Become someone who wastes nothing. A bad job gives you skills. A difficult person teaches you boundaries. A failed idea gives you better judgement. A random conversation gives you a new perspective. A painful year can completely change what you value. You don't need everything that happens to you to be good. The bad often teaches you to appreciate the good. Be
grateful for what goes right, learn from what goes wrong, and remember that one day the
experiences you struggled through will become the wisdom you live by.
Your first 120 minutes of starting the project should be like this:
1. Set up your Figma file.
Create a "Moodboard" page. Start screenshotting competitor UI—everything you like, no filter yet
2. Sketch the full flow.
Map it end-to-end on paper. Forces you to understand how everything connects before touching pixels
3. Skip wireframes.
Go from rough sketch → few samples of high-fidelity UI. Wireframing adds a step that rarely pays off.
Most designers jump straight to design.
You'll save hours by starting with clarity.
Front-load the thinking. Everything else moves faster.
Sometimes a client reaches out first, you
chat, discuss the project, maybe even
agree on next steps, and then… nothing.
They don’t follow up. This can be
frustrating, but there are ways to handle
it professionally and reduce the chances
it happens again.
Let’s look at some:
1. Clarify next steps during the
conversation
Before ending the chat, summarize what
was discussed and outline the agreed
upon next action.
For example: “I’ll send the proposal by
Tuesday, and we can review it together
on Thursday.”
2. Bring up money conversations early
3. Avoid long discussions without being
clear about your price range. It helps you
filter serious clients from those who are
just exploring. If they keep the
conversation going after you mention
your rates, you can be more confident
they can afford your service.
3. Send a follow-up message
If the client doesn’t respond within the
agreed timeframe, follow up politely. A
simple message like, “Just checking in to
see if you had a chance to review my
proposal,” works wonders.
4. Keep communication concise and
professional
Focus on progress, not frustration. Avoid
sounding pushy the goal is to remind and
re-engage.
Sometimes it’s not even about you
Clients might be interviewing several
people at once or still deciding on what
fits their project best. It’s part of the
process
Absolutely not a hater, but I want to make a point (not in context of this interface but got reminded of something)
A lot of UI work is riding on the coattails of good images, assuming that all images found in SRP, PDP, image/photos apps, travel apps are going to look good. They’re not. I’d say it looks good only when your images are not doing constant heavy lifting on behalf of your UI. For such use cases, UI becomes a monumental signal to how the UX will be, how organised the information is
It’s equivalent of mockups elevating your overall brand collaterals
Creating content isn’t just showing your work, it’s learning to speak it.
The more you explain what you do, the clearer you think.
You’re not just designing, you’re training your voice.
This guy landed a foreign client without Upwork, Fiverr, or LinkedIn for 4 years.
He found them on Slack.
Now he works from home, gets paid in dollars, and teaches the same method to others.
Here’s exactly how he did it (and how you can too): 🧵
If you’re just finishing university in Nigeria and trying to move from $0 to. $5,000–$6,000 in a year, here’s what to do : I'm a living testimony I finished uni 2 years ago.
1. Learn a marketable skill. Something that can actually make you money online, design, marketing, automation, development, customer support, anything with global demand.
2. Stay where there’s stable electricity and internet. You’ll spend a lot on data, so plan for that. Your biggest investment right now is access.
3. Get on LinkedIn. Optimize your profile and start connecting. But don’t fill your network with only Nigerians. If you want to earn in dollars, connect internationally, especially in US states that are strong in tech and remote work. Do your research.
4. Don’t pitch. Build. As a beginner, you have no leverage yet. Don’t try to sell yourself, document your learning, show your progress, and post your journey publicly. People respect growth more than empty claims.
5. Build relationships through DMs. Don’t just send one message and disappear. Track who you’ve messaged with a Google Sheet so you can follow up, personalize, and build a genuine connection.
6. Use those relationships for freelance opportunities. If your Upwork isn’t verified yet, onboard clients from LinkedIn first. Then, once Upwork verifies you, you can use it for payments and credibility.
7. Always have a backup plan. When things get tight, you still have LinkedIn, DMs, and Upwork as your lifelines for finding opportunities.
8. Network smart. Get close to female freelancers or tech professionals, they often have stronger networks and are more open to sharing opportunities.
Broke ones will rise again.
But make LinkedIn your best friend.
@TheProductGuy__ Hi Dan
I'm still very new to Product design (1-2 months in) and very eager to learn and be part of this mentorship.
However, i'm still learning the basics of Figma. No designs yet
Please consider me🙏
There are many UX laws out there, but two that have stuck with me are the Aesthetic-Usability Effect and Jakob’s Law.
Let’s start with the Aesthetic-Usability Effect.
People naturally believe that beautiful designs work better.
Even if two products do the same thing, users are often more forgiving of the one that looks good.
That doesn’t mean you should focus on beauty over function, but it shows how much good visual design can influence how people feel about your product.
Then there’s Jakob’s Law.
This one simply says that users spend most of their time on other sites or apps not yours.
So when they come to your product, they already have expectations based on what they’ve seen elsewhere.
If you try to reinvent everything, you might end up confusing them instead of impressing them.
Familiarity is comfort.
When you combine both laws, you realize something powerful:
Your product should look good enough to build trust and work familiar enough to feel natural.
Which UX law has had the biggest impact on your design process? Share your thoughts, I’d love to hear your experiences.
At this point, the stroke is just a visual input not affecting the spacing and alignment.
Use this when you want precise spacing and alignments, or want "Hug contents" to stay consistent regardless of whether there's a border or not.
2. If Strokes are "Excluded", the border does not affect the frame's total size.
In this case, the layout behaves as if there's no border at all (auto layout spacing, alignment, and "Hug content" calculations ignore the stroke).