I teach designers how to get the respect they deserve. I share tips, tricks, and tools about design systems, process, and leadership.
Starting is easy. Sustaining is hard.
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Reading time: around 1 minute It's easy to open a gym membership. It’s hard to schedule time to go to the gym every week. It's easy to start a blog. It’s hard to schedule the time write a blog post every week. It's easy to buy a bunch of plants. It’s hard to remember to water them every week. It's easy to create a bunch of design tokens. It’s hard to carve out time to answer the Slack posts from all the people using your design tokens. It's easy to sign up your kid for swim class. It’s hard to find the motivation to drive them at 6am every Saturday. Before you start the next new thing, decide how long you want to try and sustain it. Then make a plan to do so. —Dan 📰 Latest News🏛️ Announcing the new dates for the next cohort of Design System in 90 Days: September 10–December 10, 2024! Registration opens August 1, 2024. Start talking to your managers and bosses now about investing in your education and growth! 💬 FeedbackHow’d you like today’s email? 👍 Loved it / 👎 Hated it |
Dan Mall Teaches
I teach designers how to get the respect they deserve. I share tips, tricks, and tools about design systems, process, and leadership.
Reading time: around 7 minutes This article is part of a 4-part series brought to you by Wix Studio about running valuable projects that grow your clients’ businesses and yours too. Wix Studio is a platform built for agencies and enterprises to create exceptional websites at scale. If you're looking for smart design capabilities and flexible dev tools, Wix Studio is the tool for you. When agencies think about their dream projects, they’re often thinking about this combination: Projects that...
Reading time: around 1 minute The quickest way to get promoted is to get your boss promoted. Do something that makes them look amazing to the people that are evaluating their work. Making your boss look good gives you the highest likelihood that they’ll bring you along with them in rank and/or compensation as they move up too. How do you get your boss promoted? Find out what their job depends on, and tie your job directly to theirs. Here are some ways to find that out: Ask. Talk to your...
Reading time: around 1 minute Design systems promise 3 main things: efficiency, consistency, and innovation. I always like to add a fourth: relief. If your design system is working well, the work gets easier. You finish it faster. You start to see economies of scale. But relief isn’t something that just happens. It’s there for the taking, but you have to actively choose it. Here’s a scenario that happens often with design system teams I work with. After weeks or months of hard design system...