Take Back Control of Your Design Practice with Personal Rituals
Modern anthropologists describe that rituals follow two structural purposes, broadly: turning beliefs into action, and as a method that integrates beliefs and actions into the dynamics of culture. UX professionals who work in corporate environments — in product, content, and systems design roles — tend to have a narrow viewpoint on design rituals. They’re handed down on high from leadership. I think we can challenge that to make our practice better.
Rituals cannot exist without beliefs. As designers, we collectively believe in the value of a number of practices. We believe in the double diamond approach to problem solving. We believe in peer critique when shaping solutions. We believe in setting design visions and north stars to keep long term programs on track for success.
While our belief is collective, our rituals are traditionally owned and facilitated by design management or operations specialists. They usually inform, and are shaped by, a corporate culture that’s out of an individual’s control. They’re intrinsically tied to the pursuits of “the business.”
Your company’s rituals aren’t designed for your practice
Most tech companies resemble cults, espousing shared values as a means of developing a cultural identity that can demand extreme loyalty, dedication, and effort from UX professionals. Many of us fall victim to this trap (I know I have!).
In this way, the industry’s established design rituals are similar to Western religious rituals. Corporate design rituals and practices are dogmatic, meant to reinforce a top-down mandate of design belief. Like Western religion, there is an emphasis on obedience. As a consequence, new design leadership usually means a wholly new practice, a wholly new focus, and wholly new rituals meant to reintegrate acceptable behaviors and norms.
UX professionals just starting out in their design journeys may not have experienced the disruptive nature of their businesses, and how this affects their practice. Inevitably, all competitive businesses shift priorities as they pursue new opportunities or react to market conditions. This shift raises questions in leadership about the ways a company works, and the rituals it needs to achieve its goals.
To the designer working in the trenches, design rituals can morph and change, seemingly on a whim, to serve the purposes of the business. These disruptions can inadvertently detach practices and rituals from a connection to the self and personal growth in our crafts.
But, this mode isn’t the only way a UX professional can operate. Designers live out careers that survive changes to their reporting structures, changes in employer, and changes in market sectors. A healthy career spanning decades requires self-reliance and a practice centered on the self. Taking control of your design practice, reframing it as a self discipline, flips the script on how we approach our careers.
There’s a simple trick to taking control of your personal practice, and the power lies in ritual.
Anyone who’s practiced yoga or found peace in meditation can tell you the benefits of individual practice and how it affects our approaches to the way we navigate and interact with the world. Investment in the self, time spent on understanding and exploring personal values, reactions, and observations through introspection, produces wonderful results. The same can be said for design practice. A self-disciplined design practice can reduce anxiety and depression, improve decision making, and make you more resilient to the headwinds of corporate life.
Think about your current corporate design practice. What about it is personal or introspective? What about it promotes well being for yourself, the person behind the role? I would hazard a guess that very little of our corporate design practice cares about you at all.
Designing with the moon: a method to refocus your practice on your personal design growth
To take back control and cultivate tremendous personal growth, your design practice needs to be personal. So, here’s a suggestion — an exploration — to help you start your own personal design revolution. I call it “lunar design”.
The idea is simple. Most corporate design rituals and practices are created to address the needs of a project. They follow the rhythms of our cross-functional team partners, and the rhythms of the business. Almost all relate back to the financial calendar. To subvert this, a personal practice must break away from this corporate cadence.
An eternal, independent rhythm is just above our heads — the moon. A lunar design practice focuses its rhythm around the phases of the moon, which cycles above us unconcerned by the stock market, CEO tweets, or the headhunters hiring our corporate design leadership.
The moon has been used to guide practices for millennia and has deep cultural ties all over the world. Its cycles — 29.5 days long — can be used as an external trigger that supersedes the fluctuations of our corporate world.
For UX professionals, the moon can be used as an eternal clock to bring focus back to yourself, and ritualize the personal and professional growth you set out on when choosing design as your career.
The lunar cycle applied to your personal design rituals
The lunar cycle is broken down into several phases, each with their own cultural associations.
🌑 Set goals during the new moon
The new moon is associated with new beginnings. It’s a time for setting intentions (read: design visions/north stars), setting goals, and prioritizing the work needed to achieve your aims. During this phase, perform rituals directed at envisioning the path for your personal design goals, separate from the project goals of the company you may work for. Think about your personal design growth. Do you want to become an industry leader in motion design? Do you want to define the language and terminology employed in virtual reality interfaces? Do you want to be an expert in visual layout? Do you want to lead the charge for ethical design in the time of artificial intelligence? Think about your personal career goals and how you might take steps to achieve them.
