作者：Thomas Grove

人类的努力

设计就是给问题提供解决方案。当我对工程师说设计时，他们会说：“听起来跟做工程一样。”当我跟营销人员谈设计时，他们会说：“听起来和搞营销一样。”设计与其他行业确实有许多共通之处。

设计是一种人类的努力，不止是设计师才做设计。任何时候当你决定以一种方式而不是另一方式做某事时，因为你已经决定哪一种方式更好，所以你就是在从事设计行为。

从事设计活动就好像一个人准备用几种清洁剂清洗一些器具如刷子、衬垫或也餐巾等。如果他不使用他的识别能力，找到适合清洗不同器具的清洁剂，而只用相同的方式解决所有问题，那么可能会损坏器具光滑的表面。

当你从第一步做到第三步，完全按照老板的意思，那么你不是在做设计，而是像仆人一样干活。当你动用自己的观察能力和识别能力时，你才是做设计。

professional_designer(from webylife.com)

自我提高的承诺

如果每个人都可以设计，那么专业设计师和其他任何进行设计活动的人有什么区别呢？

要回答这个问题，不妨思考一下专业运动员、业余无能无力员和有运动能力但非运动员的人之间的区别。

稍微想象一下他们的差异应该是什么。

以网球为例；任何有运动能力的人都能挥动球拍。

业余网球运动员或爱好者可能每周都会和朋友一起打网球作为娱乐，因此他们比非网球运动员的人打得好，但仍然不同于专业运动员，后者打得比他们还更好。

专业运动员每天都要训练。他们训练是为了提高水平，不只是为了娱乐。他们要年复一年日复一日地练习。他们就这样执著于单纯的操练，执著于他们的技能。

他们的技能深深地铭刻在肌肉组织的记忆中，甚至因此改变了他们的人生观。

专业设计师也正是如此。

业余与专业的区别在于心态。对于业余者，设计活动是一种乐趣，而对于专业者，它意味着生或死。专业者向自己承诺，坚持每天磨练自己的技艺。

如果你想成为专业的设计师，或任何专业的“XX师”，第一步就是调整你的心态。当你说：“我是设计师，我想成为伟大的设计师”时，那么你就要开始十年如一日地打磨你的技术，直到某天你一觉醒来发现自己已经是专业的设计师了。

如果你没有这种程度的热情或对这个职业的承诺，那么停止吧，你还是集中精神去做你真正想做好的事吧。

有偿设计

专业设计师的一个标志当然是，其他人愿意支付你提供的服务。很难想象非专业运动员居然可以通过运动得到报酬，而没有这种承诺的人居然可以像设计师一样工作。会不会打网球，网球是不会替你隐瞒的。

专业VS专家

虽然你不是专业人士，但你可以成为某事物的专家，并且你仍然需要相同的自我提高的承诺。

你可以成为某事物的专业人士，即使没有到达专家的程度，你的水平只需要满足客户、消费者或雇主的要求。

主持葬礼有专业的和尚，但他们可能并不是禅宗专家。同样地，禅宗大师可能从未给人主持过葬礼。

专业者和专家都有很高的技能水平。虽然专家的技能水平是最高的，但他不借此获得经济收入，也不必满足客户要求；而专业者则必须努力为客户提供价值。他们必须统筹兼顾。

统筹兼顾

我的禅宗老师（他是一名资深建筑顾问）曾经告诉我，设计是形式、功能和成本的平衡；是凳子或桌子的三条腿，如果你忽略其中任何一条腿，项目就会失败。

多年来我一直思考这个比喻，自以为想到了更充分的定义：设计是在约束条件内实现形式和功能的平衡。

形式和功能的平衡，需要上述提到的观察能力和识别能力。这些是设计的核心技能。但把专业设计师与设计爱好者区分开来的东西，不只是自我提高的承诺或有偿服务，还有对项目的约束条件的充分考虑。

生产者和项目管理者关注的正是约束条件：

项目预算

截止日期

团队技能

成员数量

政府规定

健康和安全保障

硬件限制

客户授权

客户反馈

……

作为专业设计师，你不能按照你自己的意愿设计建筑或游戏或网站。你必须充分考虑你的提案书和遵守项目约束条件。

我曾说：“设计师的工作就是说‘给我’，而生产者的工作就是说‘不给’。”

如果你是设计师但不是专业的，那么你的生产者就不得不强制执行约束条件了，但好设计师首先就应该将这些限制条件纳入考虑范畴。

光有才能是不够的

我最好的一个朋友是我见过的最有才能的设计师。他从15岁开始就从事有偿设计工作了，现在已经是顶尖时尚杂志的资深编辑和国际设计公司的总监。现在当然可以说他是专业级人士，但他年轻时可不是。他年轻时因为错过截止日期而损失了许多客户。

才能是不够的，你必须有成为专业人士的成熟心态。没有人会拉你一把。你必须提供价值，这意味着你必须在规定的时间和预算内达到预期的品质。

如果你还年轻，你可能不会这么严肃地考虑这个问题，直到你丢了工作或客户。没关系，成熟是不能强求的，所以现在你只需要记住：提高技艺、提供价值、统筹兼顾。始终践行以上三点，总有一天你会成为专业人士。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Professional Designer

by Thomas Grove

A Human Endeavor

Design is about providing solutions to problems. When I talk to engineers they say: “that sounds just like engineering” and when I talk to marketers they say “that sounds just like marketing”.

