Eight easy steps to become a successful designer

Designers are a different breed and many of us aspire to be one of them. I would like to take the opportunity to explain you the different steps to be a successful designer. You would not take much time to identify this breed. They can be easily found in malls, coffee-shops, pubs and discs. Some of the identifiable traits and characteristics are their hair, earrings, tattoos, clothes, big-ego, and criticizing nature. Let’s pick each one by one.

High on Hair
If you are a male you are surely going to have long hair. Length can vary according to the quality of hair. It might vary from shoulder to hip’s length. From pony tail to a full grown long braided hair - long enough to advertise for the largest shampoo manufacturer if you would be a girl. Not all males are blessed with long hair but no worries; you can boast weird and eerie design of moustaches and beards. Having said that, I must assert the fact that it does require high level of creativity to devise interesting patterns and styles in hair grooming.

On the other hand if you are a female you need to go in opposite direction. You start decreasing the length of hair from hips to almost nothing. I have seen my female designer friends in short hair, very short hair, very very short hair, scalp kissing hair length, and bald.

These days you have to have strands of red, green, and blue to highlight the design. Match color with your dress and lipstick.

Breathe through Skin
Try choking a designer to death. You cannot because they can literally breathe through their skin. Skin piercing saves their lives in case of such an emergency.

Male designers have increasingly started picking earrings to be in vogue. They started from one ear, then both ears, later more than two earrings for the ears. I have seen people with seven piercing in just one ear. Some have gone beyond ears, and have reached till eyebrows, chins, etc. Let’s not discuss piercing beyond the face in this forum. You decide how much pain you can bear and plan accordingly.
Female designers are least interested in ear piercing. They don’t like anything in their ears. If they get something pierced it is most likely be their noses, lips, eyebrows, etc. If you wear anything in your ears please throw it right away before the attractive male in the next cubicle glance at you.

Paint your Body
No designer can live without tattoo. It can present virtually anywhere on the body but what’s the fun if the world is not seeing it. Most of the junta therefore go for shoulders and back where they can reveal their designs to the world. This tattoo design disclosure has been very progressive as the length of the clothes is diminishing day by day. This has left me confused and bewildered as to whether to concentrate on the design or somewhere else. Please decide the design and placement of tattoo on your comfort level of revealing your protected zones.

Dress to Kill
If you wear what everybody wears than certainly you are going to be kicked out of the community. You have to customize your clothes yourself. You should learn selecting the right fabric after watching the in vogue designs on FTV by European designers. Then you go to a boutique and ask the tailor to sew your design. If you are not good at designing clothes you can ask your fashion design friends to help you out. You can repay their debt when they go for interior design or to buy new furniture. The next step is to wear the design and explain your friends the whole story - from pattern of the clothes to selection of design. Also learn to insult your other friends who buy labeled clothes. The art of insulting is must to learn as it requires high degree of precision. An insult by a designer should be glib, smooth and sophisticated yet sarcastic and piercing.

Only Me, Myself, and I
You are the best person ever born on this planet. Nobody before you and nobody after you would be of the stature which you are at now. You are always right and everybody else is wrong. Your dress selection, furniture selection, mobile selection, etc are the best choices that anyone could make. People don’t dare to give you advice on these topics. Whatever you design is the best and it cannot be perfected anymore. There is no phrase like “taking suggestive inputs” in your dictionary. You always believe in giving them.

Be a good Critique
You are not a designer if you don’t have this quality. Please leave the design fraternity if you are down to earth kind of person. You must learn how to mock people on their behavior, dressing, interiors, selection of furniture, etc. You must start criticizing everything around you. If you go out to eat, the moment you enter in a restaurant, start criticizing the selection of furniture, then move on to curtains and drapery, then move on to cutlery selection, and you continue on and on and on. You exercise the same thing at your friends and relative’s houses.

Indulge in Life
Live life to the fullest is the mantra. Don’t care about tomorrow. There is no concept of saving money for the future. Live in present. Start lot of socializing. Start visiting local pubs and bars. Start trying new things if bars can’t quench your thirst and if you are looking for “high”. If you still think that grass is what cows eat than it is high time to increase your design vocabulary.

Break Norms
Start with short relationships. The more you had girlfriends and boyfriends in the past the better designer you are. If you are in a living-in relationship that is super cool. Being a gay or a lesbian increases your change manifolds for being selected as celebrity of the month or for a cover page interview in one of the leading fashion magazines. Suddenly you start getting name and fame.


I know that it is easier said than done but only persistently hard working person tastes the success. Go ahead and be a designer. Happy designing…