Getting Started in Design
Design Isn’t Learnt, It’s Felt
People always ask me how to get into design, and honestly I never have a good answer. Because design isn’t something you just casually "do". You don’t get into it like learning guitar chords off YouTube or deciding you want to bake a cake. Design isn’t really something you learn; it’s something you’re born into. And no, I don’t mean this in some dramatic, born-with-talent way, because that’s bullshit. What I mean is, from the second you’re born, you’re already forcefully experiencing design.
The moment you're born, you're added into this world, completely unprepared, sensitive to everything around you. Everything is designed; the cradle you're placed in, the clothes you're wrapped in, the temperature of the room, the way someone holds you, being gently or not gently enough. All of these things matter. They shape you. Everything you experience from birth moulds you into who you become.
This might sound overly sentimental, maybe even exaggerated, but it's not, because design is not just visuals or aesthetics. It's emotion, purpose, intention and experience. It's literally everywhere around you right now. Look around your current location. Everything you touch, sit on, lean against. It's all designed for a reason. Your chair, your bed, the clothes you're wearing. They weren't just thrown together randomly; they were made deliberately, to make you feel something. Comfort or discomfort, safety or anxiety.
Take your chair for example. It can either be comfortable or intentionally uncomfortable. It might be made from wood because wood is easy to mass-produce, but maybe it's not very comfy. Or maybe it's cushioned, but it's not the most cushioned chair in the world, right? Because if you Googled the most expensive bed right now, it's probably something wild like horsehair stuffing and advanced memory foam, engineered specifically for comfort. It’s almost messed up how intentional that is, how deliberately it’s designed to achieve maximum comfort.
And I know what you're thinking: "Okay, I get it, things have purposes," but that's only half the point. What I'm trying to say is, design isn't something you sit down and just learn from tutorials. You don't just learn design; you learn experiences. You learn to understand how things around you impact people, how they impact you. If you want to make something meaningful, something truly well designed, you need to have felt the thing you're trying to make other people feel. How can you create shoes to make people feel taller if you've never understood what it means or feels like to be taller? How can you design comfort if you've never deeply felt what comfort means?
Design is emotional; it’s about crafting an experience. When someone uses your design, you're essentially inviting them into an emotional space you've created. Imagine putting someone into a new car. If the steering wheel feels awkward *cough* Tesla yoke *cough*, or the seat isn’t comfortable, people reject it immediately. Humans instinctively crave comfort, familiarity, and safety. Sudden, drastic changes rarely work because people naturally resist what feels unfamiliar. As designers, we have to balance innovation with comfort, pushing the limits without alienating people.
When I was younger, I struggled to understand why emotions even mattered. I thought emotions were pointless because, ultimately, everything fades away. If nothing lasts, what’s the point of happiness or sadness? It made me seem cold and disconnected. But eventually, I realised that people aren’t driven purely by logic as I was. They're fundamentally emotional. Ignoring emotions doesn’t make you smarter; it just makes you detached and unpleasant to be around. I learnt that to make things for people, I had to understand how people felt about things.
If you understand what makes people happy, sad, frustrated, or excited, you can design something that hooks into people's souls. We don't build phones simply because technology allows it; we build them because communicating was difficult and frustrating without them. Apple didn’t invent the iPad just because they could; they did it because users felt limited by small phone screens. Every meaningful product ever created solved either an emotional or practical problem someone had.
Design is about answering the “why” behind every decision. Why this colour, why this shape, why this texture? Each choice evokes specific feelings. Colours aren’t random; blue shows professionalism, red urgency, green calm. Sharp edges show seriousness, and soft, rounded corners invite comfort and trust. You pick shadows carefully, positioning them to convey depth, realism, or mood. When Apple integrated realistic materials into their software, they tapped into familiar emotions and experiences users already understood.
If you're ever lost or confused in design, just think about emotions. Look at your own experiences, your own feelings. Remember things that made you feel safe, happy, frustrated, scared. Learn from those feelings, then put them into what you create. The best design doesn't just exist. It makes people feel seen, understood and cared for.
The real power of design is not in how pretty something is, but in the emotional connection it makes. It's in understanding that every single thing you create impacts someone's feelings. And I really, desperately need you to understand that. Design is emotional. Deeply, undeniably emotional. It's everything.
Enough Talk, Let’s Design
Cool, now that we've covered all the emotional stuff, and you sort of know where this is headed, let’s actually talk about how you start physically making something. Let’s use a calendar app as an example.
Seems easy enough, right? You’ve seen dozens of calendar apps. There’s the default one on your phone, the one on your friend's phone, ones online, desktop ones, mobile-only ones; endless examples. So you might think, "How hard could designing another calendar app really be?"
Truth is, it's not actually that hard. You build a calendar, use the common format everyone else does, and boom. You’ve got your base. You’ve essentially copied every calendar ever, congrats!
But here's the tricky part: How do you make it yours? How do you make people feel something different, something special when they use it?
For me, this means designing something personal, something warm, something that lets people move at their own pace. If you've ever seen literally anything I've designed, you know exactly what colors I'm going to pick. Yes, brown. (Look around. Don't act surprised.) But not just plain brown; think earth tones. Dark green, dark brown, beige, some greys, a hint of muted yellow. Why these? Because they're grounded, natural, calming.
