make them accessible to those who need them.
It's like building a bridge. The engineer has the solution and the carpenter has the skill (and 💪🏽) to make it come to life. Together, the two create a bridge that allows people to cross over and reach the other side.
It's the same with design. The world is full of ideas and solutions but it's up to us designers to create the bridge and make people understand.
PUTTING IT TO WORK:
This article from Matter of Focus made me think. It's about a popular maxim in personal productivity but is often poorly executed.
Rather than focusing on the finished output, we tend to focus on the outcome.
Like validations and recognition. Money and material rewards.
But that's a surefire way to get burned out and demotivated, at least in my experience.
We can control the output, but not (always) the outcome. The visual is a nice reminder for me to fix my eyes on getting things done and making sure it's done well, rather than worrying about the results. And sometimes, that's really all that matters.
So without further ado, here's me again recreating something that resonates on a personal level.
THE INSPO:
HOW I RECREATED IT:
