| Category | Trainee | 🌟 | 🌟🌟 | 🌟🌟🌟 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Design Systems | Can implement styles from an existing design system to make a new page. | Can contribute basic new components and styles to a design system. | Can create a simple design system by themselves, and can contribute complex, multi-variable components to existing systems | Can create and maintain a design system of any complexity which is easily scalable and has a 1 to 1 relationship with a code base. |
Figma | Knows how to implement simple components, shared colors, and typographic styles. Keeps layers neat and contained. | Can create nuanced components with a variety of states. Finished design is fully optimized, with no one-off unaffiliated styles. | Can implement deeply nested components to create flexible, powerful systems with a document. Can teach Figma to new users. | Deep understanding of all the features of Figma (components, styling, prototyping, external plugins). Can create plugins within Figma to extend functionality. |
Visual Design | Understands the basic rules of visual design: hierarchy, balance, alignment, order, etc. Can differentiate different typeface styles and what they are best for. | Has a mental library of design principles informed by successful designs from history. Understands the progression of typography through the years and how web and print typography differ. | Knows when to "break the rules" to create dynamic style. Is up to date with the latest design thinking across multiple disciplines. | Has a style that influences other designers. Their work is cited as inspiration in the design community.
Non-Individual Contributors:
Speaks and writes about design thinking and trends for the Cantilever audience. |
UX | Can create a set of wireframes for a simple website in both mobile and desktop. | Can present wireframes effectively to a client. Can build a clean, consistent set of wireframes for a complex website. Can analyze business needs to understand user journeys and create psychographics. Comfortable running user testing and analyzing sites in relation to competitors. | Can create powerful, flexible wireframes to show both website structure and nuanced UI patterns (such as scroll-triggered effects and animations). Is imaginative in the UX process to think of new UI paradigms that are uncommon and differentiate our work. | Own UX work is both precise and imaginative. Creates tools to make UX work faster.
Non-Individual Contributors:
Inspires others to create more advanced, innovative UX work. Creates and publicizes new UX methodologies (ex. UX Kits). |
UI | Can visually show different states of a component through multiple artboards / storyboarding. | Is comfortable creating a finished site design from approved wireframes, resolving the nuances of the UI in a consistent and on-brand way. | Creates best-practices UI that is intuitive for users. Can create a common style across all UI in an interface. Knows the basics of how UI will translate into code and pitfalls to avoid. | Creates imaginative new ways to address common UI challenges. Can prototype complex interactions and micro interactions within a tool like Framer. |
Branding | Can create logo concepts that are unique, balanced and clearly convey the brand. Can provide strong feedback on visual identity work. | Can work with a client to design an on-brand, production-ready logo for them. | Can create a larger visual identity for a client including ancillary materials alongside the core brand. Branding work is imaginative and thorough. | Can handle a massive branding project with global scale, successfully integrating input from many complicated stakeholder relationships.
Non-Individual Contributors:
Can creative direct a large branding project |
Team Lead (Non-ICs only) | – | Can participate actively in team discussions around project planning and can provide estimates for design tasks. | Can lead 1-2 other designers in a medium-sized project to accomplish a full design. Accepts ultimate responsibility for the results and timeliness of design work. | Can lead projects of any size as Artisan. Can clearly articulate design direction, managing and inspiring team members to create their best work which is up to our high standards. |
Communication | Reliably communicates with team leads around project status and deliverables. | Comfortable speaking directly to clients to learn about their vision and desired direction. | Can participate in client discovery or sales meetings and clearly communicate vision and intent when presenting to clients. | Can lead important client meetings as our point person. Can create presentations to inspire and direct our clients/prospects.
Non-Individual Contributors: Speaks and writes publicly about design on behalf of the company. |
Front End Development | Understands the basics of how web technologies work to render design to the screen | Has a basic understanding of HTML/CSS and knows how tags and styling work. | Has experience writing HTML and CSS and can articulate to developers how a component might be built. | Can write production-level HTML/CSS/JS for any component that is created within the design. |
Webflow Development | Can work with a template to customize colors, typography and site content | Can translate a visual design into a custom built Webflow site using components and shared styles | Can create more advanced Webflow sites using collections and e-commerce features. | Able to create new custom components that are accessible and re-usable between Webflow projects. |