We are all practitioners piecing together our craft — day after day after day after day after day after day.

Be better today than you were yesterday.

This is a mantra that I work to carry forward in my work and life. It is also a concept that I instill in my students. Today we have more knowledge, experience, and wisdom than yesterday. Tomorrow is yet to be seen, but we will tackle tomorrow with today's experience. In short — you know more today than you did yesterday.

Now, I know, conceptually, this sounds simple — but it’s not. So often, we get caught up in ourselves — our worries, doubts, insecurities, and fears. We let all these things slow us down. We allow them to alter the way we interact with people. We allow them to affect the way we react to challenges. And we allow them to represent our intentions.

Not to worry, these things are within our control; we need to do a few simple things. And, without even knowing it, you might be better today than yesterday.

1. Take a deep breath: Find an internal space to calm your emotions and clear your head. Anything that needs intention needs your attention.
2. Be patient: Not everything is going to be fixed, changed, or happen right now — accept this and focus on the elements that are within your control.
3. Be silent: Clarify your thinking before you react or speak — emotions always cloud judgment.
4. Listen: Learn as much as you can by absorbing facts about any given situation. Look for people who have traveled the path before you. What knowledge have they left behind?
5. Access experience: Lean on choices that have helped you be successful in the past. This is where yesterday can come in handy.
6. Be present: Don’t wander away — mentally or otherwise — stay focused. We live in a world of distraction. Don’t let others — human or otherwise hijack your abilities.
7. Be honest: Tell the truth. Don’t create a false sense of intention or will toward others. It can be easy to get excited and promise things we can’t deliver.
8. Be accountable: Do what you are capable of when you can do it. It’s OK to say NO if you know you will not be able to deliver.
9. Be reasonable: We all want more than we need — accept moments and outcomes for what they are. As some wise person once said: You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes — you might find — you get what you need.
10. Proceed with grace and empathy: Be thankful, understanding, and compassionate in daily encounters. You never know what people are dealing with, just as they never know what you are carrying through your day.

Introductory graphic design students reflect on insights that young designers should carry forward as they expand their design practice.

Don’t Be Scared

What is scary in graphic design education? Nothing really, except failure. But failure is part of the learning process. In education, like life, only some things will go as planned. And, when things don’t go as planned, we must embrace failure. In these moments of failure, we learn. We observe. We reflect. We begin to understand how we might change our approach.

Feel Uncomfortable

Trying new things is difficult. However, you will be surprised at your capabilities if you work hard and focus on the process. Any type of design is complex and takes work. Design is making a series of decisions. Decisions that may need to be fully informed. You may need to go into spaces (physical and intellectual) you have never been to before to be informed. Embrace these moments.

Google, Google, Google

The caveat is that education does not begin or end with Google. Young designers need to establish a foundation for their practice. Then, they can understand how to filter the information they might find online. More than ever, we will have machines delivering us information. The real skill will be interpreting and identifying the value of this information.

Have Grace For Yourself

If things don’t go as planned (see above), give yourself a break. We know that failure is part of the design and learning process. Yet, we learn how to deal with progress and setback through reflection. We reflect on the process and the outcome, acknowledging that our work is not us. We separate ourselves from our work to objectively understand the effect of our work. One lousy project is not a reflection of your character.

Just Start, Don’t Procrastinate

If you don’t know where to start — start anywhere. Just start the process. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” To understand the project or the process, you must engage in both. Once engaged, the work will lead you to the next logical decision. Listen to the work. It will guide you to an appropriate result.

No Right or Wrong, Only Appropriate

The result will not be right or wrong, yet appropriate. Too often, designers get caught up in pursuing the “right.” Whether that is affirmation from their professor or peers, being a designer is about something other than being right or accepted. Designing is about achieving a desired outcome. An outcome that serves a specific need or explores a new intellectual space. Outcomes are not right or wrong; they are. They are appropriate to the needs of the endeavor.

