The Layout #22
A layout of design highlights and thoughts
Welcome to The Layout #22. The substack about design that makes life a little easier with fun insights and key resources for you to level up. Now, let’s get on with it.
Focus On The 2nd Order Effects
We tend to focus more on 1st order effects instead of 2nd order effects. This is a natural flaw in humanity that either gets tempered or escalated by reason. 1st order effects are basically effects that are seen instantly in our lives. E.g. Plastic surgery to perfect certain parts of our body. etc. while 2nd order effects are effects that may take a long time to appear and are usually unplanned e.g. Side effects due to changing your body structure due to plastic surgery. etc.
Since 1st Order decisions are immediate, they have a tendency to bring instant rewards that blind us to the coming gloom and consequences due to those decisions. Second-order effects may take a while but when they happen, they can be very destructive and may be irreparable for years to come. Understanding these effects improves your decision-making when making various life, and design decisions in your work.
This can be resolved by practicing zooming out and zooming in before making major decisions or even minor ones. Trying to understand how this decision affects the larger community or other components in your design or life that interact with that decision and so forth. Also, you can look at history and human nature to give a better view before implementing those decisions. To better decisions for all.🥂
Pay It Forward
When we achieve great things or reach certain levels in our career or our design work, we should learn to pay it forward. This means we should try to help beginners or people who need guidance in certain areas. Call it paying it forward. Somebody might say, well I don’t have time for this, and in our fast-paced world with a lot of commitments and plans.
This can be hard but it reminded me of a story about a guy who makes a podcast who is popular now. When he started his podcast and own newsletter, he didn’t get a lot of traction in his first year and was about to quit then somebody whom he didn’t expect mentioned him in an article and he got his big break. Since then, he has strived to accept new podcast requests from hosts that don’t even have up to 10 subscribers because he believes he is paying forward for the next generation.
Challenging concept but it is a key heuristic when talking about the design community
Resource Break
AutoInterfaces: A repository for car interfaces for reference. Click here to explore
Wearecolourblind: resources you need to improve accessibility on your website and much more. Check it out here.
Unique Font: A unique font for designers to try out. It is free too. Check it out.
Deck Gallery: A slide deck inspiration website Check it out.
Zeu5 with that vinyl
Something to start the morning with.
Have a wonderful week and keep creating. Please subscribe and share with your friends if you found this helpful. Thank you and God Bless.