Noor - Chat for teams

hey hey are we still doing this? solo designer for over an year here :'))

constantly evaluate the work you actually do against your job description. as the solo designer you will likely be doing a lot of brand management, design ed for the whole org. keep track of work you’re doing that isn’t in the JD. my guess is you’ll quickly find grounds for (1/2)

Don’t settle as ‘just’ being a designer (unless you want to). Design thinking can be useful across other aspects of business. See if you can add value to other areas of the biz and grow your skills over time. Be proactive - ‘OMG I didn’t know Tahreem could do that!’

maybe put the word out here or twitter and then start a small discord or group chat?

Thank you all for the great advice - this is super helpful!

pretty good first week - any of you have tips or advice being the only designer at a company?

I was thinking about this - will definitely ask. but also where could I create a group for that?

The values at one company were ‘designed’ by someone in HR. Just an icon with text. I felt that if they were more interesting then the team would engage more with them. Fast forward months and large format images in offices and on desktops began appearing…

Might be worth seeing if there are other solo designers who would be down to do a weekly design crit or something? That is if your team is okay with you sharing work in progress.

my only problem is I probably won’t be able to share work :/

Own it! I run everything visual at WarpStream from brand to product. I treat it like my little baby. All the engineers know to bring any 'design crimes' they find to me. It's been a lot of fun.

Unless your company is really well staffed, designers usually get pulled into marketing design, sales decks, company merch, social media... and so on. Sometimes its good to learn stuff, but dont feel bad about not wanting to learn a new skill that isnt going to help you grow

And lastly, as a piece of tactical advice: Regularly back up your work. 

I also keep a "diary" of things i design, and this writing can be later edited into a case study for my portfolio. Its basically just a google doc where i write down the things that i present to my team.

Find a few people you trust who you can regularly bounce ideas off of and/or talk about work with. I have one person mentoring me, am informally mentoring another, and have a few designers who I know I can share work-in-progress with to help make informed decisions. 1/2

just make it a regular check-in with the person you report to, then other team members can join if they need to. I have my weekly design sync scheduled directly after our standup on Wednesdays. Usually nobody is interested but it makes you look good!

Schedule + host a regular Design Sync or "Design Office Hours" where you can present in progress work, people can ask for help, discuss new requests, receive feedback, etc.

Document your work as you go. Write up design/requirement docs as you design new features

title changes (at minimum!) and salary bumps 😘 (2/2)

I thought about creating a small group of solo designers too, wanted to set up either a discord or maybe use Noor.to. I’m working as a solo designer for almost two years now, and just started exchanging feedback with a fellow designer a couple months ago, so valuable.✨

2/2 Establish as much trust and direct communication as you possibly can with leadership. You’re the research, design, sometimes PM teams all rolled into one — you need to be *extremely* close to the business, product, and customer. Can’t stress this part enough

I would love to have something like that not only for work but also to discuss side-projects 😊

That's definitely the major problem 😔 However, I still think there is the possibility to get value from simply interchanging challenges and get inputs on those. There is even the possibility to alter the work, or simply have a cozy group of a couple of designers 😊

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