Writing as a Graphic Designer
When people talk about design, they rarely ever mention one skill that plays a very important role in this field: writing. As a matter of fact, it seems like design professionals don't even consider it to be a fundamental part of their skill set. This is a big mistake and a common design myth that needs to be debunked. In this article we discuss Why Writing Is Useful for Designers.
There are so many reasons why writing is useful for designers. We don't have to go too far from simply documenting, emailing, and reporting, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. A whole bunch of other reasons are hiding below the surface, so we want to unravel the mystery here.
To make things look simpler and more transparent, we decided to create a list of six reasons why writing is useful for designers. Without further ado, let's check it out.
6 Reasons Designers Must Perfect Writing Skills
As we already mentioned, there are all sorts of reasons to improve your design-related writing skills. But we want to filter these options and focus on six major arguments only. Here they are:
1. Share ideas with the community
The first reason on our list is rather altruistic – you should write about design experiences to share ideas with the niche community. Some designers don't like to discuss the way they work because they want to save all ideas for themselves, but we don't support such an attitude.
After all, we don't know a single designer who is completely unique or innovative. We all borrow ideas and already existing solutions from peers and colleagues, so why wouldn't we contribute to the community through writing?
Of course, you don't have to reveal 100% of your design secrets, but you should try to help less-experienced colleagues by sharing the basics. This is exactly what Eftakher Alam did in a post dedicated to his crypto project. He wrote "a step by step process of transforming my imagination into a complete pack," giving the audience incredibly valuable suggestions and ideas.
2. Explain the product to your client
The next reason to write about your projects is also very obvious: you need to convince a client that your design is the best option for his/her business. You can hardly ever do it by simply sending the final product.
On the contrary, you probably have to prepare a presentation because clients are almost never design experts who can understand your choices instantly. The first task in this process is to create flawless textual content, eliminating grammar and spelling errors. In that regard, platforms such as Grammarly, Hemmingway Editor or Ginger can assist you in writing immaculate presentations.
The second task is to get creative and write about the broader context of your product:
- Emotional: You should present product features and explain how consumers feel using them.
- Environmental: A lot of apps and similar products need to respect the environmental effect. For instance, commuters often find themselves in the crowd of other people, so the products they use have to respect this factor.
- Social: What do other people think about product users? Does it make them look cool or extravagant? Make sure to explain this when presenting your design.
Sam Carlson did a great job explaining the circumstances in which he redesigned Google Classroom, so you can learn from his example and write similar project presentations.
3. Writing helps you grow follow base
By definition, designers work in an online environment and need to utilize every channel of communication to get their foot in the door and distinguish themselves from competitors. Writing can help you to build a wider follower base through engine searches.
Namely, over 90% of all traffic comes from a search engine, so you must improve website ranking to become more visible in Google searches. Content quality is critical to the success of your SEO strategy, which means you have to write excellent articles regularly to grow the network of followers.
If you don't know how to boost ranking or don't have time to do it, you can consult with SEO professionals such as:
- SocialPilot: It's a simple cost-effective social media management tool for teams and agencies.
- Australian Writings: This agency specializes in SEO writing and creating keyword strategies that promise to improve website ranking relatively quickly.
4. Kickstart a business
Building a fan base is not the only privilege of quality writing in design. This is also the opportunity to kickstart a business since a lot of great projects started with simple blog posts. How can you launch a brand new business this way?
Well, the process is simple: keep publishing outstanding posts and earning new followers. Once you accumulate a substantial amount of fans, you may as well launch your own products. It's a great business opportunity because you already have a loyal follower base.
These people respect your opinion and trust you, so they don't doubt the quality of your design offer. Your only job is to really create a good design, making sure not to disappoint prospects and betray their trust.
5. Become a key opinion leader
Design writing has another important side effect – you can become a key opinion leader (KOL) in your niche. Besides giving you additional business opportunities and tons of new followers, it will also help you in many other ways.
First of all, you will definitely have the chance to expand the network of professional acquaintances. Your colleagues and design executives will invite you to participate in seminars, conferences, and similar industry gatherings where you can meet people and strengthen your KOL authority.
Besides that, you will probably receive job invitations from different companies. Some design writers don't care about this, but it's a nice opportunity if you are not willing to launch a private business. That way, you can ensure long-term safety and give your career a brand new direction.
6. Writing gives you alternative design ideas
This is the last argument on our list, but it's certainly not the least important reason to hone your writing skills. According to bloggers, design writing is all about thinking, planning, and brainstorming, which often inspires authors to come up with fresh and alternative ideas. It's a win-win situation both for you and your followers since you get lots of new design writing ideas, while your fans get to enjoy the privilege of reading more posts.
Conclusion
Designers in all fields of work need a wide range of skills and capabilities in order to become successful professionals. However, most of them don't realize the importance of writing as one of the quintessential design skills.
That's why we made a list of the six fundamental reasons to start thinking about honing your writing proficiency. We strongly encourage you to follow our advice, but feel free to leave a comment if you don't agree with our explanations – we'd be glad to see your opinion about this topic!
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Author Bio
Lilian Chifley is a writer and editor at Aussiewritings. She loves reading books about modern technologies, spending time with family and shopping.
Source: https://www.thelogocreative.co.uk/why-writing-is-useful-for-designers/