When I was a new designer I would design SO. MANY. SCREENS.
It was a defense mechanism…
…like building a wall between me and the client, but instead of bricks, they were screens. The more screens I showed, the safer I felt.
Because if I showed them a dozen screens, they wouldn’t question my value as a designer. They wouldn’t question the time. They wouldn’t question the expense.
Don’t count screens.
The more senior you become as a designer, the more ways you’ll learn how to convey your value to stakeholders.
You’ll learn that your worth isn’t determined by the pixels you draw, but by the ideas you share and the connections you make.
Yes, sometimes you need to be thorough.
But sometimes you don’t.
I like to challenge my design team to spend an entire hour with a client on a single screen. It’s a helpful exercise for learning how to talk about a design and describing what is important to the client.
It’s not about doing less.
It’s about recognizing your true value as a designer. Designers come up with solutions to problems. The fact that we deliver designs in the form of a Figma file or a Sketch file is just showing our work (like you used to do on a math test in school).
Think about it.
Given enough time and a patient stenographer, you could probably describe an entire app — screen by screen — just using your words.
Talk about a ton of value!
Seeing them come to life through actual design is an added bonus.
Design a little less. Story-tell a little more.
❤️ Jon