A few weeks ago, our design team hosted an Ask Us Anything session on their social media. We received a lot of questions from our audience relating to design tools, workflow, career and more. In this blog, we’ve compiled the answers to the most common questions asked in that session.
If you’re a designer, or anyone interested in designing, this blog is for you!
Career
How do you keep your creative juices flowing? How to be creative?
Being creative and keeping the creative juice flowing is hard. Everyone has their ways. The most common ways are taking short breaks, engaging in activities that are not specific to design. Getting inspiration from your environment, music, movies, your day-to-day routines. Also, looking at other designers’ work and understanding their process. We just have to have an open mind and we shouldn’t be pushing ourselves during creative blocks, rather, let it come naturally.
When it doesn’t come naturally, follow a framework. Learn design thinking and frameworks like design sprints. Being creative or coming up with ideas is not a responsibility of a single person. Invite your team members and stakeholders for group brainstorming.
Will it make any difference to get an internship in design, if I have a gap after my studies?
We have not started taking design interns yet, and no, a gap doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have a learning attitude and some personal work examples or proof of self-initiation. It helps us see that you really are passionate about starting a career in this industry.
How did Swapnil dai switch from advertisement to UI UX? There must be a big learning curve… any tips for those who want to switch?
Technically yes. There were lots of challenges in terms of the change in the medium of design — but what remained constant was the concept. The theoretical knowledge remained the same: things about color, typography, contrast, whitespace, etc. never changed. Yes, it was some extra effort to figure out the tools and especially the design delivery mechanism, but I think it’s quite easy for one designer to design for a different medium.
P.S. I never worked for an ad agency 😃
Suggestions for someone aspiring to work as a creative director?
A creative director is a strategic role. One should have enough experience working as a designer, visualizer, and art director. And that is just the base. A creative director should be a visionary, leader, manager, and trendsetter. Both in terms of projects and their team.
This is a years-long mastery and I think the secret sauce to becoming a successful creative director is taking one step at a time. Let it happen to you naturally through experience. When you get there, you’ll be surprised to look back at how everything you did as an aspiring designer shaped you into becoming a successful visionary.
How does LF define career paths for designers who do Product design, Frontend, and Graphics?
Product Design, Frontend, and Graphic design are 3 specific roles here at Leapfrog. We have individual career paths for these roles and KRA/KPIs to work on, evaluate and help to step up in these career paths.
Will it be possible to see the hierarchy of those three roles for LF? I understand it might be against the company’s policies, but I wanted to understand how other companies define their career paths.
Those three roles aren’t hierarchical. They’re three adjacent streams of design and a designer will choose the stream they want to move up the career path. Each path has its unique KPI and KRA. A UX path will have activities (with incremental complexities) relating to research and testing while a front-end path will begin at being able to write HTML, but in 10 years they will probably have more responsibility on what the company’s standards on writing HTML’s should be. These paths won’t cross so the designer can focus and excel on what they’ve chosen to become.
Tools
How do I import custom fonts on Figma?
You don’t need to import fonts to Figma. If you are using the desktop app you just have to install the font on your desktop and the only downside is you’ll have to restart Figma to see the newly installed font in your font dropdown list.
Culture
How does LF manage to keep the talent and size of the design team on the same page and motivated?
Firstly, we are still working from home but we have daily/weekly team activities for motivation. Our team goals and individual goals align. When all of the team members are aligned to achieve the same goal, there will not be a problem maintaining communication and motivation.
Interview
Can I join the team?
Sure! But before that, you have to send us your CV, portfolio, and a UX case study to career@lftechnology.com or apply when we have an opening for a designer position from our career page.
What kind of questions are asked during design interviews?
We mostly ask questions related to the work you will be doing with us in that particular position. Also, questions related to your process, your problem-solving techniques, and the know-how of the industry standards.
You will be asked to submit a UX case study which you will be presenting during the interview along with your other portfolios and skills.
Besides Q&A, you will also be given a design challenge which you will have to complete during the interview.
Do you have any UX case study resources, links? So that I can take reference to apply cv to this org?
Leapfrog’s internal case studies are confidential. However, there are a ton of examples out there. In a typical case study, you would start with writing down the problem you were hired to solve. Second, you will mention what research you conducted and what people you met to gain insights. You will then mention decisions taken to build the product in a certain way, and why. Then, highlight alternate solutions you identified (including the one you finalized). Show how you tested out your design (could be prototypes). You will present a few screenshots of the actual product (show the screens with USP or hero features highlighted). You can reinforce with quotes from the clients/users on what the situation was before the solution and how this helped them.
Does a logo I designed with a random name count as a part of my portfolio?
A showcase is different from a portfolio. A showcase is where you can show the world what you’re capable of. But a portfolio is a collection of things you’ve accomplished. A portfolio generally has a problem, solution, and impact model where you show what the problem was, how you solve that problem, and what impact it created. A conceptual logo with a fictitious name is a good way to trigger your imagination and build something out; but a portfolio is something you say why you made this logo, what your intentions were and how it helped the brand to achieve X by adopting this logo.
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