I work with a lot of designers who are fresh out of school, and though they are smart digital natives, almost none of them are focused on documenting their design growth beyond their portfolio projects. The value of showcasing their soft skills, wherever they are at in their journey as a designer, is a huge missed opportunity. Led a design workshop? Write about it. Have opinions on MXR? Why aren’t you talking about it on Instagram stories?
Where to talk about your design skills on social media:
The design jobs of the future are jobs we can’t even imagine right now. Alot of what we do as designers, web design, app design, graphic design, UX design, will become less valuable as the skills are replaced by cheaper tools and systems that require less people and less talent to execute. It is happening already. It’s a normal progression. Eventually, you need to find a way to prove your value as a designer that doesn’t involve learning yet another new program, tool, or design trend.
Those skillsets are the “how” or the “what” that is being executed, and you need to head more into the “why” category.
Who you need to target with your media:
Social media strategy for designers: Who
You want to be able to understand not just the creative execution side (the “how”), but also the business value, end user value, and why now is the right time for all those things to come together in a product or experience. You have to be able to operate as a designer in a project before there is anything to design. You have to develop the soft skills and the creative thinking, because whatever those future jobs are, they are going to need that.
How to generate design-centered content for social media:
Social media strategy: How
If you aren’t at a job where the “why” is developing for you, it is your mission to put yourself somewhere where you are developing an understanding of the “why”. As long as you keep designing, you will always get better at the “how”, but the “why” is an opportunity you have to line yourself up for. Documenting your growth as designer on social media will make it easier for people to find you and connect you to the right opportunity, and in the long run do a kind of heavy lifting that no project-based portfolio could do alone.
