There will be many times where you'll have to write something. Whether it’s a project brief, a proposal, an outline, a rationale, your own design content, a bio for your website, an email, an Instagram caption…the list goes on.

Being a good writer helps you be a better designer, and being a conscientious writer will help you all the more. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense because we work with words all the time.

The thing I love about writing is that it only requires three tools: a keyboard, your fingers, and your brain. When you think of it that way, writing can seem less scary. After hours and hours of challenging computer software, printers, technology, and a million and one specialty tools from the art supply store—writing is blissfully simple. You already have all the tools you need. See, we’re getting somewhere already.

You don’t have to know exactly what it is you want to write before you begin. Just start with one aspect, idea, thought, or word, and the rest will follow.

Designing and writing have a lot in common (as do many other creative forms). In the same way that you would start a design project with just getting everything down on paper in the form of sketching, I would suggest approaching writing that way too. Write out every thought you have. Let the words just throw up all over the page and don’t worry about editing yet. You probably have an idea of what you want to talk about, but actually writing it—without editing—will reveal those other good ideas that you didn’t even know you had.1

By the time you’ve gotten it all out, you can go back and edit out everything you don’t need. In the same way that you edit, fix, narrow, tweak, refine and define your design work, the same is true for writing. Writing is another one of those disciplines that take time, so don’t make the mistake of writing something in 20 minutes and calling it “good enough.” You’re not likely to come up with a perfect sentence on the first try. Every time I re-read what I’ve written, there's always something I want to change about it.

Use spell check (it’s so easy to skip this step when you’re working in Adobe!). Use a thesaurus. Don’t start all your sentences with “I.” The shorter, the better—you don’t need to blabber on and on forever. Use contractions unless you want to emphasize something. Know where to put the quotation marks. Don’t use a word unless you know exactly what it means. Try not to repeat yourself. Say everything you need to say in as few words as possible. Think about exactly what it is you need to say in order to tell the truth. Re-read and re-read and if necessary, have someone else read your work too. Read more books.

And remember, a design brief is not a blog post. So please, please, please—don’t write it in first person. :)