Welcome back. Let’s face it: We all want to level up our skills, and improving your visual design is no exception. But there’s not a magic solution to suddenly become the designer you’ve always wanted to be (at least not yet). What we can do? Practice, practice, practice. You know I’m all about putting in the work to earn your edge as a designer, and today is about doing just that. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

—Tommy (@DesignerTom)

The Wireframe:

• My POV on taste vs. mechanics
• A hot take on fonts
• The Originality Spectrum, explained

How to Improve Your Visual Design

“Get better at visual design” isn’t something you can cross off your to-do list in one day. It’s a process that takes commitment, creativity, and flexibility over the long-term. So how do you start to make that happen every day?

For me, it requires recognizing an important universal truth of UX design: Taste and mechanics are two sides of the same coin in visual design, and you need both to improve. Let me explain.

First, taste: This is the elusive one. You aren’t born with good taste—but it’s also not something you can learn from a textbook. Taste is your collection of experiences and your understanding of how you—and others—value those experiences. “Good” taste is the culmination of these experiences into meaningful or useful insights.

So how do you develop it? Glad you asked. My POV?

• Start by being a collector. Immerse yourself in a wide range of design examples—good and bad. Create an inspiration Swipe file to highlight the best and analyze what makes them stand out. Just like the best writers are voracious readers, the best designers are insatiable collectors.
• Next, transition to being a tastemaker. Sample the best of your collection into your own creations, using it as a springboard for your unique interpretation. Lather, rinse, repeat…until you feel like you’ve developed your own differentiated tastes and preferences.

And about mechanics: Easier to grasp than taste, but require just as much dedication. Mechanics involve the tools and methods you can use to achieve a desired outcome in your visual design—sort of like shooting 100 free throws a week to get better for your pickup basketball league. Acing mechanics lets you bring your taste to life.

With consistent practice and drills, your mechanics will get better. Here are the drills I regularly turn to when I want to work on the fundamentals that power improving taste →

The Drills

These drills focus on five key aspects: content, structure, layout, style, and interaction. Here are my top recommendations:

1. Remix Drills. These drills are a favorite for me—they train you to spot new ideas from designs in other industries.

• Step 1: Find two designs from different markets. Think “Spotify for Goodreads” or “Airbnb for Netflix.”
• Step 2: Identify a metaphor to transfer from one design to the other. For example, use Spotify’s playlist navigation for managing books you want to read.
• Step 3: Remix it in Figma to see if it works. Practice this in the exploration phase of every project.

2. Incremental Drills. These drills help you create incremental progress within existing constraints. To get from A to Z, you gotta learn how to focus on B.

• Step 1: Find an interaction in your favorite app—for example, Arc’s new Search browser.
• Step 2: List ways it could be different. Arc’s navigation could be more familiar—make a tweak.
• Step 3: Copy the existing design, then incrementally innovate. It’s not a big change, but that’s the point—small improvements build up over time.

3. Timebox Drills. These drills push you through designer’s block.

• Step 1: Set a timer for 30 minutes and write down a challenge you can’t seem to get around.
• Step 2: Summarize your design challenge. Try to capture it in 1–2 sentences.
• Step 3: Try to create a full solution before time runs out. Don’t worry about quality—the crappier, the better. When the timer’s up, take a 15-minute break and come back to the work. You'll immediately have ideas for improvements. Keep doing this for as long as it takes to crack the code.

The bottom line: Improving visual design in 2024 is about balancing taste and mechanics. Dive deep into both with every project and practice, practice, practice. Know what you know, recognize what you don’t, and keep pushing the envelope.

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News, Tools, and Resources: Improving Visual Design

• ​Nitish Khagwal creates awesome prototypes of micro interactions—this is a stellar source of visual inspiration for the patterns we talked about today.
• Today’s inspiration for pushing taste: how UX designers are using neuroscience.
• Hot take: You will only ever need these 8 fonts.
• This is what IKEA can teach us about marketing design.
• The ultimate primer on designing fluid interfaces.

Got a great tool, podcast episode, idea, or something else? Hit reply and tell me what’s up.

Unpacking the Originality Spectrum

While we’re talking about improving taste and mechanics, I want to be clear about something: Not every design will be groundbreakingly original, and that's okay. Understanding the 5 levels of the Originality Spectrum can help set your expectations and goals.

1. Direct Copies: Lifting existing concepts, designs, or products. Not original and invites legal trouble, but great for learning.
2. Remixes: Mashing together multiple ideas to create something fresh. More original but still relying on existing ideas.
3. Indirect Parallels: Borrowing from one domain and applying it to another. Originality is blossoming, still connected to existing ideas.
4. Metaphors & Analogies: Connecting seemingly unrelated ideas to form new concepts. Highly original, pushing the boundaries of creativity.
5. True Innovation: Creating something entirely new and novel. Extremely rare, but industry-defining when it happens.

Reality check: Most of us operate within levels 2 through 4—and that's perfectly fine. Aim for originality, but don’t be afraid to learn from the past. Embrace the remix and adapt ideas from outside your domain. Focus on solving problems rather than being 100% original.

The UX Tools Job Board

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Thanks for reading! How are you improving your visual design in 2024? Hit reply and let me know. See you next week.

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