47 Things I Learned From My 25 Years in Design, Marketing and Business

1. Design ≠ art.
2. Users are stupid.
3. Color wheel is cool.
4. Discovery never ends.
5. Marketing ≠ promotion.
6. People don’t read policies.
7. Specialists beat generalists.
8. Waterfall processes don’t work.
9. Trust = Competence × Integrity.
10. Using dark UX patterns isn’t smart.
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11. Most roadmaps are wishful thinking.
12. Good design won’t save a weak offer.
13. Great products don’t sell themselves.
14. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose.
15. Designers should understand business.
16. Trust is the most important thing in finance.
17. Design won’t help if you have nothing to say.
18. Copy without setup verbs is always stronger.
19. There are many design solutions to a problem.
20. Great products are only built through iterations.
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21. Not every UI needs to feel obvious at first glance.
22. Being busy usually means avoiding hard decisions.
23. Mobile-first approach is premium-grade nonsense.
24. If you think your clients are terrible, blame yourself.
25. Experience only lets you make slightly better mistakes.
26. Everything you say and do either builds trust or erodes it.
27. The rule of contrast makes the most difference in design.
28. “Sell the vacation, not the plane ticket” is a rubbish advice.
29. The more experience you have, the more control you want.
30. It’s impossible to create anything truly unique, don’t even try.
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31. A lot of ‘rebrands’ happen when teams can’t make real progress.
32. Most companies use regulation as an excuse for a lack of creativity.
33. The simplest way to write strong copy: remove evaluative adjectives.
34. ASAP projects signal bad planning and are avoidable most of the time.
35. When you’re early-stage, brand guides are a waste of time and money.
36. Offers that remove pain are stronger than offers that promise pleasure.
37. Even in a regulated industry, you can be genuine, authentic, and specific.
38. Clients tend to remember your worst moments more than your best ones.
39. Building a business is damn hard, and every entrepreneur deserves a statue.
40. If you need legal disclaimers to defend your integrity, you don’t have integrity.
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41. In finance, brand loyalty doesn’t exist. People only stay until they distrust you.
42. Simplistic color psychology is hogwash. Colors don’t have universal meanings.
43. For every manipulative tactic, hidden fee, and dark UI pattern, you’ll pay later with churn.
44. Good design only happens at the intersection of business objectives and constraints.
45. You can’t “design” trust. You can only live up to it and then use design to communicate it.
46. People who can switch between entrepreneurship and employment are extremely rare and talented.
47. From the outside, most founders look like they have a plan. Up close, it’s total chaos and continuous guessing.