Member-only story
Start 2023 with a new design concept
Expand into skills you’ve only dreamed of before
Often, at the beginning of a new year, I like to conceptualize new guiding principles, in one or two words, that will anchor me in my dreams and goals for the next 12 months.
As visual, UX, motion, and code designers, we know that design is ever-expanding. With new cloud-based tools, digital support systems, and ever-accessible design communities, there is much to add to one’s tool kit. Whether we explore UX, motion, hands-on skills, or even art history skills, one thing is sure, we need to know more and more.
Thus, the two words defining my year of 2023 are… Design Expansion.
Design Expansion will be my 2023 mission statement. And for sure, I will return to this story many times, to remind myself of what I was envisioning at this very moment.
What do I mean by Design Expansion
Design Expansion can mean many things. It can mean up-skilling, UX, expanding on our imagination, taking risks and stepping into unknown design areas, joining design communities, improving hands-on coding skills, looking at art more, attending design events, designing our own book, publishing, writing… really, the sky is the limit.
Design as a highly-skilled endeavor
Throughout the ages, ever since design became a discipline, it has always been a highly skilled profession. As a discipline, it has never rested on its laurels. On the contrary, it kept refining itself along with new tools and materials. Design artists have continually broken new barriers, defied expectations, and became trendsetters in the process.
Let’s look at this typography example below. Typography is as old as human writing itself. Looking at this example of magnificent type design, can you believe this was crafted over 550 years ago by Belbello da Pavia, an Italian painter active between 1430 and 1462 in northern Italy?[1]
