成为一名更好的设计师，那就做更多的非设计的事吧！

这是一种创新思维方法，创意往往就是将两者毫无关联的东西进行巧妙的对接组合，无论从上古的神话还是到现今潮流，往往产生一种奇妙独特的审美感受。

想要成为一名更好的设计师？还是想出更原创性和革新性的设计？你确信不会偏离最狂热和兴奋的设计职业之路？那好，你可以通过做更多非设计的事来成为一名更好的设计师。

Huh? Be a better designer by actually doing more non-design activities? That may sound counterintuitive to some. After all, when someone wants to get better at something, they should surround themselves with more of that activity, not less, right? Well, not exactly.

See, there are 3 reasons doing more non-design things rather than more design-related activities will actually benefit you by. The idea is to not get trapped in a design bubble. This way, when you come back to your design work after frequent breaks, you’ll be fully creatively charged. Which just doesn’t happen when you’re pretty much only doing design stuff.

    做非设计类的事而不是设计相关的活，这样确会使你受益。看这里有3种理由。该思路是为了不让人受陷于设计的幻想之中。在经常的中断设计工作后再重新开始时，你会充满创意的想法。而当你非常多得只是做一个设计的活时，这样的事往往不会发生。

1. Maintain a Healthy Perspective on Your Work and Direction

1.对你的工作和方向保持健康合理的视角

When you do more non-design things, you more frequently come back to your design work with an outsider perspective. Which is good: this way, you maintain a healthy perspective on your work and direction. You make sure that you stay on the path you want to be on and not deviate from it.

Remember when you were just starting out with designing? Anything and everything seemed possible. You approached designs with a naive, wide-eyed attitude. But the more you remain engrossed in a design bubble, the more you become constrained by the rules and standard ways of designing within your niche. It’s fine – something like this is unavoidable when you’re living and breathing only one thing.

    记着你刚开始设计时吗？任何事似乎都有可能。你以单纯天真的态度着手设计，但你越沉浸于设计的幻想中，越会受制于市场定位里的规则和标准方法。好吧，当你活着呼吸只是这么一件事时，像这类事是不可避免的。

The problem comes when you start to lose perspective on your work and direction. Perhaps you started off wanting to accomplish a certain style of design, but more and more paid gigs that weren’t that started skewing your direction. When you’re amidst designing and getting paid for it, you don’t step back and see if you’re on the right track – the one that’s true to yourself and your design vision. And that’s pretty dangerous.

The way you make sure you stay on track is to do more non-design things. You take your mind off of your current design work, jolting your brain and giving yourself a fresh surrounding to do something in. Then, when you come back to your design work, you’ll have that outsider, healthily-naive perspective again. And if you see the type of work you’ve been doing lately isn’t something you want to continue doing, then you can get back on track to the direction you want to truly follow.

       确定是你思路的方式是做更多的非设计的事。你把现在的设计工作抛之脑后，晃晃脑袋，给你自己一个新环境来做某件事。然后，当你重回设计工作时，便会再有一个旁观的，合理单纯的视角。如果发现最近做的某种工作和你要继续做的不一样，那么可以回到你真正想要的追求的方向上去。

2. Become More Frequently Inspired

2.受更多次的鼓舞

Introducing variety will make you more frequently be at that naive state where you create more inspiring and creative designs. As previously mentioned in #1, when you were just getting into design, anything and everything seemed possible. You weren’t bound by rules but instead did what was exciting, fun, and visually appealing to you – regardless of if it was “right” or “wrong”.

        引入视角变化会使你不断地在单纯状态下创造更多的鼓舞人心和富有创意的设计。正如之前第一个理由提到的那样，当你开始设计时，任何事都可能。你会不管其对错，做兴奋，好玩，视觉上感兴趣的设计而不是受阻于规则。

To keep that healthy inspired state going, you have to create a way to consistently come at a new design with that healthily-naive state. And the way you do that is by doing more non-design things.

        为保持那种受鼓舞的状态持续，你必须创造一种方法，不断地在新的设计里处于健康单纯的状态。而那个方法就是做更多非设计类的事情。  

You take your mind off of your design work. You go create in another medium (or at the very least, visually create in a style that’s different from what you usually do), or do a recreational activity, or watch films, or listen to music, or read books and publications, or whatever. Then, when you come back to your work to start creating your next design, you’ll be in that fresh state, filled with inspiration that’s not bound by the rules of the style you’ve been creating in. 

