dotgrv blog22 Jan, 2026
•4 min readhow to get good at design (no bs)
the very first and honestly the only advice I give to anyone who wants to improve their design skills is this:
surround yourself with great design.
when you’re constantly exposed to good design, your subconscious starts picking up patterns automatically.
over time, those patterns begin to show up in your own work without you forcing anything.
design is a skill. tools are just vehicles.
let’s use an analogy.
learning design is like learning how to drive.
when you’re learning to drive, you don’t obsess over the car.
sure, a better car might feel nicer or perform better but at the end of the day, it’s just a tool to get from point A to point B.
Once you actually learn how to drive, it becomes a transferable skill.
it doesn’t matter whether you’re driving a hatchback or a sports car. the fundamentals stay the same.
the car only affects performance and feel, not competence.
design works the exact same way.
design is the skill.
figma (or any design tool of your choice) is the car.
most beginners make the mistake of obsessing over the tool.
frames vs rectangles,
RGB vs OKLCH,
4px vs 8px
while completely ignoring the fundamentals.
they’re learning how the car works… without learning how to drive.
you can pick the tool later.
first, you need to understand the difference between good design and bad design.
until then, none of the technical decisions matter.
that’s why I always say:
to become a good designer, you need to start thinking and feeling like one.
a simple practice
if you want a practical way to do this, here’s an exercise that actually works.
1. create a personal library
you need a private library of designs you genuinely like.
it doesn’t matter:
where you store it
how you organize it
what tool you use
what matters is that it’s easily accessible and frictionless.
anytime you’re browsing the internet and something catches your eye, save it.
no justification. no analysis. pure instinct.
keep this library for yourself only.
over time, it becomes a reflection of your taste:
what you’re drawn to
what you ignore
what excites you
it quietly tells the story of who you are as a designer.
i use eagle to collect and organize everything, but the tool doesn’t matter.
use whatever removes friction from your workflow.
2. rank your collection
not everything you save will be great and that’s the point.
some designs will be okay. some will be good. some will be exceptional.
to develop taste, you need to separate signal from noise.
start rating your saved designs on a 3–5 star scale:
3 = decent
4 = strong
5 = exceptional
i usually don’t bother with 1 or 2 stars, they’re effectively trash.
this does two things:
forces you to make decisions instead of passively collecting.
makes your library usable instead of chaotic.
your 5-star collection is especially important.
anyone could look at just those designs and immediately understand:
your preferences
your aesthetic
what you value
more importantly, your own brain starts learning what “good” looks like.
over time, when your designs don’t match that internal standard, your mind will naturally push you to fix them.
this process becomes subconscious and effortless.
that’s when your work starts improving fast.
3. deconstruct your 5-Star designs
once you have a solid set of top-tier designs, start breaking them down one by one.
ask yourself:
why do I like this?
what could be removed?
what could be improved?
what makes this feel right?
analyze everything:
layout
typography
color
spacing
hierarchy
do this enough times, and patterns start emerging.
that’s the moment things click.
you stop guessing.
you stop copying blindly.
you start designing with intent.
this might not seem like much, but do this for 4 weeks and you will see the visible difference in your designs and thought process.
this worked for me because there was:
no theory overload
no tool obsession
no burnout
just deliberate exposure, taste-building, and pattern recognition with visible progress to prove it.
adios!