Design Life

Latest Episodes:

025: Should designers learn to code? May 09, 2016

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Creating a website involves two main skills: design and development. In this episode we tackle the hot debate of designers and code; Should web designers be able to build the things they design, and is it okay if they can’t? We share our personal experiences with this issue and discuss assumptions people make about our abilities when we use the term ‘web designer’. More at www.designlife.fm

024: Learning new skills for your side project May 02, 2016

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Learning new skills is something that goes hand-in-hand with side projects. Often we have ideas for things that involve either expanding on the skills we currently have, or learning something totally new. In this episode we discuss our approach to learning and chat about the benefits of adding new things to your skillset. More at www.designlife.fm

023: Being your own worst critic Apr 25, 2016

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Critiquing your own work is an important skill to learn, especially when it comes to side projects. When you set yourself a brief, you have to learn to look at your work in a new light and see it from an outside perspective to truly make it the best it can be. In this episode we share tips for doing that and talk about the challenges of self-critique (like loving your work too much to see that something isn’t working). More at www.designlife.fm

022: Long term thinking and planning Apr 18, 2016

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We always want to be moving forward and progressing towards our goals. In this episode we discuss long term thinking and the importance of setting goals for your future.

It can be hard to plan the exact steps to take to reach a goal set for five or ten years time, because life happens and your wants and needs may change. But having long term goals means you’ll be able to make decisions now in the present that align to them in order to keep you on the right track.

Listen in to hear about our goals and our advice for getting into a long term mindset. More at www.designlife.fm

021: Overcoming lack of motivation Apr 11, 2016

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Motivation is vital to working on side projects, and a positive mindset is key to staying motivated. In this episode we discuss how these things work together for us, and the external factors that drive us to keep hustling even when the going gets tough.

You’ll also hear about the things that have a negative effect on our motivation and how we get it back when it lapses. Motivation is something that has to come from within yourself and in this episode you’ll get tips for how to find it. More at www.designlife.fm

020: How to push through Creative block Apr 03, 2016

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Creative block is scary. It’s something that every creative goes through, and it’s something that tends to sneak up on you. In this episode we discuss how for us creative block feels overwhelming and suffocating, and can hit at various points in a project. Our strategies for dealing with it vary depending on the time pressure we’re under, but we’ll give you some tips to try out next time creative block strikes for you. No matter how you get through it, creative block is something you have to push through. You can’t let it win. More at www.designlife.fm

019: How to find Inspiration Mar 28, 2016

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Inspiration isn’t just a pretty image you find on Dribbble, it’s a way of looking at things in a new light. In this episode we discuss what it means to be inspired and our approach to gathering inspiration.

We touch on the perils of your work being a little too inspired by someone else’s, and how finding inspiration in unlikely places could be a solution to that. More at www.designlife.fm

018: The role of a side project in your career Mar 21, 2016

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Side projects can be an important and useful part of your career path. They can also be a huge distraction from your day job if you let them.

In this episode we talk about the impact our side projects have had on our careers and what we’ve gotten out of them from not only an educational perspective, but also for our own personal growth.

The itch to work on a certain type of project could mean that type of creativity is missing from your life. We discuss how we use our side projects to feel creatively fulfilled and share advice for if you have ideas but are unsure of starting a side project alongside your day job. More at www.designlife.fm

017: Stress management Mar 14, 2016

Show notes

This week we’re having a heart-to-heart about stress and how we deal with it. We discover that for us a lack of control (be that of technology or other people) is often what stresses us out, along with feeling guilty for taking breaks. We talk about how a certain level of stress can be used as motivation to hustle, but how that can easily tip too far and be paralysing. We share our strategies for coping with stress and talk about learning from our mistakes in order to improve our process and be less stressed in the future. More at www.designlife.fm

016: Prioritising tasks for personal projects Mar 07, 2016

Show notes

At work we have managers, co-workers or clients relying on us to get things done. When it comes to our personal projects we often don’t have the same sense of urgency or deadlines, so how do you prioritise what to work on? That’s what we discuss in this episode. It’s about having accountability within yourself to get things done to help you move towards your goals, not allowing yourself to make excuses, and breaking down tasks into small chunks to get them done. Hear about how we decide what to work on, what tasks we put off as much as possible, and get some brilliant advice from our listeners. More at www.designlife.fm

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