Why is this? You jolt your brain outside its comfort zone. After creating in the same style for a while, you inevitably settle into a routine where you stick to the basic rules or framework of your style. You start thinking of what you can create within those rules, rather than not seeing the rules in the first place. By doing non-design things, you snap your brain out of those rules by introducing an activity that’s completely different.

       这是为什么呢？因为你大脑走出了常规的思维区域。在一种风格下创作一段时间后，你不可避免植入风格的框架或规则的定式。你用那些规则来创造事物，而不是一开始无视规则。通过做非设计类的事情，引入完全不同的活动，让脑袋跳脱那些规则。

When you come back to designing, you’ll no longer be bound by those rules and instead see the entire spectrum of possibilities – or not see the spectrum at all (The Matrix “there is no spoon”-style). Fresh inspiration can come pouring in, with grander and bolder ideas running through your mind as to what your next design can be.

       当你重回设计时，不再被规则束缚，而是看到可能的全部或者什么都没看到（黑客帝国里说的“这里没有勺子的”风格） 新的灵感乍现，按着下一步设计的样子，更宏大而勇敢的想法涌上心头。

注：在matrix里一个穿着很象释加摩尼的小孩拿着勺子对NEO说的话，意为外面的客观世界都是假的,真正真实的是你的心。

3. Constantly Try Fresh and Creative Ideas

3.不断地尝试有创意的新想法

This is like a continuation of #2. By getting more fresh inspiration, you’ll more likely try fresh and creative ideas.

    这就像第二个理由的一个延续。通过得到越多的新灵感，你越可能尝试有创意的新想法。

Innovation frequently happens when you’re on the outside looking in. Not just with designers, but musicians, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, writers, or any other creators. There’s that healthy naivety in the creator, which helps him or her to ignore the rules (since they’re not known in the first place) and possibly stumble onto an innovate idea.

      当你从旁观者角度看时，创新常常会发生。不止对设计师而言，对音乐家，电影人，创业者，作家或者任何其他的创作者都适用。创作者身上的健康的单纯，会帮助他或者她忽视规则，（因为他们一开始就不知道），可能跌跌撞撞的就想出了创意的点子。

When it comes to designing, you couldn’t get those kind of innovate ideas from design-only inspiration. The reason is that when only look within the design industry for inspiration, you’re looking within design rules rather than beyond them. But many of the most innovative and inspiring visual designs have been created by looking at nature, or while playing a sport, or listening to music, or admiring a well-designed electronic piece of equipment. The sounds, the movement, the vistas, or the industrial designs all can make the designer go back and implement some of those ideas into a web or visual design.

It could be building a website user interface in a more fluid and intuitive way – after seeing an unconventionally-arranged house.

·         在看到一幢布局不落俗的房子后，可能就会一个用流畅直观的方式做网页用户界面。

Or going with an infrequently-used color combination that’s rare in the design world – but you saw plenty of during coastal sunsets.

·         或者会用设计界很少见的颜色组合，但你会在海岸边的落日中看到许多。

Or trying a new and exciting visual style – that you saw in a film.

·         或者尝试你在电影里看到的一个让人兴奋的新的视觉风格。

The list goes on.

So while plenty other designers will essentially be tweaking existing visual designs, you can come at it with an outsider perspective and use a non-design inspiration to create a fresh visual or web design. Again, just like the ideas you most likely had when first starting out designing – before all the rules and guidelines of your given style got in the way.

       因此当许多其他的设计师必然地苦恼于现存的的视觉设计时，你可以以一个旁观者的视角，用非设计的创意来创造一个新的视觉或网页设计。接着，在开始着手设计时，这就是你最可能有的想法一样——在既定的设计风格下的条条框框造成不便之前。

Do More Non-Design Things to Be a Better Designer

做更多的非设计的事情是为了做更好的设计师

Oftentimes the best design inspiration is not design related at all. Outside influences help you to stay grounded and maintain a healthy outside perspective to your work. You get to see the big picture and where you’re headed design-career-wise, and you’re more likely to try bolder, outside-the-norm ideas that results in the most creative and innovative designs.

        最好设计灵感经常和设计一点关系都没有。旁观的作用能使你对工作保持切实健康的外在视角。你逐渐纵观大局，知道设计生涯走向何处。你可能尝试更大胆的，与从不同的点子，那会成为最有创意的设计。