How (and Why) to Improve Your Writing Skills as a Designer

Writing becomes a very valuable skill for designers. Although the connection between design and writing isn’t obvious, in practice, many designers need to put their writing skills to use. You may need to write a text for mockup designs, demonstration, text snippets, or use it as a placeholder. Besides, every designer may need to write a good CV. You may also realize that you want to write better emails, or you may even consider starting your marketing blog.

Writing can also be an especially useful skill for UX designers because it helps connect your visual elements with the user’s understanding and mindset. Properly chosen words can help you maintain an effective conversation, building trust by using words that reflect the right emotions. Obviously, writing is also used on a daily basis as a part of communication.

People usually begin actively improving their writing skills in high school by writing essays and research papers. However, not many people actually do that. According to LegitWritingServices, buying academic papers is safe, therefore a lot of students prefer buying them online instead of improving their writing skills. As a result, most people graduate with little to no writing skills.

The importance of writing is often overlooked by designers who don’t consider this skill useful for their business and focus on developing specialized skills only. At the same time, it’s impossible to ignore the role of writing in communication, which is an integral part of any business. In this article, we will consider some actionable tips that will help you improve your writing skills, but first, let’s take a closer look at the reasons why writing is beneficial for your business.

Why You Should Improve Your Writing Skills

Even though writing is a crucial part of our everyday communication, why do you need to work on your writing skills? It’s an age of instant messages on social media, after all. This informal written communication doesn’t require you to follow any strict rules. However, poor grammar, spelling mistakes, and style inconsistencies still have a negative impact on your credibility and professional image. Here are some reasons why you should consider presenting a better-written version of yourself.

First, designers’ services don’t sell themselves. If you want to get more clients, you should improve your copywriting skills. You can always delegate any marketing tasks to copywriters, but keep in mind that these people are not familiar with the specifics of your business. Nobody knows your target audience and their pain points better than you, so writing website content yourself can be a great idea. In this case, however, you need to be able to produce a well-written copy.

For example, if you improve your writing skills, you’ll be able to write an authentic and compelling “About Us” page that will reflect your story in the most honest and unique way.

When pitching your services to prospects, you ask them to trust you. Your job impacts their business so they should be confident that you’re a real professional who is the right person for collaboration. Therefore, you should not only have the necessary experience in the industry but also be able to communicate the advantages of working with you in a persuasive and grammatically correct way.

Perhaps, the most important part of written communication is email. According to statistics, email delivers a return of investment of $38 for each dollar spent. No matter what business you own, your email list is always a very valuable asset because it gives you an opportunity to reach your contacts through a familiar channel that they check regularly. When writing business emails, you shouldn’t waste such a valuable part channel of business communication on poorly written content.

Mastering writing also enables you to use content marketing to promote your services. Traditional advertising no longer delivers the same results as it used to. A lot of people use ad blockers, so content marketing gives an important opportunity to grow your website traffic and to market your services. People love high-quality content that resonates with their interests, so if you present them with great content, it will drive conversions.

If you’re a UX designer, writing can also be a part of your job. Personal digital assistants and chatbots, as well as other trends of conversational design, make UX writing more important than ever. This type of writing is completely different from copywriting or blogging because it has different goals. Unlike marketing copy, UX writing is user-oriented and focuses on usability.

Therefore, delegating this task to copywriters isn’t the best choice. Quite often, UX writing is closely connected to the overall design, so designers should be able to not only use it as a valuable tool but also to defend the writing choices used in the project. A generic “lorem ipsum” won’t contribute to your design. Besides, you should understand the logic behind the text used in it.

How To Improve Your Writing Skills as a Designer

1. Understand your audience

First of all, you should understand your target audience. You should consider your audience to choose the right style and vocabulary. Besides, understanding the audience will help you focus on the right subjects and figure out what details you should include, as well as how detailed your writing should be.

Quite often, you know who your audience is even before choosing the topic. You may deal with completely different types of audiences. For example, you may write for developers, other designers, marketers, etc. To make sure that your content will serve its purpose, you should take into account the personas of your readers.

2. Incorporate words into your UI

Words on your design may not be among your main priorities, but you shouldn’t think of text as something you can just fill out whenever you like. It shouldn’t be a variable in your design because it’s an integral part of a good organic design, no matter whether it’s a page, product, or app.

Your design won’t be consistent and logically solid if you split it into text and graphical components. You should think of how your design will talk to users, and you can make sure that your concept will be well-communicated by incorporating proper text.

3. Forget about lorem ipsum

Every designer knows how tempting it is to just copy and paste a meaningless Latin-like piece of text instead of putting some effort into adding real copy. However, such an approach can only present you as an unprofessional designer who is unfamiliar with an important part of their project.

Another reason not to use lorem ipsum and other generated text is that it looks confusing to your audience. Many people don’t understand the purpose of meaningless content when they see it. Besides, replacing lorem ipsum with appropriate content won’t necessarily take a lot of time.

4. Brainstorm

The lack of ideas is a problem familiar to every creative profession, including designers and writers. If you feel the need for fresh ideas, brainstorming is always a good practice. Think of your audience and the topic of the content, grab a sheet of paper or open a blank text document, and start writing any concepts and ideas that come to your mind.

Keep writing until you run out of ideas, and then start researching and evaluating them. Choose the best ones, look for relevant information, and consider it in the context of the purpose of your text.

5. Start to work on realistic copy early

It’s important to set clear priorities at every stage of the design process, and you should think of realistic copy as early as possible. When you send your design ideas to clients, you don’t use irrelevant stock icons instead of their logos. We recommend that you don’t choose this approach when it comes to text, as well.

You’re making a design for a real product, website, or app so you should use realistic content. You don’t want to confuse your readers or distract them from the general concept. Instead, you should use text as a tool that can help you present your design properly.

6. Use storytelling

Storytelling is one of the most engaging sorts of communication. People are social animals so the way you share information is important. Sometimes, even simple wordplay or a smart observation can help you create a micro-narrative.

There’s no need to create a complicated structure of the setting, conflict, and resolution. Generally, any narratives and stories used in different industries are based on tension and resolution so you can stick with the same simple structure. Just make sure that your narrative is relevant.

7. Keep it simple

If you want to succeed at writing, you should embrace simplicity as one of the key principles. If you want to communicate your ideas precisely, don’t use more words but choose your words more carefully. The simpler your writing, the easier it is to comprehend.

We also recommend that you keep your writing authentic. Don’t try to copy others. Instead, practice writing regularly so that you can quickly develop your own style. As you develop your own style, your writing will become more natural.

Final Thoughts

Writing is a skill so it requires dedication and practice. At the same time, just like any other skill, it can be trained. Follow our tips to improve your writing and make sure to focus it on your reader. If your writing is intended for users, it should improve their experience. If you’re writing business emails, you should understand your readers’ needs and interests. The needs of your readers and the purpose of content should always be your main concerns.