🌒 Gather information and inspiration during the crescent moon
The waxing crescent moon is associated with cultivation. It’s a time for gathering inspiration and building community. During this phase, perform rituals that seek out inspiration, increase confidence in your career, and bring your design peers onside for your career development. Be in the world, read about design, listen to podcasts from inspiring leaders. Then, talk about these things with your community. Avoid “shop talk”. Instead, focus on expansive topics, the future of design, new and innovative design techniques or problem spaces –- anything but the doldrums of your corporate projects.
🌓 Make bold steps during the first quarter moon
The first quarter moon is associated with building and the tensions that accompany that. It’s a time of crisis and opportunity, a turning point. During this phase, perform rituals that seek to build on your inspiration and turn your thoughts into actions. Perform one conscious, courageous act toward realizing your goals. If it feels easy, you’re doing it wrong. Be open to failure and celebrate it when you find it. The quarter moon is a time for shaping the chaos of your intentions and inspirations into a stronger path forward.
🌔 Spar your progress during the gibbous moon
The waxing gibbous moon is associated with escalation. It’s a time when problems become apparent. During this phase, perform rituals that intentionally solve problems or answer open questions, rather than running from them. It’s a great time for soliciting critique. Pair with a trusted colleague or peer. Walk them through your current work. Point out the issues and difficulties you’re having, and let them help you make conscious decisions to progress your plans.
🌕 Get insights during the full moon
The full moon is associated with illumination and truth. It’s a time for sharing your progress publicly, a time to seek insights. During this phase, perform rituals that hope to validate (or invalidate) your design work. Test your prototypes with users. Present ideas to your intended audience and gather their reactions. Quietly and dispassionately observe how people interact with early iterations. Sit with those insights and grant yourself the space to absorb them.
🌖 Synthesize and tell stories during the disseminating moon
The waning disseminating moon is associated with sharing information and imparting wisdom. During this phase, perform rituals that retell your learnings from earlier in the cycle, to reorganize and re-inspire your intentions. Write a blog post about what you uncovered during the waxing phases. Storyboard your designs, incorporating insights from your full moon rituals. Speak up at your local industry meetup. Embrace any confidence you’ve gathered from validating or invalidating your design work.
🌗 Reassess your work during the last quarter moon
The last quarter moon is associated with reassessment. It’s a time to reflect on your work objectively (self-reflection comes later). During this phase, practice rituals that clear away what no longer serves your work. Identify the parts of your process that feel off or no longer relevant, and consciously act to remove them from your workflow. Identify the items in your backlog that are no longer relevant or are less impactful in light of new insights. Delete them. Clean up your working files. Physically clean your working space. Remove noise so you may more clearly see signals.
🌘 Reflect personally during the balsamic moon
The waning balsamic moon is associated with personal retrospection. It’s a time to reflect on your personal growth, rather than your output. During this phase, practice rituals that help you identify what went well and where you stumbled during the lunar cycle. Identify actions you can carry out in the next cycle that mitigate feelings of failure. Celebrate your wins and praise your efforts. It’s also a time for gratitude. Reach out and thank the members of your community that have helped you along the way.
Be your own mystic, not your employer’s
There are over 1 million UX professionals working today, a profession that’s projected to increase to 100 million by 2050. Collectively, we are larger than our individual corporate overseers. Yet, almost all the guidance you can find for design practice is centered around teams and how to operate a design team at scale — to achieve the goals of companies.
We know design is more impactful than that and more important to our identities than hitting the key results of those who employ us. There’s more to it, and I hope you can find a way to fall back in love with design, remember the reasons why you chose this path, and use personal rituals to your advantage while you progress through your career.
Above all, remember that the magic of design and practice is in you, the individual, and rituals refine and shape the self. This journey is yours. Enjoy it.
Set your intention, develop your practice, and build your career with Lunar Design
Lunar Design is a design ritual handbook for UX professionals. Get practical advice, detailed rituals, and tools for developing your career.
Visit lunar-design.squarespace.com to find out more.
🙏 Thanks to Jessie, Jade, Eddie, and Luke for helping me shape this idea.