This calendar isn't going to promise to "10x your productivity" or "save a million hours a year" or anything like that. It's just going to feel right. Like home.
So, okay, how do we get that personal feeling? Think about a real world calendar. The kind stuck to your fridge or hanging on a wall. Why do people even buy physical calendars these days? Probably because they're personal. Maybe there's a character or scene on it they like. Maybe it comes with a little marker or stamp to cross off the days. People jot down birthdays, flights, little notes with whatever pen they have lying around. Crossing days off feels satisfying. It's familiar, it's comfortable, it's personal.
That's our starting point: make something familiar, something realistic, something easily customisable. But remember, we're working digitally. This is a canvas with endless possibilities. We can do more.
Let’s add sticky notes. Everyone loves sticky notes. Let users stick them anywhere on their digital calendar, just like in real life. Why limit calendars to structured, boxed-in events? Real-life calendars hold birthdays, flights, reminders. Stuff scribbled in margins, quick notes jotted down hastily. Let's embrace that.
Imagine birthdays. Wouldn't it feel nice if, on someone's birthday, a tiny cake popped up next to their name? Or a picture, reminding you it’s that Emma, not the other Emma? Wouldn’t it feel thoughtful if the calendar nudged you the day before to send a quick message or even suggested somewhere nice to meet up, based on your age and location?
These ideas come naturally when you really think about people and what they actually want or need in these moments.
Take flights for example. Important, stressful, and time-sensitive. Flights usually show up via email from your airline, automatically added to your calendar with basic info like flight number, departure, arrival, and duration. But we can go further. Everyone always gets to the airport early anyway, right? So, let’s just automatically add two hours of "buffer time" before your flight event. That way, the calendar anticipates your needs.
And while we're on flights, why not get creative? Why show boring text boxes when we can style the event to look like an actual airline ticket? A little digital boarding pass right there on your calendar. Fun, thoughtful, memorable.
Wouldn't that make using your calendar a genuinely enjoyable experience, something actually worth opening and interacting with?
These little touches, the small things you anticipate, the ways you connect digital interactions to real life familiarity. Those are what set your calendar apart. Those details transform it from just another app into something meaningful, something personal, something truly yours.
The Digital Garden
Now that’s enough from me. I’ve been doing this a while, so I know how to start, where to find ideas, and how to shape them. But what about you? Maybe you feel the need to make something but don’t know where to begin. Maybe you have this deep urge to create but lack the tools or resources to get started. What then?
First, you’ve probably already got an idea in your head, even if it’s just a vague feeling of “I want to make something.” So, let’s start there.
Begin by considering your idea’s medium. Is it physical? Digital? Maybe something physical that you’re turning digital, or digital that you want to become physical? Once you’ve got that figured out, you’ve got some keywords in mind. Even if you don’t have clear keywords, just type that initial feeling into a search bar. Google, Instagram, Pinterest, Cosmos. Anywhere images or videos are collected. These platforms are the core source for gathering ideas and inspiration.
Now you might scroll Pinterest for an hour or Instagram for two, and feel like you’re getting nowhere. But that’s not true. You’ve learnt something. What you don’t like. Progress is always linear, even if it’s slow or doesn’t immediately feel satisfying. Every scroll, every click, every dead-end brings you closer to understanding your tastes and refining your idea.
My point is this; there’s probably something already online similar to what you’re imagining. There’s about an 80% chance your idea has already existed in some form, either less developed or more advanced. So your goal is to find it in this huge digital garden we work in. A blog, social media feed, or someone’s curated collection. The more you search, the more you’ll discover these places you resonate with, places you’ll return to repeatedly for inspiration. Eventually, you’ll find your creative home. A place to fuel your imagination, grow fresh ideas, and push your creativity further than you imagined possible.
But what if your idea isn’t digital at all? What if you’re making something physical. Maybe art, furniture, clothing, something purely symbolic? This is where art and design often merge, both serving as vessels for strong feelings and ideas you want others to experience.
In a physical space, it’s powerful to combine things that don’t conventionally go together. Experiment with contrasts (not the colour kind), unusual pairings, or unexpected materials. Find artists online who are already exploring similar ideas or aesthetics. If you’re interested in creating something, chances are you’ve got someone in mind whose work you admire. Look closely at their creations. Understand exactly what draws you to their work and dissect those components thoroughly. Copying their work precisely (at least initially) is one of the best learning tools you have. Replicate their style first, then analyse why it works, how it makes you feel, and how each choice contributes to the overall effect.
By understanding someone else’s process, you’ll gain insight and confidence to branch out on your own. And in the end, you’re not just copying their work; you’re learning the rules that you never knew existed, that fuelled your enjoyment, so you can use them intentionally. That depth of understanding will give you the freedom to develop your own voice and create genuinely original work.
In short, don’t be afraid to start broad and slowly narrow down your ideas. Search everywhere, keep track of what inspires you, embrace the detours, and learn by doing. Creativity isn’t a neat, linear process, but every step is progress. Even when it doesn’t immediately feel like it.