The Heartache of Design at Scale, Ep. 1
In my comfort zone.
*just me in the room*
Out of my comfort zone.
*graphic designers entered the room*
Now that shouldn’t put anyone out of their comfort zone when other designers work together. If anything, working together helps create designs easier and faster. So who wouldn’t want to work in a group?
Almost everyone.
I have learned to just shove my airpods in and work away. Young designers like myself tend to work alone or would rather be remote. Communication can be hard, I know that, but I wasn’t planning on changing my skills.
The Heartache of Design at Scale, Ep.1 has changed my mind.
Dan Mall is a creative director at Superfriendly. I really enjoyed the way he worded his phrases. He spoke of sharing vocabulary with others to resolve the issue of different components. The example he gave was one person would call it the utility bar while another calls it the gray bar. We have developed these words by all working separately or with different companies. His solution was to put all these components together and label them, clarify, and resolve misscommunications issues. A design system in place. Engagement is the main solution which we all need to work on, and yes all of us.
“Part of having a design system actually is to get everyone a little bit outside of their comfort zone to be able to work with each other more, to engage more with each other.” – Dan Mall
The Heartache of Design at Scale, Ep. 1 (8:41 – 8:46)
Atomic Design
Atomic Design dives into anatomy. Nope, not the anatomy of type, but physical anatomy. Physical anatomy is in design and we had no idea. I found it very interesting the way they combined anatomy terms and design elements. Atoms are HTML elements while molecules are combined elements. Starting with one single atom (HTML element) and then creating molecules (combined elements) by putting atoms together. This then grows in organisms which are grouped elements and templates which are whole page layouts. It is no linear process, it is a mental model.
Giving an example of an Instagram page helped clarfiy their intent. If all designers knew this comparison, would what Dan Mall is trying to explain work? I have no idea and I’ll just have to wait and see.
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