Books by Frank Chimero. The Shape of Design 1, ratings. What screens want 3 ratings. The Manual 51 ratings. The Manual 11 ratings. Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. The way we think is based on the way the world was a decade or two ago, which leaves some people in the dust. Its emptiness allows it to hold something.
I guess that means that design must talk about something else. In or or something, Windows Media Player came out with a new version that supported skins and I got hired by a company to come up with two or three of them for Microsoft to release. So, my very first paying client was Microsoft. I made enough money in two weeks to buy a new computer. The way you made a skin was to make the sprites and assets, then write an XML file to spec out the whole skin, which was totally free-form.
That easily rolled into learning how to make websites. The concepts were the same; the words were different. That seems to be a pattern that comes up all over the place because nobody knows how to do what was invented last week. You have to say you know how, then figure it out under the gun. Tina: Agreed. So, when you left high school and went to college, you already knew that design was an option? Oh, yeah. I love those books. Because I do so much personal work, I want the applications to be something that I care about.
We have a problem-solving mind and we frame things around our interests. Design is a vessel. Ryan: Story and design together are way more impactful. Tina: You mentioned a college professor earlier. Did you have any mentors along the way? I want to talk about that college professor; his name is Roman Duszek and he was my professor at Southwest Missouri State.
Roman is a wonderful, multidimensional designer. In the s, 70s, and 80s, he did illustrations, posters, and corporate identity work—he did the identity for the main Polish airline, LOT. Then, after doing the wayfinding system for the subway in Warsaw, he started an infographics course at SMS. I mean, this was happening in Missouri in , well before infographics were anything people had heard of. I later taught that class, which was really cool. Having Roman as a professor was really formative for me.
He helped shape my opinions about what design is, what it means to be a designer, and how to work. It made me take design more seriously. Throughout four years of undergrad, I think I took nine classes with him. As I look back, I realize he also shaped my idea of how to teach design. You show the work every day. That way, you have to figure it out together. We were all on our toes. Debt cripples you. Everybody wants a certain amount of freedom to do what they want to do, but when you get into debt, you lose the ability to indulge yourself.
That seems to be a pattern…because nobody knows how to do what was invented last week. Have you taken any big risks along the way? I started a design business without knowing what a design business was. Starting to write was a risk as well. I have this belief that you should write what you know when you know it. But I had ideas, opinions, and questions I thought were important. Another risk was in when I took on a user interface job without knowing what user interfaces were.
The job was a six-month contract that ended up being a year long project, which ended in a lawsuit between the client and the company that hired me. And the job before that was a packaging job for a pretty well-known small-batch chocolate brand. After I had worked on the chocolate project for about five months, they decided to start over and go in a different aesthetic direction.
So, I left. Needless to say, I was really bummed. What I did next was totally asinine. I decided that I would rather be a happy barista than a sad designer. I had saved a little money and I took the next three months off to draw. Every single day I drew something and put it on the Internet.
The choice to do the unreasonable—to live off of savings and try to get happy—was a risk. That time away re-acclimated me to enjoying what I wanted to do for a living. I look back now and that was a big lesson. When everything goes to shit, listen to your heart and try to make yourself right; if you can do that, then everything else will hopefully fall into place.
You can drop the mic and walk away to take care of yourself. You are more than your job. You can do other things and still be you. And maybe it will be for other design folks, since we assign so much identity to the job. Tina: What I want to know is if you really got a job as a barista or if that was just a figure of speech?
I hated design at that point, because everything fell apart. Two years wasted. A lot of fruitless effort. I decided to draw instead of building a portfolio, and I could do that because I had my money set aside.
I drew every day. The only goal was to satisfy myself. Luckily, that worked out and turned into an illustration career. Then, a similar thing happened when I stopped illustrating. I was getting mostly editorial work, but saw the bottom starting to fall out. The art directors I loved working with were changing magazines three times a year or leaving the industry. I considered what I was good at and what people were interested in—they seemed to like my writing and the lectures I had given in the past year.
I asked myself what would happen if I mashed those two things together. I took a couple days off, then launched the Kickstarter campaign for my book, The Shape of Design. The project was funded and after that, I worked on the book for a year.
My career seems to cycle every couple years. I started out doing packaging and book design. Did user interface work for a couple years. Did illustration for a few years. Then, after the Kickstarter campaign ended at the beginning of March , I worked on the book for a year, and it shipped in May After that, some family health issues came up and I had to take six months off work. It was easier for them to understand what I did when I was doing illustration versus web work.
With illustration, I could pick up Bloomberg Businessweek and show them the cover I had drawn for it. Previously kickstarter, oscarhealth, tumblr. Bring your best design ideas to life with tools, tips, and resources to create things that feel real. Learn from world-class UX and product design teams who prototype with Framer.
Try it for yourself when you create a free account at www. Sign in. Ask a Designer: Frank Chimero. Sarah Lim Follow. Framer Stories to help you bring your best UX and product design ideas to life. Thanks to Nicole Yeo. Frank's first concept for the poster in Milanote based on a slide in his presentation. Various early versions of the design.
The working file in Illustrator. The final design at the printer. Get creative. Then get organized.
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