Develop an Eye for Good Visual Design
This is a blog post on remon.design offering practical advice for designers on developing the capacity to recognize and appreciate good visual design. The author draws from personal experience and emphasizes deliberate habits over innate talent or rigid rules.
Core Premise
Good visual design is functional and beautiful. It solves problems, makes navigation intuitive, and creates memorable experiences. Developing the ability to discern it is a skill built through consistent observation and reflection rather than a one-time revelation or formula.
The Practice of Observation
The foundation is training oneself to notice design in everyday surroundings — posters, billboards, packaging, interfaces, and physical objects. The author recommends actively looking at what works and what does not in color, composition, typography, imagery, and use of space. This observation is then captured in a personal visual journal: photographs or sketches paired with notes explaining why a particular choice feels effective.
Studying Professional Work
Beyond casual looking, the post advocates repeated, analytical study of strong examples. This includes examining not just final artifacts but how design decisions hold up across different screens or pages. Following established practitioners on platforms like Dribbble or Twitter (with Don Norman cited as an example) provides ongoing models. The goal is to internalize patterns of successful decisions rather than mimic surface style.
Systems for Retaining Inspiration
Because good ideas are easily lost, the author stresses creating personal systems (described as a "second brain") to capture and organize inspiration. This can include categorizing references chronologically or thematically in tools such as Figma or dedicated asset managers. The value lies in being able to revisit sources later and notice patterns or gaps in one's own influences.
Application and Limits
The post advises creating new work "in the same spirit" of admired examples rather than direct copying, combined with study of underlying principles. It explicitly rejects the idea of a magic formula, instead recommending a repeatable daily habit: dedicated time for seeking and reflecting on inspiration, paired with reading design theory and asking diagnostic questions about why something succeeds or fails. The emphasis is on consistent practice over time.
The source is a blog post on remon.design. Illustrative images of examples and boards are present in the original but are not reproduced here, as they function as generic visual references rather than diagrams carrying unique informational structure.