Here it is. Enjoy.

Web design and development is an ever evolving profession that is quite different than it was just a few years ago. It is a continually improving field and the competition is constantly growing more intense. If you want to stay with the best, you must improve your own skills. One exercise that I do every so often is to look back on my previous work and designs. I want to share with you some of my thoughts and lessons that I have learned in this exercise. Some of the lessons I’m about to share with you can be abstracted into life lessons and more than just development or design lessons.

Learn from your mistakes

While looking at some of my early designs, when I really had no idea what I was doing, I noticed a repeated pattern of mistakes. One of the most obvious repeated mistakes I was making was using “Trebuchet MS” for everything. In my opinion it’s OK to have a go to typeface for most designs, but I don’t think anyone should ever always use the same type. Not even Helvetica. How will you ever grow if you only stick to what you know works? Branch out, explore new options, be open minded and try new things.

Plan for the future

This one has come back to bite me a few times, mostly due to inexperience. This especially applies to development, but also to design as well. When writing code, it doesn’t matter what language, plan the future as best as you can. Keep your code base clean because it can get messy fast. Abstract functions and common code blocks higher and make them reusable. Never repeat code if you can at all help it, you’ll thank me later. Your thought process should be to work hard now and be lazy later. If you do your due diligence in writing clean, reusable code and putting in a little extra effort up front; you’ll save yourself a lot of work and headaches down the road.

As far as design goes, try to identify fads and avoid design for them. Reflections and the glossy era have died down and for good reasons, it was a fad. Designs that are clean, solid and timeless will save time and money; especially logos and branding. If you are designing a brand and your design relies heavily on effects or current fads, you should probably take a different approach.

Give back to the community

Early on when I first started building websites and apps, I never started a blog or tried to help others as I didn’t think I knew enough at that point. I think that regardless of your skill level or experience, you can always give something back to the community, and the web community is big. Start a blog, share some code samples, ask for help, try to help others. If you’re an expert and really know what you’re doing and aren’t already getting involved and giving back to the community; start doing it! No one knows everything, everyone can learn something. Share ideas, code and design and make the web an overall better experience.

Details, details, details

You can easily see with every product that Apple releases that an immense amount of attention to detail and passion was poured into the product. Look at other computer makers, Dell, HP, etc.; what is it that makes Apple’s products really stand out? It’s all in the details, my friends. Apple’s designs (at least software wise) are pixel perfect; you will see sharp, tight designs that are consistent through all of their interfaces. Don’t accept anything but perfection. Make your designs as perfect as you can. If a button is off by even 1 pixel, don’t say “oh well”, take a few minutes and correct it. If you pay attention to the small details, the big picture will look that much better and set you apart.

Closing thoughts

I encourage you to try this exercise with your own work. Look back at work you have produced in the past, even if it’s only 6 months ago. Analyze your work, see if you notice anything that you would change had you been designing or building it today. Doing this small exercise once or twice a year can have a big impact on how much your work improves in the future. If we don’t look back in hindsight and learn from our mistakes, how will we ever improve? Take the initiative and extra effort and work towards making yourself great.