📚 Failed to Learn the Right Way

No degree. No classroom. No blueprint. Just 10 years of figuring it out one ugly wireframe at a time.

This is how I “failed” to learn the right way.

I’ve started my learning journey back in Israel, where I tried to get accepted to any of the design schools there, but ,to no avail, I failed year after year.

Tired of trying to impress the academia, I decided to engage myself in as many courses in Design that I could find, I can literally fill a wall with all the certificates that I have, and go head-strong into becoming a working designer.

No degree.

No design school.

No official mentor to guide me through.

Just me, my laptop, and an internet connection learning through Udemy courses, watching a bunch of Youtube -  bad tutorials, worse tutorials, and eventually... better ones.

I didn’t know what a design critique was supposed to look like, except for what I got from friends and colleagues.I plowed through to know the lingo and the “rules”.

But alas, I didn’t feel like I belonged in rooms full of designers with formal training.

For years, I felt like I was faking it, because I hadn’t learned it the right way.

But here’s what I’ve learned after a decade in the field:

There is no one right way.

Learning by doing is still learning.

Learning through failure? That’s where the real lessons live.

I built my career through curiosity, consistency, and a willingness to try (and mess up).

And that’s made me not just a designer, but a resilient one.

I consider myself a pretty darn good designer, not for lack of failing but because of it.

I managed to land jobs as a designer, despite lacking formal education. 

All I needed for the one manager that’ll believe in me and what I can bring to the table.

So if you’re learning to design the “wrong” way… keep going! 

You might be building the exact kind of designer the industry needs more of.