- Joy Of Creation by Aayush Jain
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- 48 (free + premium) sites for your design projects
48 (free + premium) sites for your design projects
And design jobs you can apply to
Aayush Jain
January 19, 2024
Hi, I am Aayush.
Today’s newsletter covers hints of insights, bits of advice, some job openings I really liked, and a curation of the best design sources put together by me. Now, back to the newsletter.
Working with others
“He declined my meeting, he must not value me.”
“He declined my meeting, he likely needs more context from me before I request a meeting.”
Two widely opposite thought processes to a situation, providing a perspective into how different people in an organization perceive things differently.
I was able to lean into this insight thanks to a podcast by Design Better I was listening to the other day.
Margaret Lee, former UX teams and programs leader at Google was quoted, she said, “Making assumptions about others’ motives, opinions about us, what they know or don’t know, or why a decision went a certain way is rarely productive.”
And then it almost became an obligation to feature this in this newsletter, because it got me thinking a lot into the psychology at play during work.
Take this as a reminder to communicate with intent, have empathy to situations, and you might in turn find yourself happy, productive, and ambitious at work.
5 incredible open job positions you should apply to
As we speak of being ambitious, I’ve put together 5 of the most incredible job positions I would be delighted to see someone get into.
Obsession for a reason
Ten years ago, I had an idea. I would build a video game for designers. It would be an arcade game, with an ultimate purpose to help designers relax from time to time, while also refreshing their creativity in some way.
Then around eight years back, inspired by the crazy efforts and hours put into building and designing tech products, I wanted to serve brands with video case studies of how their whole design process looked, which would later help them solidify their culture and hiring process.
Quite similarly, not too long ago, I was reading how Marvel iterated its sketches to design these addictive characters we see today, and I wanted to get into animated art, fascinated by how commercializing it for companies would boost up their office creativity and lighten moods.
The list of ideas is long but there is something common about all of them. None of them have ever come to life. If they managed to, they would be cremated days later.
My point is, designers do not exaggerate when they say they’re excited about an idea. Our tendency is to frequently get over excited. We leave no rock unturned, no modifier dangling. This sadly almost always backfires.
Our dizzy obsessions fail for a reason, we try to do too much and stray away from our real work. While the recent awareness in the startup community to talk to users before building anything does help, in our minds we still overdo things.
The next time you fall madly in love with another idea, try being a bit detached to it and say no to the voice that tells you to spend all of your time on it. Then date around gradually to see if it’s something worth your time and energy.
50+ free and paid resources for your design projects
Design in 2024 is a whole lot different than that in 2014.
Somehow, our individual businesses and creations put together in all these years form an extremely resourceful repository for great designs.
While 10 years back all we had were TV commercials to draw inspiration from and our bosses minds on whose style we defined design to be.
Making the most out of this, I have put together 50+ resources of collateral you can use for your design projects. These include some of the best presentation templates, icon sets, fonts, color swatches, and stock images and videos collections.
Some are free, some are paid, depending on your needs and preferences.
Here is the link to download. Hope it helps!
Enjoyed this issue?
I hope this newsletter helped you.
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Aayush