Do Your Best

We have direct control over two things — our attitude and our effort. These character traits define our approach. You can be proud if you have a positive attitude and substantial effort. Of course, the outcome may not have been entirely successful. But objective assessments will clarify the priorities of the work. However, having a poor attitude or a lazy effort is a personal problem, not a project problem.

Have Fun!

Crafting communication should be fun. If you are not having fun, ask yourself, ‘why?.’ Only some projects will indeed be fun or engaging. So, often you will have to find something in the project that will excite you. It could be the research. It could be a crafting method. It could be using a new tool or program. Ultimately, you will learn from each project, so find ways to make the learning fun.

Let’s keep building this list. What are some insights that young designers and learners should keep in mind? What principles do you share with learners?

Editorial note: This piece is an educator’s personal reflection. Thoughts gathered from a single lived experience. The following are issues that remote teaching has asked me to consider. Issues to consider as inspiration, reflection, evolution, and change. Presented with the potential for connection and conversation.

There is no question that the 2020–2021 academic year was challenging. It challenged all aspects of life — personal and professional. It forced people apart and asked us to find new ways of coming together. As educators, we had to learn new ways to teach. We had to re-contextualize the classroom. We had to redefine the act of teaching. We had to re-think: communication, tools, methods, material, delivery, and assessment. Yet, through this process, we re-affirmed that learning is still a holistic act. An act that takes presence — both intellectual and physical. And, an act that is not defined by delivery, technology, or proximity.

Tools Created to Connect Have Moved Us Apart

Disconnected in all ways, we are now tethered to devices and digital translations. We focus on profiles and pings, not shared moments of discovery. We resign ourselves to reply all — hoping that acknowledgement is understanding. We cry collaboration, while working from individual, isolated spaces. Sharing and engaging is nothing more than navigating an interface.

It’s true that digital gatherings end the physical barriers of time and space. Yet, they present no commitment to engagement. Logging on does not require participation. And participation does not create accountability. Learners can appear present, and not take part. Attendance (especially remote) can no longer be a measure of accountability.

Yes, particularly in design, project-based learning creates tangible accountability. Learners present their understanding and proficiencies through material artifacts. But, we know that learning requires more than material artifacts. We know that is requires dedicated conversation. Conversation that develops the ability to communicate conceptual understanding.

Can we measure accountability with conversation? Yes. Learners need to reflect on their individual experience — in-person or remote. Asking one simple question might create intellectual accountability: What is the most important thing you learned today?

Not everything we learn is course or content specific. But, the things that we learn are the things that we remember. And we remember the things that teach us about our individual role in a shared experience.

To Communicate is to Learn; To Learn is to Communicate

Language is paramount to learning visual communication. Or, at least a shared vocabulary is paramount to learning. Separation has challenged our ability to develop a shared vocabulary. We no longer get a sense of call-and-response that leads to agreement. An agreement that leads to investigative production. Investigative production that leads to conceptual understanding.

So much lost in translation. We are in a constant back-and-forth: go ahead… no, you… no, go ahead, no, you… I’m sorry, you go. Thoughts start and stop without realization. Or, we engage in a one-way conversation. The one where the perceived “expert” does all the talking. But, the perceived “expert” is still learning. The perceived “expert” is researching, writing, and practicing visual communication.

Learning is a shared conversation. A mutual dialogue that reflects an individual journey. A journey where the “expert” and the learner communicate about their learning experience. An experience recorded for clarity and reflection. It is easy to blame communication breakdowns on external factors. It is much more difficult to reflect on our individual role in communication. We ask: “What don’t they get?” But, we should be reflecting on our own conceptual understanding. We should be reflecting on our own effective communication. We should be asking ourselves: Am I fully engaged in communicating the learning process?

If we are to learn from this moment, then we need to be listening. We need to be learning a new vocabulary. A vocabulary that is being defined in real-time with our learners.

Learners Are Not Getting the Whole Educator

This issue underpins the previous two. Learners are not getting the whole educator. Rather, they are getting a persona. A persona that must hold their attention through performative skill. Educators are now “competing” for attention. Remote classes are a secondary activity—background noise. Educators watch as learners cook meals, lie in bed, and even do their hair or make-up on camera. We chalk it up to “unprecedented” times and default to grace as a replacement for focus. We have accepted that attention is a value factor in a transactional exchange.

