I ain’t gettin’ on no plane!
How to define and sharpen your edge as a designer
I loved The A-Team when I was a kid. It’s the story of a crack commando unit, sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit. They escaped to live as soldiers of fortune in L.A. What’s not to love?
It’s also a common pattern for a story I find myself watching again, and again. A story about flawed but brilliant individuals who come together to create an unstoppable team.
Once you look for it, you see it everywhere: The West Wing, Mission Impossible, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ghostbusters, Ocean’s 11, Star Trek, Seven Samurai.
Some of our most famous and popular stories are about unique characters that are wholly unsuited to operate alone, but absolutely unstoppable together.
I see the same pattern in designers. Often what makes a designer unique is the source of their power. It’s their difference that gives them an edge.
What’s an edge?
The first thing to say is that your edge isn’t a skill. You can do motion design? Great! That’s not your edge. Award-winning color theorist? Good for you. That’s not your edge either. Background as an illustrator? That’s wonderful. Still not your edge.
Your edge is a unique combination of skills.
How you combine skills is up to you. That’s what’s so liberating about the idea. You might have a really deep aesthetic sensibility—some people are blessed with impeccable taste—you should cultivate that. You should look to expand it across many skills, express it in new ways, and find interesting applications of your natural ability. As you invest, it will grow and evolve into something singular. Something only you could do.
I have a systems-thinking content designer in my team. They’ve got great taste and a unique ability to have a calming effect on difficult or high-pressure projects. That combination makes this person a fantastic leader for certain projects, but it also creates a blueprint to build on.
They could take their career in many directions; so it becomes important to be intentional about how they build on those skills and improve that edge. They’re great at calming difficult situations. Maybe team transformation is something to explore? They’ve got great taste. Perhaps taking the lead as Creative Director on a project will help them explore their abilities?
When working on individual development plans, the trick is to aim for an increase in both uniqueness and impact. Imagine a two by two, and aim for the top right. It makes me more me, and it makes me more valuable. That’s the sweet spot.
How do you keep it sharp?
Once you’ve got an edge and you feel good about it, it’s important to understand how to keep it sharp.
There’s the pattern above, which you should continue to repeat. Identify an opportunity to double-down on your uniqueness, particularly where it adds more impact or value to your role.
But there’s a counterintuitive part to maintaining your edge: saying no.
You’d think that now you have this newfound confidence in your abilities, you could turn your attention to any problem. You can seize opportunities previously out of reach.
That’s not how it works. Defining your edge gives you a better sense of who you are, but also the type of products or projects you should be working on. It becomes immediately clear where your edge will have the most impact—cut the deepest—and that’s not always a comfortable part of the experience.
You might have planned your career moves, you might love the team you work with, you might have bought into the company vision—but as you double-down on your unique skillset, you might start to have this creeping sense that you’re in the wrong place, or surrounded by the wrong people. Do not ignore that voice. It’s trying to help.
Saying yes to everything might have gotten you to the point where you’re successful and you deeply understand the value you add—but that doesn’t mean you need to keep saying yes. Early in your career, you’re solving a different problem. You want to expose yourself to the abundance of opportunities. You want to explore and test and learn.
As you start to define your edge, as you have a better sense of what you’re good at and what makes you, you. Well, it’s a different problem you’re trying to solve. It’s a fit problem. Are you well suited to do this work? Or the way I prefer to think of it: is this work well suited to you? Is this work, this project, this challenge, the type of thing that needs someone like you. Will this project light up every part of you? Will it have you leaping from bed every morning to get back at it.
It’s not arrogant. It’s self-aware. It’s not about being better or worse. It’s about knowing yourself, doubling-down on what’s brilliant about you. Then finding the work that fits. If you do that, you’ll be unstoppable. Or at least, I pity the fool who tries to stop you.