There is indeed a lot of crossover.

Design is a human endeavor, it isn’t just for designers. Whenever you decide to do something one way instead of another, because you’ve determined that it is better, then you are engaging in the act of design.

Janitorial staff engage in the activity of design when they have a choice of several cleaning agents and several scrubbing utensils like a brush or a scour pad or a cloth. If they do not use their power of discernment, and just use the same solution to every problem, they will damage a surface.

When you do steps 1 through 3, just as your boss instructed you to do, you are not engaged in design but instead in menial labor. When you exercise your powers of observation and discernment you are engaged in design.

A Commitment to Self Improvement

If everyone can design, then what is the difference between a professional designer and any person engaging in the activity of design?

It might be helpful to think about the difference between a professional athlete, an amateur athlete, and someone who is able bodied but not athletic.

Take a moment to visualize what the differences might be.

Taking tennis as an example; any able bodied person is capable of swinging a tennis racket.

An amateur or enthusiast tennis player probably plays with their friends every weekend for fun, they’re so much better than the non-player but still the difference between them and the professional player is pretty big.

The professional player practices every day. They practice with the intent of getting better, not just having fun. They practice serves over and over again. They practice returning serves over and over again. They do simple drills over and over again. They are committed to their craft.

Their craft is burned into their muscle memory, and their perspective on life is changed forever.

A professional designer is just like this.

The difference between an amateur and a professional is their mindset. For the amateur the activity is fun, for the professional it is life or death. The professional has made a commitment to improve their craft every day.

If you would like to become a professional designer, or a professional anything, the first step is to change your mindset. Say: “I am a designer and I want to become a great designer”, then set about practicing your craft year after year until you one day wake up and realize that you are a professional.

If you don’t have this kind of passion or commitment for your current occupation — stop — pick something that you really want to become better at and throw yourself into that activity.

Getting Paid to Design

Of course one mark of being a professional is that others are willing to pay you for your services. It is hard to imagine a world where a non-professional tennis player can get paid to play their game, but people without this kind of commitment get paid to work as designers all the time. Tennis is perhaps more honest.

Professionalism vs Mastery

You can be a master at something without being a professional, but you still need the same commitment to continual self improvement.

You can be a professional at something without being a master, you just need to provide value to your client, customer, or employer.

There are professional monks who perform funeral rites. They may not be zen masters at all. There are zen masters who never perform services for patrons.

Professionals and masters both have high levels of skill. While mastery implies the highest tier of skill, it carries no financial or client satisfaction expectation. A professional is someone who strives to provide value for their services. They must look at the bigger picture.

The Big Picture

My zen master (who is a senior consulting architect) once told me that design is the balance of form, function, and cost; three legs of a stool or table, if you neglect one the project will fail.

I’ve thought about this model for years and think I have an improvement to it: design is the balance of form and function within constraints.

The balance of form and function, this is the observation and discernment skill mentioned before. This is the core design skill. But what separates a professional designer from an enthusiast designer, more so than the commitment or the pay check, is the stoic consideration of a project’s constraints.

Constraints are all of the issues that producers and project managers concern themselves with:

Project budget

Deadline

Skill of team

Number of team members

Government regulations

Health and safety best practices

Hardware limitations

Client mandates

Client feedback

etc

As a professional designer you can’t just make the building or game or car or website that you want, because you think it is cool. You must fully take into account your proposals’ impact on — and adherence to — the project’s constraints.

I once read: “A designer’s job is to ask for more and a producer’s job is to say ‘no’.”

If you’re designers are not professional, then sure, your producer will have to enforce the constraints, but good designers should have taken those constraints into consideration in the first place.

Talent Isn’t Enough

One of my best friends is the most talented designer that I know. He has been doing paid design work since he was 15 and has worked in senior and director level positions at top fashion magazines and international design thinking firms. He is a professional today, for sure, but as a youth he wasn’t. He lost a huge client in his youth due to missing a deadline.

Talent isn’t enough, you need to mature to become a professional. No one is going to hold your hand. You have to deliver value, which means you have to deliver the expected quality on time and on budget.

If you’re young, you probably won’t take this seriously enough, and it won’t be until you lose your job or your client that the sting of failure teaches you. That’s ok. Maturation is hard to force, so please focus on the rest of this article: commit to your craft, provide value, consider the big picture. Do this day after day until one day you realize you’re already a professional.（source：gamasutra）