In response, educators work on their media presence. Otherwise, learners turn their attention to more “interesting” content. And, not without holding educators accountable for a perceived loss of time or money. Learners have conflated education with media, leaving educators to try every possible technology. Methods and techniques are not developed through research and logic. Yet, developed from hopeful ignorance.

We click buttons. We log on. We mute. We “share”. We send. We read. We react. We respond. We encourage. But, these digital activities are superficial. We know we are capable of more, but we may not know what each is missing. Each missing a unique piece in their own way — built on their unique view of the world. Our synthetic conversation might be limiting us from discovering it together. We ask: How can digital tools advance the human experience?

Moving forward, technology will play a vital role in the learning experience. But, technology cannot define the learning experience. Educators must place a premium on in-person communication. We must find tangible ways to relate with individual learners. Educators must reclaim their attention. Educators must prove themselves invaluable in a transactional economy. An economy where students become successful commodities of personal investment and mentorship.

Educators Teach People How To Be People

Knowledge, skills, and experience are a by-product of our shared time together. We share what we know, how we know it, why we know it, and how it has shaped our human perspective. A perspective that structures the experience in our classroom. But, when the classroom is a weblink, we lose the physical and material energy of our world. Our physical world is no longer a resource, yet a constraint. We have to make and think in the abstract — for sake of the abstract.

It’s true, this won’t go on. A new way will emerge. A way in which we will use technology as a communicative tool and not a proxy for the lived human experience.

As we return to the classroom, what will you be reflecting on? What will you be evolving? What lessons will change the way you teach in person?

Quaran-Taught was originally published in Writing Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Writing can feel like a never-ending existential exercise. An exercise in coming up with a new idea or a new revelation. As an academic, I structure my life around periodical induced timelines. Timelines to publish, track, document, maintain, organize, and offer as proof. Proof as evidence of effectiveness. An effectiveness that demands polished presentation. Presentation understood, accepted, and cataloged — a signal of finality.

But, as a designer, I prefer to be iterative. I prefer building, making, responding, and thinking. I leave space for failure, refinement, feedback, editing, serendipity, and the unexpected. I let the process unfold toward the desired outcome.

This is why I struggle to write — process and finality oppose one another.

So, logically, I need a writing process. I need systems and structures. I need functional activities that motivate content production. I need production broken down into manageable tasks. I need manageable tasks that promote sustainable activity. Yet, processes and activity only matter if there is a desired outcome. And, to have an outcome, there needs to be a place to start. Here are five places to start:

1. Capture: So much daily activity has informative value. Creating projects, building presentations, providing feedback, or guiding others all have content value. Write about the knowledge gathered through these processes. No insight is too small — someone is taking on these tasks for the first time.
2. Make: Writing is making. Pen or keyboard — both are physical. Connect your body to the act. Expel energy. Leave a mark. Not everything will be perfect. There will be waste. There will be refinement. There will be struggle. There will be success. Most of all, there will be words.
3. Describe: Writing is a visual activity. Language used to share, acknowledge, agree, understand, and connect knowledge, message, and voice. Words project imagery. Don’t know what to write? Scribble it down or sketch it out — then, describe what you see. Descriptive language paints a picture with words.
4. Practice: Writing — like all activities — takes time and practice to master. A few minutes a day is not enough. Use a time tracker and set goals. Set the timer and write as many words as possible. Do this daily. The more you write, the more you will write, well.
5. Map: Map out the development of your writing practice. Define future goals. Create daily, weekly, and monthly deadlines. Do the work, meet the deadlines and you will see results.

Taking these steps will put words on the page — this is the desired outcome. This will remove the pressure of finality. The first step will not be perfect, yet there will valuable knowledge produced. Knowledge that someone needs. A knowledgeable contribution and that is enough.

Great. Sounds easy. I can do that…

The Struggle is Writing was originally published in Writing Design on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.