GrindSmart

There’s an absolute ton of material out there on the internet, and in the so-called Blogsphere, specifically geared towards helping designers hone their craft. There are tricks and tips, tutorials and lists. There are in depth articles, an ark load of inspiration (an ark, of course, being a very large boat) and innumerable freebie resources for you to use.

It’s like a veritable designer’s Utopia, a wide open land echoing with the promise of growing knowledge and better design.

It sounds wonderful. It is wonderful. I love being a part of the design community, and am incredibly grateful for all the wonderful things I’ve learned. But, the cold, hard and entirely unavoidable truth is that, if you want to become a better designer, there is only one way that you are really going to get there, and it can all be summed up in one simple word:

Practice.

That’s it folks. You can read all the books, magazines and blogs you want. You can spend hours being inspired by some of the world’s most beautiful designs. You can download and archive every awesome freebie out there. In the end though, if you don’t roll up your shirt sleeves and get your hands dirty by actually designing something, then it’s really all for naught.

Just look at a hockey player. If watching hockey games, reading hockey blogs and buying hockey gear would make you and expert hockey player, then half of Canada would be getting ready to be drafted into the NHL. But it doesn’t work that way. If you want to be a hockey player, then you have to lace up your skates, tape up your stick and get out there on the ice. You have to take the bumps and bruises, probably loose a tooth or two, and actively work at getting better every single day.

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