Menu

10 tips for the future designer

Our CEO, Henrik Lübker, held a speech to the new students of KEA Design & Business.

Since all designers can have an off day or feel stuck, we compiled all 10 tips from his speech for all to read. Even though it was dedicated for students, we though some of them would be good to remember for all designers!

1. Preserve your curiosity It’s through your curiosity, that knowledge becomes a living skill. Curiosity is the very stuff of all creative subjects. It’s the designers most important tool through life. When you are young like you, it’s easy to be curious. It becomes harder with age, you only have the curiosity, when you still haven’t quite arrived yet, when there still are things to discover, when you still feel like, there are things to discover. 
Therefore, curiosity is also often connected with a degree of uncertainty. When curiosity disappears you are only left with a tittle. So keep your curiosity at any cost. Even though uncertainty is its shadow. 
2. Use your time here to build up your portfolio The pace here at KEA is high, and you all are going to go through a lot of different projects and exercises. Look out for how you can use them to build up your portfolio. How you can illustrate the design work you have made.
3. Use your student job and internship strategically The hardest job to get is always the first one. To be a student at KEA is also opens a door for you. Think about which internship and student job, that not only can strengthen your competencies, but also build your network and open up more doors in the places and directions you wanna go. We know it is the way in this career for many of us.
4. If you have a dream about going independent - Wait! Denmark needs entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, and KEA will equip you to go that direction. But wait for just a bit. Just like how you learn a lot about honing your crafts here at KEA, you will also be learning about the contexts your crafts will be applied to. About the environments it'll be sent to, to do well in the world of your first job. Even if you are confident about going independent, think about how 12-18 months in a work environment could do for your understanding of working in sales, handling customers and teamwork.
5. Have an understanding, for how the hand and the spirit work always connected There is very little value in an aesthetic judgment of taste. That something is pretty and well done isn’t enough on its own. Ask yourself, what is the meaning of it. Why does it look as it does. Why does it makes sense. How you can explain all that to your boss or costumer. What is the story? Too often the designers work end up being reduced to only be a judgment of taste, and then it’s really gonna be impossible to insist on your professionalism. Fight for your professionalism: practice to put in word how and why you have reached your result.
6. Ask yourself: what is the products justification for existence? Everything you create, will be born into a world of mass production and overconsumption. Your job as a designer is to create a product, that has a legitimacy - something meaningful. What you create needs to have a reason to why it exists, and preferably also have a higher purpose than just elicit a swipe from a card. That is your job as a designer. Think about what you put into the world. Think about how your creativity can help make a better world.
7. Cultivate the methods, don’t be afraid to experiment. Design is also about taking risks. Don’t be afraid of trying something new, because even if it fails, mistakes are an important part of learning. Every mistake is a gift, that gives you the opportunity to learn and grow as a designer.
8. Find the right sparring partners Design occurs in interaction with resources, technology and people. Cultivate the right sparring partners. As a designer it is important to be at the forefront of the development of technology for example. Here KEA is very strong. Use time to learn and experiment with new tools and technologies, that can elevate your design flow.
9. Go out there, where there also is something on the line for your David Bowie once said something that really scurrying in the design world. He said: “Never play to the gallery.” For him the exceptional would arise when you went out there, where your feet barely can reach the bottom, where there is something on the line for yourself. Design does the opposite. It creates secure processes, that create solutions which hits the target. But designs are best when there is an element of something more. So keep your curiosity, not only for the puzzle pieces to fall in place, but to see how they can essembles in an entire new way than what they were leaning towards.
10. Cultivate the community, but also the differences Creative industries are notoriously bad to cultivate community. People see each other more as competition than colleagues. It has something to do with the feeling we always have to prove ourselves again. And that is how the world becomes poorer and a little less creative, than it could be. My tip is: cultivate community, where you can learn from each other. Be generous. Learn from you. Find community with other like minded who has the same vision as yourselfs. But also do the opposite: practice viewing the world and your own professionalism through others.
Soon you all have forgotten everything i just said. But when everything is forgotten remember! Curiosity! The curiosity is all that is required.

Explore more stories

To the left is three pictures of the Alterlyset candle and to the right of the picture is three pictures of the Annalys candles.

Update from the Copyright Frontier

Update from the Copyright Frontier September 9, 2024 This year’s Formland fair brought quite a surprise for Mille Maracent. For many years, she has...

AI – is it the future of design?

With Artificial Intelligence (AI), technological development has taken a quantum leap. Where does that leave design as a profession, and where does the individual...

Designing for the New World

If design is part of the problem, how can design be part of the answer? In her new book Design for the New World....

See all reflections