One Design Lesson They Didn’t Teach You In School

We all know that perception is important. If you’re trying to be perceived as a professional, your appearance is important. But for some of us design/developers out there, appearance doesn’t stop at what you are wearing…

As a 30-year-old designer/developer, here is a pretty comical story about an important lesson I learned last week.

Early in my design career, appropriate attire was the last thing on my mind. I thought I was super cool dressing as funky as possible. Then, I got a little bit older, and a little bit better. In time, that led me to leading meetings in front of fortune 500 level companies.

Last week, I was giving a demo to a potential client. Normally, this is something I dress up by wearing a typical business suit. However, this client was pretty big, and really important. My role was to show them one of our products, but that was one piece to the entire pitch. Given the magnitude of this presentation, my demo (and my appearance as a designer) was very important.

Since I know that impressions are important, I went through my closet full of dry-cleaned suits the night before. This is always exciting to me. Given the standard ‘no dress code’ rule in the tech industry, I usually throw on jeans and a Relish Ink tee. But in this case, I get to present in front of some important people. That meant, I got to play dress up.

By no means am I shy to this. I love fashion and I love dressing up. As a designer, my closet is full of bright colors and strange patterns. For this meeting, since it was so important, I didn’t want to look too boring, but I didn’t want to look too flashy. I wanted to let the client know that, “hey, I’m a designer, a senior designer, and you should take me seriously. In fact, the product I’m about to show you, I designed… so you should buy it.”v

So what does that outfit look like? Medium grey shoes that match my medium grey slacks, that match my medium grey belt, that’s paired with a white button-up, held together by my medium grey tie, all encompassed by a light pink blazer. (I went with all that grey because the blazer was so vibrant…)

In my opinion, this was the perfect outfit for the perception I was going for. I even had grey and pink socks and Star Wars underwear on, but no one saw that…

I walked into the meeting, with a typical greeting. Shook hands, sat down, and flipped open my 15 inch MacBook Pro.

That’s when it happened…

“You drink and you know things, huh?” the client muttered.

At first I thought “YES! They like Game of Thrones.”

Then it hit me… They were reading the sticker on the back of the laptop. I begrudgingly flipped the computer around to see what they were looking at.

There it was… A sticker with my favorite Game of Thrones quote — “I drink and I know things.”

But that wasn’t the only sticker… Not only did they think I’m a drunk and a smart ass… but there is also a Relish Ink, Chrome, DogfishHead, Salt Life, Robot Nerd, StartingPoints, and a damn Pikachu on my machine.

At that point, I was in shock. Lord knows what they were thinking.

“I’ll leave the rest to your imagination,” I replied.

This was a nightmare. My perception instantly changed from a senior designer, to an 8 year old with crayons scattered around him. It would have been fine if I replied with something clever, but I didn’t. I replied with something that a drunk smart ass would say.

Then, the entire demo, all I could think about was how much of a shmuck I looked like.

Once the demo was over, I returned to my desk, and immediately ordered this cover and keyboard.

(I went with the woodgrain because I found it a bit ironic. I also found that it works as camo if you put it on a wood table.)

I share this story, mainly because I think it’s funny. But also because there is a lesson here for all of you young designers/developers out there. If you’re anything like me, your personal style and corporate style are two different things — and that’s okay.

I have those stickers on my laptop because I’m a weird dude. But when you’re giving a pitch, you shouldn’t look like a weird dude. You should dress the part.