a lot of people don't give two shits about quality.

Never assume.

Never fall in love with anything until the client has seen it.

When hiring, look for people who are responsible and have a good work ethic even if they're not the best designer. Design or dev skills can be taught/improved, but it's tough to teach basic life skills.

Say please and thank you, and don't work with people who don't say please and thank you.

Don't be afraid to admit when you're wrong/don't know.

Control the critique - Get what you need from a critique by avoiding subjective terms and open ended questions.

In a critique never end with "what do you think?" or similar questions. Instead define the project goals then ask if what you've created solves that problem. This way you avoid discussing if your client's neighbor's friend's dog will like that shade of blue.

Pro tip: Don't answer questions in the middle of explaining your work. Leave those for the end of the meeting.

Let your teammates have some of your glory

The more senior you get, the more your job is to recognise and celebrate good work, not necessarily create it yourself. If a junior creates it, you give them all the credit. If you created, well, that's your job, that's why you get paid more.

Also try to pair dreamers with cynics. Dreamers will come up with amazing ideas and inspire the client, cynics will ensure something actually gets built.

Don't take feedback personally - you are not your design.

Know when to bend and when to push back. Choose your battles wisely. Compromise will become an art in itself.

Good design doesn't sell itself. Be ready to confidently sell your design solutions to the client.

Be nice.

Design with real data.

Never show a client a concept/comp you hate. Almost 100% of the time they manage to pick it out of the litter leaving you screaming on the inside.

Your going to have to cut scope.

If you decide to do freelance work, your knowledge of people and human nature is just as important of your knowledge of design.

p.s. What an unexpectedly great thread.

Your estimates are only as accurate as your ability to track your time everyday.

Biggest One: To organize your catalog. Inspiration, screenshots, resource files, palettes. Don't waste time gathering it if you won't be able to pull from it later.

Nuggets of Wisdom: 1. Evaluate the brief before selecting the software you use to get it done. I remember trying to use sketch for a massive ui overhaul. Sketch, Photoshop; Invision vs. UX Pin, is all relative if you don't know the scope of the project, and whats most important.

1. Choose 1 thing to obsess over. The smaller your team, the fewer resources you have to produce those projects that everybody would like to. Instead be selective about where to insert design and be ruthless about cutting production time elsewhere.

Don't lose sight of the project's goals by trying to design something that just looks great. Design should solve a problem and that's what matters most.

Stop talking and listen.

Good design isn't always about simplifying. Simplicity is a tool.

Good design is about ethically controlling interaction, communication, and experience.

If you don't want someone to take an action, make it hard or complex. If you want someone to feel a certain way (perhaps obligation to join a cause), use appropriate means to do so. If you want someone to laugh, don't make it simple, make it silly.

Always provide options. But not too many options.

Learn to manipulate those options.

Don't get mad. It's not worth it, and while you might win the battle, you'll lose the war. Working well with others is more important than almost any level of ability or skill—even if they're wrong.

Do user research even if you're designing for yourself.

Communicating the ideas behind as well as the value of your work is a more useful career skill than doing good work.

Data will humble the crap out of you. A corollary -- a lot of users don't care how good it looks, but rather how it helps them accomplish what they're trying to do.

Also, don't wait for inspiration. Get to work, don't rely on fancy tools, blogs, galleries, dribbble, whatever.

All good work stems from a long and unique process, which you as a consumer don't see, but is the most important part of the work. When you look at great work, you tend to see only the result, which seems to be a stroke of genius. You devalue your own skills, thinking you couldn't have done this. But if you saw the process, you would understand that the final product is the result of hard work.

So honor your own process, it's what makes your work great and unique. You can rely on it, just get started.

(excuse the bad grammar, I just had to jot this down quickly. hope it makes sense)

Ask for more money than you think you're worth.

I've come to learn that who you know, and how you present yourself go a long way. It's like one of my mentors told me many years ago, even if you're a rockstar designer, nobody wants to work with an asshole.

That, and don't network — make friends.

crack cocaine : drug dealers :: features : product managers

Under-promise, over-deliver. We love when our expectations are exceeded. You'll also be less inclined to over-extend yourself which can cause designer's block and undue stress.

Use the force.

Without doubt, anyone can learn design and code. Very few of them can learn to be creative.

Organize your working files (layer order + named layers) or everyone will hate you for eternity.

Give everyone a chance to prove themselves.

Obvious one, but something that's hard to actually do: stop getting attached to your designs. You may think it's the best thing you've ever created but chances are, either your coworkers or clients will challenge and change it - and you'll learn to embrace this as it allows you to constantly evolve as a designer.

Be prepared to educate the client and don't get frustrated when they don't see or understand where you are coming from. Many times, it's just because they don't know what you know as a designer/developer.

Sometimes we need to go for an unperfect / unpolished look to make things feel friendly, familiar and trustworthy.

Often a design that we would call ugly performes better than the pixel-perfect version. I noticed that in UI design but I guess it applies to other fields as well.

Whenever you are passed a PSD, expect it to be the messiest thing you've ever come across.

Data is the most important thing in the world. And scientific method is the most precise thing to achieve things.

Keep trying

Another one that I've learned, specifically for web/app design; Make your designs nimble and easy to edit/adjust down the road. Things always seem to change and the easier it is to add to and adjust your existing design the better. I've screwed myself a couple of times in the past by not keeping this in mind.