Hi there, This is the thirty seventh edition of D&T Special, a more in-depth view of topics that interest the Canvs team. Today's topic - Design growth starts with honest self-work.
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✍️ From the Canvs Research & Editorial Desk
Most people think design growth is about getting better at the work. But before that, it’s about getting better at seeing the work. What you missed. What you avoided. What you could’ve done with more care. That kind of clarity doesn’t come easy. It comes from being honest with yourself.
This week the Canvs R&E team has spent some time pondering this concept, let’s dive into some details.
Design growth starts with honest self-work
Once you see it, the next step is doing something about it. That’s where intent comes in. Growth needs action. It needs you to build better habits, take on things you're not sure you can do yet, and stay uncomfortable long enough to learn. This piece is about that kind of self-work — the often invisible effort that turns a good designer into a sharp one.
### Key takeaways from this read:
#### 1. Small improvements compound over time
You don’t need a big project to start growing. Growth often begins in the quietest places - when you choose to fix a 0.5px alignment issue or take an extra 10 minutes to tidy up your Figma file. These aren’t glamorous moments, but they build muscle. You get sharper, faster, better. And over time, that becomes visible in your work.
#### 2. Teach to learn, lead to grow
When you explain your work to someone else, you’re forced to understand it better yourself. Leadership is something you practice by helping others make sense of complexity. Whether you’re guiding a teammate or walking a client through your decisions, that act of teaching makes you a clearer thinker and a better designer.
#### 3. Feedback is a craft tool
It’s easy to dismiss feedback when it hits a nerve. But the very discomfort you feel is often pointing you to something you missed. You grow when you stop seeing feedback as personal criticism and start treating it as input for better decisions.
📰 In other news
Google leaks details on Material 3 Expressive, its new Android design
Has the ONDC experiment failed?
Behind the smile: Koto’s Amazon rebrand unveiled
✨ Product find of the week
Ciro - Build the perfect prospect list in under 5 minutes
Ciro is an AI-powered sales prospecting platform designed to streamline lead generation. It automates the process of identifying and qualifying leads based on your target persona. With seamless integration into CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot, Ciro helps sales teams build accurate prospect lists in minutes, significantly reducing manual effort.
Some highlights from the past month of D&T
Celebrate 50 years of Microsoft with the company's original source code
OpenAI’s next AI agent is a self-testing software engineer that does what humans won’t
Huawei, China Unicom roll out China's first 10G broadband network in Hebei
And that's the lot! Thanks for checking out what we had to share with you this week, we shall catch up with you next Wednesday. Incase you aren't subscribed to the newsletter, you could subscribe here.
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