This Design Life

We got to interview the AWESOME @Draplin on how he became a designer, how he keeps motivated and some secret nuggets of wisdom for the This Design Life community... thisdesignlife.net/aaron-draplin-…

@FIFAcom @FIFAWorldCup Don’t ever do it again.

The first-ever @FIFAWorldCup™ Topps Final Halftime Show! 🤩

@MiguelDelaney Let’s keep the World Cup in countries that understand it from now on

A half-time show is an anti-football abomination. Players have gone through their career used to normal break. That rhythm disrupted, in the biggest game of their careers. It's of a piece with absurdly high ticket prices and Balogun controversy - Fifa ushering this through.

@ryanhammer09 3/10 … no need for all that overbloated nonsense

Halftime show rating: 6.8/10 Very random collection of acts, prob should have just been Shakira running the show there bc she’s amazing. Ted Lasso, vuvuzela & R9/Ronaldinho good touches. All for the kids & positivity at the end. Didn’t need Biebs & 70% of it though lol

@chalaska @ridd_design Yup. It’s such good quality content.

Binge-watching @ridd_design's Dive Club for a day will put you ahead of most designers.

@danmall It’s going to go well, I can tell

I kicked off a new project yesterday and I’m nervous to even say it out loud: I want to build the best YouTube channel in the world for design agency owners.

@vanschneider That is absolutely stunning

@ScottyGrays Nope.

For whoever needs to hear this… The USA is good enough to beat Belgium without Balogun.

@EliotShorrParks Favourites?? Really?

USA straight up choked in that game They were favorites. They have a team worth 300m+ They were at home This wasn’t Davis vs Goliath. Belgium didn’t have way more talent. USA and its best players were just rattled and didn’t show up in a huge game

@JasnDavid You should support your team through thick and thin.

I’m done. I’ll NEVER watch another USA soccer game the rest of my life. Absolutely pathetic performance tonight against Belgium. Hats off to them, but we looked like trash. Media hyped this USA team up for weeks, for that dumpster fire? Never again.

@JasnDavid Because football is not a priority sport in the USA?

Can someone explain to me why Team USA looks so terrible against Belgium?

@LukeADesign Hide that thing (if you're ADHD like me)

Need to know for science, do people have their dock hidden or fixed

@DannPetty Please bring it back. A follow up episode with @danmall would be great as well.

Almost 10 years ago I made a documentary series about freelancers. Drove 10,000 miles across the US interviewing designers about how they actually work. Hardest thing I've ever made. Feels right to share on Independence Day. Thinking about bringing it back.

@danmall If only they knew

Someone called me an “influencer who never designed a day in his life.” I took it personal. Son, I’ve been designing since you’ve been in diapers. So I put up an archive of my greatest hits from the last 28 years:

@BradleyYoungjr @ridd_design @BrettFromDJ He's a good guy from what I can tell on the videos and I trust @ridd_design - but he did block me when I questioned some of his income reports last year.

@ridd_design @BrettFromDJ No doubt Brett has some skill and I enjoy him on camera, his X persona just comes across as a massive jerk for some reason. Probably to play the content game: engineering outrage gets views. Which, fair enough, game respect game...just isn't my vibe.

2 months ago I said I'd debate @BrettFromDJ to the death ☠️ thankfully this episode isn't that lol it's the story of how a visual designer became addicted to building his ideas with AI (and everything he's learned along the journey)👇

@AlexAperios In Framer 4, you just think of a website and it creates it for you. ;)

Very excited to see what’s next!

@danmall Agreed, we had to fire a client that turned out to be rude and disrespectful. We lost money, but interestingly a better client turned up a week later who's a pleasure to work with.

This is the mindset that burns out agency owners. You don’t need to earn the right to have standards. I resolved long ago that I’d rather try and get a bank loan than take on a bad client. And I had my own definition of what a “bad client” is: 🧵

@ormanclark "It's ok... i've seen better"

what's the worst thing you can say to a designer?

@AlexAperios They say you can't steer a static ship (or something like that)

A lot of people sit around waiting for inspiration before they start creating, then blame “creative block” when nothing happens. But most of the time, clarity comes through the act of making. Iterating. Playing. Exploring bad ideas. Pushing things that don’t feel right yet. That’s usually where the breakthrough is hiding. If you hit a wall, go design something completely unrelated to the brief. Something fun. No pressure, no expectations. You’ll be surprised how quickly it unlocks your brain again.

@ormanclark They don't teach you this at college.

design tip: clean your screen

@danmall A polarising opinion as well. I think that's the part we fear.

All the people talking about “taste” are too scared to say the real word. Think about all the people the world has considered to have taste. Steve Jobs. Grace Jones. Pharrell Williams. Masaharu Morimoto. Joan Didion. Issey Miyake. Ava Duvernay. Jony Ive. Virgil Abloh. Rick Rubin. Anna Wintour. Spike Lee. Toni Morrison. Prince. Wes Anderson. Björk. And so many more. What do they have in common? An opinion. The people we think of as having the best taste are actually the people who have a strong and unique opinion. What was Steve Jobs’ taste? That‘s hard to answer. What was Steve Jobs’ opinion? That one’s way easier: that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. If I was training a junior designer—or an agency owner—today, I’d tell them to forget about working on taste and instead show them how to develop an opinion. Here are the steps: 1️⃣ Live some life. You can’t have an opinion about the world without experiencing it. Travel. Work with people who don’t look like you or think like you. Eat unfamiliar food. Sit in rooms you weren’t invited to. Read outside your discipline. 2️⃣ Find the thing you believe that the world disagrees with. Jobs believed simplicity was worth more than features. Morrison believed Black readers didn’t need white translation. Abloh believed streetwear and couture could coexist. 3️⃣ Dream about what the world would look like if more people agreed with you. What you picture is your vision. The clearer it is, the harder to talk you out of it. 4️⃣ Make all your decisions based on that picture. An opinion creates a crossroad. Commit to the path less traveled. 5️⃣ Say your opinion out loud to as many people as you can, as many times as you can. Many will ignore you. Others will call it arrogant and stupid. Until enough people agree. Then they’ll call it “taste.”