Junior Designers vs. Senior Designers

That might be true if you learned English from reading a dictionary, but for the rest of us we have a thing called 'context', and we understand that meanings vary depending on it. A title of "junior designer" obviously doesn't mean "young designer" to anyone who's ever read a job description before.

It's good to remember we're one bad magnetic storm away from all of our jobs being gone.

Before switching to web dev, I was a pretty seasoned graphic designer.

> One asks when the deadline is.

> The other knows the answer is "ASAP,” so they propose their own timeline.

How on earth are you prioritising your work? Or are you in some mythical design job where you only have one thing on the go at once?

> One designs exactly what they’re told.

> The other knows what they’re told is just one idea, and explores beyond it.

It depends on the client. There are many clients out there who have a vision, and only want that vision. Is it really worth your time to argue your case with them? A real senior knows that the best way forward in those cases is to do what they want, get paid, and hopefully get a more interesting job next time.

>One turns in their first or second draft.

>The other does as many drafts and explorations as possible within the time allotted, then shares their favorite options.

Depends on deadlines. Some projects only have enough time for a couple of variations. Some clients don't want to pay for hours of iterations. In university you have the luxury of spending literally months on individual projects, making hundreds of iterations. It's really rare to have that in the real world. Those jobs are out there, but they're very very uncommon.

>One uses Lorem Ipsum.

>The other writes their own copy to the best of their knowledge and ability.

This is bullshit. The designer should not be a copywriter in practically any case. If you're doing typographical artwork, then sure, every letter matters. If you're just laying out an editorial piece, lorem ipsum is more than fine for getting the general characteristics of the layout down until you can drop in the real copy and refine.

> One sends their design saying “let me know what you think.”

> The other explains what we’re looking at and why they made the decisions they did.

Sort of valid. Hopefully shouldn't have to explain yourself in words too much since we're supposed to be communicating visually here (our clients' customers aren't going to be getting our explanations), but asking for open-ended feedback isn't very useful.

> One asks for help.

> The other asks for help by proposing a solution.

This is just about asking for help only after trying to figure it out yourself. Most juniors do this already.

> One completes a task and moves on to the next one.

> The other completes a task and sees it through to execution.

Anything like this should be agreed before work starts. If it's designed before work starts, then it is part of the task by definition. If anything crops up during the project that could be improved, or you feel has been missed, then obviously bring that up to the client and potentially expand the scope of the task. Not really seeing a junior-senior divide here.

> One waits for directions.

> The other chooses a direction based on the information they’ve already been given.

As always, it depends. Is the information you've got enough to make an actual start? Or is it very likely that you'll waste hours of the client's time and have to scrap your work once more information comes to you? Running headfirst into a project before you have what you need is a recipe for time-wasting.

> One blames their manager, mentor or client for their struggles.

> The other keeps working.

This just sounds like the author is trying to put-down people struggling in companies that offer them poor support. There is nothing wrong with complaining about poor support structures at work. Acting like you're superior for just taking it is, frankly, odd.

Terrible article.

I've worked with designers like this. They don't understand the product as much as they think and generally don't get the technical landscape they're dealing with. I've had to push back (successfully) and have product+design come to the team with more of a problem statement and less of a shiny Figma. The projects with problem statements tend to have less "Jira churn" where we have minor bug reports for styling or UX at the end of a project.

Perhaps I'm reading the post the wrong way, but particularly in the case of junior v. senior, I see the deadline point to be more about what a designer can do, given their experience and seniority. A junior designer is going to be handed an assignment and told "we need this next Friday." A senior designer will likely be handed an assignment (or work with a client directly) and be asked "when can we expect some initial ideas?" It's less about what a designer of a certain experience should do, but rather what they can do.