Networking

Asking the right questions to seasoned designers can be intimidating when shifting to a new way of virtual online networking. Part of me has to be shameless and reach out to designers I don’t know and it can be daunting to figure out the right things to say. However, I’ve learned just to treat designers like everyday people and it takes some of the pressure off. I also had to stop caring about what I looked like in other people’s eyes and take a leap of faith.

As much as I would love to fan girl over certain designers, I can’t. On the flip side because we have design in common I can reach out and talk to the people in my network that I look up to which is a plus in my field. Some fields are way more closed off than mine so in some ways I feel lucky.

What to say to them?

I personally like finding one thing in common between me and a designer to open up the floor. Just say hi, mention the thing you have in common and see if they are open to keeping in touch. The rest is history. Whether it’s a yay or nay is up to them. I will say that I have more yays to keep in contact professionally over LinkedIn than I do nays which is pretty promising if you ask me.