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Happy New Year, and welcome to the first issue of 2025! 🎉

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions—I prefer setting clear goals and breaking them into actionable milestones. This year, one of my main goals is to grow this newsletter even further. Reaching 10k early-career designers is incredible, but I know there are many more who could benefit from the insights and resources I share here.

Many of you have asked about ways to support this newsletter, and I’m excited to introduce a Premium subscription! For $7/month, you’ll be directly supporting my work while unlocking these exclusive perks:

• No ads in the newsletter

• An exclusive Q&A section—submit your questions, and I’ll answer one in-depth each week

• Permanent 30% off my services, including mentoring, portfolio, and resume reviews

P.S. A separate email will go out to new Premium subscribers later this week with the link for the first Q&A and a quick guide on how to submit questions.

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Persevere and Succeed in 2025: A Roadmap for Junior Designers 🚀

As we approach 2025, the design industry remains a challenging landscape. While I won’t make predictions about how the market will evolve, there’s plenty of data and analysis available—like the State of UX report, which offers a sobering but realistic outlook. Instead, I want to provide you with actionable steps—a roadmap—to help you navigate the current market and find success in the coming year.

What Does a Designer in 2025 Need to Succeed?

Though design roles vary widely, there are clear trends shaping the industry. Ignoring these trends can limit your opportunities, so it’s worth understanding what’s expected of today’s designers. Here’s what you’ll likely need to thrive, particularly in Product Design or UX Design:

• Generalist Skills: Employers value designers who can handle the full process—from discovery and research to prototyping and polished high-fidelity outputs. The ability to work end-to-end with a high level of proficiency is a major plus.

• High Visual Craft: Slick, polished UI is no longer optional. Even B2B products are raising their design standards. Aim for visual quality that rivals top-tier products like Linear, Vercel, or Airbnb. This includes attention to detail, excellent typography, and thoughtful use of color and layout. A great example of an early-career designer demonstrating this is Ben Martin.

• Ability to Ship: While no one expects juniors to deliver entire applications, having the ability to bring your designs to life—whether through no-code tools like Framer or simple coding—can set you apart. This is especially true in startups where being versatile is highly valued. The rise of the Design Engineer role is further contributing to this and blending the worlds.

Steps to Prepare for 2025

1. Hone Your (Visual) Skills

Your journey has just begun, so don’t stop practicing. Whether your gap is in visuals, research, or another area, continuous practice is key. Here are two exercises to help:

• Copy Great Design: Pick a screen you admire from Mobbin and recreate it in Figma. Pay close attention to spacing, typography, and alignment. Time-box your effort to 30-60 minutes. Repeating this regularly will help you internalize systems that were used to create these designs.

• Take on Design Challenges: Platforms like UX Tools and Daily UI offer excellent prompts to push your creativity. Share your results, seek feedback, and refine your skills.

2. Deepen Your Knowledge

The basics of design are just that—a foundation. To truly stand out in the competitive landscape of 2025, you need to elevate your skills and knowledge. While foundational courses, bootcamps, or self-study programs are a great start, they rarely dive deep enough into the nuances of design. Here’s how you can go further:

Master the Fundamentals
Understanding foundational principles like usability heuristics, Gestalt principles, and visual perception laws is critical. These principles guide the user experience and separate intuitive designs from ones that frustrate users.

Learn to Measure Impact
Great design is as much about outcomes as aesthetics. Familiarize yourself with usability metrics such as task completion rates, time-on-task, and user satisfaction scores (e.g., SUS or NPS). These metrics help you demonstrate the value of your work to stakeholders and hiring managers.

Invest in Structured Learning
While self-learning is valuable, structured courses can provide a clear path and focused practice. They also offer certificates and peer networks, which can add credibility to your resume.

Deepen the Skills You Need Most
Take a critical look at your skill set. If your visuals are strong, focus on research methods or prototyping. If research is your strength, work on elevating your visual craft. The key is to level up consistently in areas that align with your goals and current gaps.

3. Find Your Unique Edge

The designers who stand out often excel at one “special” thing. Whether it’s data visualization, prototyping, or animation, doubling down on a niche skill can make you memorable. For example:

• Nivedhitha Mathan excels in data visualization.

• Dexter Sulit is a master of interactive prototypes.

Choose something you enjoy and commit to mastering it. With practice, your skills will evolve from “work in progress” to “wow-worthy,” grabbing attention from recruiters and hiring managers. Aim to showcase your unique thing somewhere. This can be on LinkedIn, X, Threads or anywhere else where you’d see other designers really.

4. Showcase Your Ability to Ship

Being able to deliver what you design is becoming increasingly valuable. Start small—perhaps with a personal project or a side gig. Use tools like Framer to create interactive prototypes or basic no-code sites. Not every company will expect this, but it can be a game-changer, especially in startups or highly competitive roles.

If you have pre-existing coding skills (even basic ones) it might also be time to brush those up, code a nice small interaction you designed and publish it. AI is making this so much easier to achieve it as well so make sure to leverage that. However if you haven’t coded a single line of code in your life before, it might be better to stick to no-code tools for now due to the still steep learning curve.

Summary

The design industry in 2025 will demand versatility, depth, and exceptional craft. While the bar is high, the steps outlined above will help you build a strong foundation and stand out in a crowded market.

• Focus on developing well-rounded skills.

• Deepen your knowledge of design principles.

• Practice relentlessly.

• Hone a unique edge that makes you unforgettable.

With persistence and dedication, you’ll not only navigate the challenges of 2025 but thrive in your design career. Let’s make this your year to shine! 🌟

👀 Portfolio Showcase

Today: Manasvi Suggula

We’re starting the new year strong with Manasvi’s portfolio. An Industrial Design graduate from Pratt Institute, Manasvi transitioned into UX and secured an internship at LinkedIn. She landed her first role last year, and today we’ll take a closer look at the portfolio that helped her achieve that.

Let’s dive in!

The Good:

• Focus on Impact: Beyond visuals, impact is what truly elevates a portfolio. In her StrideQ case study, Manasvi nails this by immediately highlighting a 75% decrease in support calls—direct business value driven by her work. She skillfully narrates the problem from both business and user perspectives, showing how solving user issues can yield significant business results.

• Using GIFs/Video in Context: Manasvi’s work involves complex flows with numerous screens. Instead of overwhelming viewers with a screen dump, she uses short video loops to showcase the flow in context. This approach is clear, engaging, and clutter-free, making it easier to grasp her process.

Manasvi’s portfolio clearly delivered the value her employer sought, and it’s already excellent. That said, there are still learning points for others.

The Potential:

• Highlight Prototypes More: Manasvi has great mobile app prototypes tucked away under a “Personal” page. These prototypes demonstrate solid skills, yet they’re hard to discover. I recommend moving this section to the homepage, renaming it to something more descriptive, and giving it the visibility it deserves.

• Fix Broken Links & Mockup Issues: While overall polished, I noticed a broken resume link and a misaligned mockup in the StrideQ case study. These minor issues detract from an otherwise strong presentation. Since designers are judged by how they present their work, fixing such issues should be a top priority.

It’s no surprise Manasvi’s portfolio got her hired—it has everything needed for the type of work she’s doing now. I encourage you to check it out!

That’s it for this week—thanks so much for the support! ♥️

If you want to support me and the newsletter further, consider subscribing to the Premium version. You will also get a lot of other good things on top!

If you need more tailored help on your journey into design here is how I can help you further:

• Book a portfolio or resume review with me

• Book a mentoring session with me

• Book a quick 15 min chat to ask a question or get to know me

Keep kicking doors open and see you next week!
- Florian