BANISH THE INNER CRITIC that blocks your creativity and tear down the wall between you and your client that design buzzwords create. It’s easy with help from Issue No. 335 of A List Apart for people who make websites:
Banishing Your Inner Critic
Everybody has one: the inner critic that tells you you’re just faking it, that others have more talent, that you’ll never achieve the success you seek. The inner critic is an unconscious deterrent that stands between the seeds of great ideas and the fruits of achievement, making you hate your designs, giving you “writer’s block” as your deadline looms, keeping you stuck in a project’s initial thinking stage because something isn’t quite right. Denise Jacobs anatomizes and shows how to quash your inner critic, giving you the mental space and energy to let your talent emerge.
Demystifying Design
by Jeff Gothelf
Mystifying design with jargon only we understand makes us feel like heroes and creates a sense of job security. But it also creates an “us and them” atmosphere which excludes non-designers, obscures the true value of design, and generates antagonism when only cooperation will yield the best product. By revealing our process and inviting others into our world, we can create a team that is invested in the success of our work, and deliver better design. Jeff Gothelf discusses the steps we can take to increase the value of our practice and of ourselves as practitioners.
Online since 1998, Happy Cog’s A List Apart Magazine explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices. Illustration by Kevin Cornell.
