Design Docs, Version Two

Design Docs is a guide for early-career designers. It's meant to give them a roadmap: how to improve their craft, put a portfolio together, and get their first job in the industry, or the job they're chasing.

Version two is out. It's a new site built in Next.js, the content has been through another pass, and you can read it here.

What's in it

There's no single right way into this industry, and the guide says so on its first page. It lays out some common paths and roles and how they fit together, and it says plainly that you don't have to follow anyone's path, including this one.

The sections run in order: build a foundation, discover the roles, have work to show, have a portfolio, talk about your work, and further reading. Most of the advice is the kind I wish I'd had early. Don't over-invest in your website: spend about a week on a first portfolio, and only build something elaborate once you have at least three strong projects. Don't use placeholder content in your designs. Show, don't tell. A long write-up doesn't make a better project.

Everything is CC0, which means public domain. Anyone can use any of it for anything, including copying it word for word into something commercial. I think education belongs in the public domain without strings attached.

Why rebuild it

The first version went up in November 2021, built in Nuxt in about five days. Every section was a Vue page, with the words written straight into the markup. That was fine while I was the only one writing it, and it got in the way of anyone else.

In version two the words live in seven MDX files in a content folder, and one template renders them. If you want to fix a paragraph you edit a text file, not a component. Most of the work since has gone into making the project easy to contribute to: a short CONTRIBUTING.md, a TODO list in the README, and tasks broken down over the next few versions so there's always something clear to pick up.

Who I want writing it

I don't want this to stay one designer's opinions. I'd like it to show work from a wide range of designers and to bring in people from many backgrounds to review it and add to it over time. One of the short-term items on the TODO list is to rewrite the content from a more neutral point of view, with opinions kept in clearly attributed blocks, so the guide can hold more than one voice.

How to help

Everything is open for contributions. Send a pull request, open an issue, or start a discussion on GitHub. If you'd rather not use GitHub, CONTRIBUTING.md has an email address, and content, links, reviews and feedback are all welcome that way too.

I'd like Design Docs to become a resource students and new designers can use wherever they are.