Why Reading and Writing matter for Designers
I wanted to write a short blog about this because it is something that I feel has been especially relevant in my career & is a less discussed aspect of being a professional designer. You can be an excellent designer, but you will not get very far without good communication. Whether self-employed or an employee, it is a factor that separates the good from the excellent.
Frequent reading and writing helps by improving your ability to think in words. Being able to clearly articulate your thoughts allows you to contribute usefully in meetings & that is crucial for progression in any career. Writing especially, helps to structure your thoughts logically so that others can understand. A design standpoint will not get very far until the benefits are clearly understood by the members of the development team.
‘I don’t know what I think until I write it down’ Joan Didion
In the age of Ai, clear well-explained reasoning will become increasingly important because it is a skillset that is slowly being left behind. Why write an email when Chat GPT can do it for you? Why write a product-description? A Blog-post? By explaining design decisions so others can understand the benefits, you demonstrate not only the logic of your decision-making, but also the ability to communicate it. Ai provides a short-cut that takes away any of the benefits you can gain from doing it yourself. You cannot ask Claude or Chat GPT to respond for you in meetings, or to present a new product. Even if you could, at the very least you will still need to understand how to write & present to be a guiding hand. Those who rely too heavily on Ai, will be put on the back-foot in many of the situations that are & will still be required of professional designers.
Take my career as an example. Language did not come naturally to me. I have always been more of a numbers guy. Early on, and still to this day to some extent, I hid behind artistic ability. I thought if my work was good enough that I would not have to explain my decision-making. Time and again, I learnt that if you cannot speak for your design-work, others will & even with the best intentions, they will not pick up on the nuance of your ideas. Even if your work is good enough to get you high-profile interviews, it only takes you to the front door. You still have to sell the idea in the moment & for that, you need to know why you designed it that way, why that matters & how to put that into words.
Reading, writing and speaking are skills that can be learnt & improved. If you know that they areas of weakness for you, as they are for so many creatives, myself included, focusing on them early will benefit your design-career. I advocate reading, not only on the topic of physical product design, but reading well written literature to understands the mechanics of language & to broaden your horizons. Practising writing on whatever inspires you, it is an excellent exercise for your brain regardless of whether you plan to publish it. Speak in public whenever you get the opportunity, the more you do it, the more comfortable you become.
Not every highly-accomplished designer I have met is the best problem-solver, but they all are excellent communicators.