The Rejected Design Principles (#1)
Day #1: The First Pancake Principle
Early in my career at Vouch, a C-level asked me to write “design principles” for the team of creatives that we would be hiring. “Easy,” I thought. I was fresh off a read of Ray Dalio’s Principles, and had already started a note in my phone of lessons and beliefs that guided my design work. I gussied up the ones that seemed most pertinent, and submitted the document for review.
As it turns out, I sort of misunderstood the assignment. Vouch needed design principles to align the team on how our product experience should look and feel to our clients. Things like “simple” or “human” or “clear,” not the little guiding stories about pancakes and prosthetic legs that I had pulled from my life. We laughed, regrouped, and wrote something more suitable for our scaling startup.
…But I’ve opened that rejected first draft of design principles many times since then.
They may not have aligned the team on a vision for what we would build together, but they were my “why” — the beliefs manifesting themselves in all of my work, and as leader of our design team, all of our work to some degree. And whether or not they were professional, they were memorable (as was evidenced by the turds teammates that would reach out to remind me of my first draft gaff).
At the end of 2022, I left Vouch to begin contracting and advising early-stage companies. It’s been a true joy to return to small, hyper-efficient teams and help them bring their vision to life, but the truth is they don’t know much about me. They can see the quality of my work over the last decade, but as someone who has mostly been a self-described “internet introvert” (“lurker” sounds so creepy), they’re hiring a portfolio, not a person.
And I’d like to change that. I’ll start by publishing those rejected design principles.
These are the stories and beliefs behind my designs. I’ll publish one per day, and start simple (and likely a bit wobbly, thus delivering on the first principle!):
Thanks for reading & see you tomorrow,
Carrie
Day #1
Iterate: The First Pancake Principle
This is my friend Nick’s rule which I now know he got from Alison Roman; whenever you make pancakes, the first one is always a little off. A little soupy in the middle, a little misshapen, a little burnt. It’s whatever - the first pancake is always like that. Your first prototype will be the same. No matter how disappointed or proud you are of your execution - it’s a first pancake, and good designers iterate.