Softening The Soft Skills

It's one thing having skills, but it's another thing completely fathoming out how they apply to a "real" job. I think it's about time I discussed what skills I've gained over the last year and how they might apply to the industry for when I finish college.

Personal Development Planning
I think personal development planning has been something that’s helped me immensely over the past year. Constantly evaluating my performance in my sketchbook, end-of-assignment evaluations and through my learning journal has allowed me to pick up on where I could improve and then go away and do it. Improvement is a big thing for me.

As it is for the industry. With new technologies coming and going nearly every other week it’s important to keep up with the competition by constantly improving. Naturally, it makes you a valuable prospect for an employer if you can show that you’re constantly improving and actually want to improve.

Attending lectures, seminars, tutorials
Attending lectures is something we’ve done a lot of over the past year, and they’ve always been very useful. I’ve certainly learned a lot from the initial start point of lectures, as well as the ideas they have opened me up to. Over time, they’ve taught me how to listen better, take better notes, and to a certain extent engage and participate a bit more.

All three are vital in the industry, but I think listening is one of the most important. If you don’t listen when you’re being communicated a brief, told a client’s needs or in almost any other situation when someone is talking to you then that might have been the last chance you got. Note taking is also vital in the industry, to remember those conversations you’ve had with the client or to dumb down that complicated brief.

Seminars, group work, team projects
Like everything else, these have been a great use to me. Interacting with people outside of the learning environment and chatting about course-related topics and issues was (and still is) always a real help. Plus, you get to know everybody better and it helps develop the old social skills.

Obviously, it’s the interpersonal skills at work here. In the design industry, these are easily one of the most important “soft” skills that anybody can have. Being friendly, presentable and being able to communicate your ideas are essential.

Oral presentation
Similarly to seminars, I feel I’ve developed my interpersonal skills with the presentations, as well as my general presenting skills. At times I’ve struggled with presentations, but now I feel a lot more comfortable performing presentations.

Presenting – just generally – is a difficult skill to master. However, it’s a vital one for the industry and one that I hope to continue to improve. I have improved though, which was evidenced when I delivered a presentation to the first years with Julian and Craig the other week. We’ve had positive feedback from everyone I’ve spoken to so far.

Writing essays and other forms of academic writing
Writing essays has been part of life long before this course, and just writing even longer. My writing has improved a lot since I started this course, especially the academic writing. I’d never done academic writing before this course (amazingly), so I’m glad that I feel I’ve improved.

Writing I see as a big part of any job. In some jobs it might just be sending an email, but if that email looks presentable then it’s better than one in text-speak. Also, writing well is a big part of the CV. Plus, it’s important to understand writing to a greater degree when you’re designing something.

Maths and statistics
Statistics have played a part in many of an assignment we’ve done over the past year and it plays an important part when you’re looking at web trends statistics and site statistics. Being able to read them and produce them is a useful skill to have. Maths always plays a big part when coding CSS, and doing the screen designs for each assignment.

CSS is an industry-leading skill. So is reading statistics, especially if you want to assess whether a website is successful, or if you ever get asked to produce a pie chart or something similar on an issue.

Observation
On a design course observation plays a massive part. Collecting research, collecting inspirational material, and just looking at things generally in a design sense are all something I’ve developed greatly over the past year, almost to the point now where I can’t walk past anything without criticising the kerning between the letters K and I or being annoyed that it’s just slightly off centre.

All these skills are important to transfer to the industry, especially to improve your design skills. It’s also important to develop your “designer’s eye”. Observation widens your design knowledge too, making you a more diverse designer.

Research
This is a skill I’ve improved on in buckets. Before this course I’d never done much research, but now I feel comfortable in creating research plans and carrying out the research.

Researching in the industry is always important when you’re looking to design a new website or design anything. Plus, it’s also important to carry out research to develop your designers knowledge, thus widening the possibilities you can approach a brief with.

Exams and revision
Although we’ve not had any exams on this course, I did do a lot of them when I was doing my A Levels 2 years ago. Actually, before I started this course I’ve done exams every year for about 13 years. They do teach you a lot of discipline and how to revise, so after about 13 years I could probably call myself an expert at revising.

With regards to the industry though, revising skills certainly help you in trying to remember everything to do with the industry. Also, it helps you in learning new things too because you’re already aware of your best way of learning.

Overall though, if I had to put my finger on one thing that I feel I need to improve on the most it would probably be my design skills. I sometimes find myself coming up with similar ideas for projects which is down to me being inexperienced at designing. It doesn’t become an issue all the time, but enough to say that I need to improve on that particular skill. To improve my design variety I just need to carry on doing what I’m doing; soaking up every piece of design that I see, analyse it, and just generally live, eat and breathe the industry.