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almost 4 years ago from Ben Grace, UX Designer
Thanks Alex. That's where my research is leading me also. I've always said there is no substitute for real world experience. Time to follow my own advice I suppose.
I'm also looking for good examples of best practices and tips from others learned over time so I can work smarter. learnui.design has been a good source for me. I've been reading about the HSB color space in Erik's email (blog author) and I learned a lot.
Specifically, I'm looking for good resources in mobile app design. File setup, style guides (do they differ a lot from web for instance?). Best way to design for multiple device sizes, resolutions, etc. Not to mentions, designing for iOS and Android. If you have any links or tips, send em my way.
Some standard resources:
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/overview/themes/
There's also Sketch libraries for each platform you can play around with. It's helpful to start with those libraries to become familiar with the built-in core components on each platform.
Learning design by Copying someones design is a good idea to sharpen your design skills. But it also helps of you try to understand whats the design all about. For example, if you view a website daily and try to understand whats the website about, whats the concept behind the design if any. It will help you hone your skills. The other stuff you are talking about like best way to design for multiple device sizes, resolutions, etc are all easy to understand and will not take much off your time. Even if you look at some open source files you will understand the basics.
Copy-catting ain't bad initially. Part of design is knowing the number values for common text sizes, layouts, and rounded corners. Do a few copy-cat layouts and you'll start recognizing common patterns... and exceptions.
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Freelance project or personal project. I suppose those daily UI challenges might help, but typically they're just haphazard copy-cat crap