For writers, a blank screen can be an intimidating place to begin and for designers it's no different. If you're anything like me, scrolling through sites like Dribbble or Behance can be great sources of inspiration, but the time spent on such sites can have diminishing returns.

The desire to improve is an essential component of the improvement process, but how do you act on that desire in a meaningful way? Today we will look at five ways to help develop both your confidence and skill as a designer.

Copy someone else's work

I was first introduced to this concept by the good folks over at DesignLab. Reproducing the work someone else has done is a great way to get the creative juices flowing and better master your creative tools of choice. An important note: don't plagiarize! Plagiarism happens when you copy someone else's work and try to take credit for it as though it was your own original work. Copy work is reproducing someone else's work for your own benefit and your own development alone. The process of copying another designer's work encourages you to consider every detail that goes into a final product. Text sizing, scale, layout, color, shadows, use of white space, and many more styles have to be considered.

Invest in continuous learning

A designer can always improve their skills, and to say that you have "arrived" is a bit of a misnomer. In order to grow, you have to be continuously taking in new information and learning how it fits with or changes what you already know. The pace at which you learn new things is different for every person, but it's important to have some access point to content that challenges you and expands your perspective. Continued learning requires investment, of time at the least and in some cases money as well, but the investments you pour into yourself will pay dividends down the road.

There are many portals for learning available on the web today, both free and paid, and taking advantage of such content can really help your skill development. From free videos on Youtube to subscription platforms like Skillshare or Linkedin Learning, if you have a skill you want to develop you're more than likely to find tutorials and explainers, often accompanied by some kind of exercise you can practice with. A word of advise: always work through the exercises.When consuming video content, it's easy to follow along, but a more difficult thing to accurately gauge your comprehension of what you're learning. Completing exercises as you go gets you actively engaged in the content and will point out in real time what you don't understand.

Seek critique and learn to iterate

Having people in your life that you can talk to about design is really helpful in your design journey. Maintaining a mix of peers and more senior designers in your circle of feedback is a great way to build relationships with other designers and build off a variety of perspectives. Seeking out critique can be a humbling process as taking your work and exposing it, and your emotional investments, to others is an act of trust. When soliciting critique, be sure to find people who will give you their honest feedback and that will encourage you to grow. Evaluate your critique partners as much as well as their feedback. People who are overly critical or overly positive about your work are not likely giving you the kind of meaningful feedback you need to grow. The best critique helps you think in new ways or helps you further develop your own thinking, often through thoughtful questions.

Once you have feedback from trusted sources, begin iterating on your designs. Iteration is the process of taking feedback and making changes. This cycle of critique and iteration is fundamental to designing meaningful, mature products so get comfortable with asking for feedback and reworking ideas. Sometimes that means giving up your favorite ideas, and sometimes you have to fight for them. It's a process, and the more you engage in it, the more valuable the results will be for you.

Schedule practice

Similar to the continuous learning investment, scheduling time for practice is good for growth. There are many resources available with practice prompts or briefs to guide your practice, or you can create your own projects. Briefbox.com is a great example of a website with sample project briefs you can work through, offering both free projects and a paid subscription for more in-depth samples. Other great sites include Briefz.com and sharpen.design, both of which offer randomly generated prompts for projects you can work on.

As you work through your projects, it can be helpful to reflect on your process. Written reflections and voice recordings are easy ways of keeping track of your ideas, struggles, things you've learned, and your general process. The better you understand your process and skills, the more you can talk about it with other designers, clients, and potential hiring managers. Make time for practice, and make it a habit.

Create a personal project

Personal projects are a great way to combine your skills, learning goals, and practice and a healthy injection of excitement about the topic makes the process all the more enjoyable. Because it's a personal project, you get to control the constraints, making it as simple as a quick doodle or as complex as development-ready UI mockups. Consider areas of interest you might want to explore visually, or maybe an application or website you like but you think could be better. Create something that you love or would love to use and just enjoy the process. You can include others for their feedback, but ultimately this project is just for you. If you're not happy with how something is turning out, don't give up! You've likely found a skill that you can develop. Be patient with yourself and lean in.