Marko Ilic
Marko Ilic is a web designer with a passion for helping designers and freelance creatives succeed. In addition to his exceptional product design work, he is heavily involved in the design community, regularly mentoring up and coming designers and sharing valuable advice and insights from his career.
Hi Marko! Tell us about yourself - how did you get to where you are today? When did you first become interested in design?
Being curious played a significant role in discovering my current profession. Since my school days, I have had a passion for entrepreneurship and creating things, which led me to explore various fields. During that period, I stumbled upon Photoshop and started creating random graphics, which sparked my interest. Eventually, I discovered website design and found it cool and fun, and it became a hobby I enjoyed doing. As I kept creating new designs daily for fun, I realized it could be a career as I found other people who were professional web designers (fun fact: most of them I still follow to this day).
From there, everything was unveiled step by step. Although I had some vision, I couldn't visualize where I would be in 10 years. My early career was an exciting journey, and each step taught me something new.
Today it’s the same; I have some overall ideas about the future, but prefer going with the flow, one step at a time.
Designer Marko Ilic
How would you describe your aesthetic, and how has your design style changed over time?
I think my work constantly evolves because of the skills and experience I gain from each project.
My design style doesn't reinvent the wheel, but as I mentioned, I focus on creating websites that prioritize functionality and aesthetics. I try not to sacrifice one for the other because I think both are equally important. I like to add small details that complement the overall story of the website, making it more memorable for visitors.
These details could be a unique UI element, an interesting interaction, an unusual layout, and similar.
When you set out to create a website or an app, what is your design process like?
My design process is highly flexible, mainly because I work with different clients and teams all the time.
On average, my process includes: understanding the project and the problem → conducting research → finding relevant examples (moodboarding) → ideating → designing → and handing off.
However, some projects may require a more complex process, such as deeper research, creating wireframes, more brainstorming, and similar. Depending on the client's needs and scope, I determine the complexity of the process. What's important to me is to remain action-oriented throughout the process, moving quickly while staying mindful of the steps we take.
You’re incredibly generous with your time and are an active member of the design community, regularly sharing insights with other designers and serving as a mentor, as well as sharing free content like tips for growing UI/UX skills. Why is this an important part of your work?
I invest my time in various channels where I share my knowledge, showcase my work, and engage with others for several reasons.
First, I enjoy helping others and sharing my knowledge.
Second, it helps me stay consistent with my sharing, make connections with people, and stay in touch rather than disappearing from the scene. I am someone who had periods of not posting anything for years; so this is one of the ways for me to remain the visibility.
Finally, teaching is something I find really enjoyable and I want to do more of it in the future. When I teach — I learn. So it’s an excellent way to share what I know and improve my craft and communication.
What’s been one of your favorite projects to work on so far?
My favorite project is the service business I created from 0, and all the projects and experiences it brought. It has been a challenging journey, with numerous obstacles to overcome.
There are so many client and personal projects that I have enjoyed working on and that I am proud of. I think that sometimes people are not aware of all the effort that goes into a project and how difficult it can be to accomplish it under certain circumstances. That's why some projects hold a special place in my heart, no matter how big or small they may be.
What’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned over the course of your career?
To keep going. Everything can be learned or achieved, it just depends on how much time, energy, and motivation you have. I learned this through overcoming small and big challenges throughout my career. I thought many of them would never be possible, but here I am - surprised that it is possible. And then you start getting a better idea of what’s possible because now you have new information and data to work with.
Do you have any favorite design resources?
There are so many of them. Here are some websites I visit daily:
Youtube channels and podcasts:
Other:
The Pocket Full of Do (book)
Show Your Work (book)
Where do you find creative inspiration?
Both online and offline. The offline world helps refresh the thinking. I like walking, relaxing, traveling, having conversing with colleagues and people outside the industry. It all helps as an inspiration for the projects in one or the other way.
I also see a lot of inspiration from browsing different projects every day. So I'm constantly searching for new and fresh stuff I can find online.
Coming up with side projects and just explorations for fun — helps a lot when generating ideas. Many of my ideas for client work come from what I previously explored (mostly by accident) on side projects.
What advice would you give to designers who are just starting out?
I mentioned the “keep going” term earlier, I suggest that. There will be a lot of challenges, and it will take some time to overcome them, but if you want it, you can achieve it.
Here are a couple additional thoughts:
Don’t do everything at once; focus. First, learn fundamentals.
Early in your career — work on as many projects as possible.
Find the designers you like and follow their work. It’ll help you develop good taste.
Underpromise → overdeliver
Be curious
Soft skills are important
Practice, practice, practice.
Publish your work
Create side projects
Functionality is equally important as how it looks (if you want to do only UX, that’s also an option).
Take action
What are you working on now and what’s up next for you?
My days are usually quite busy because I’m jogging between many different things while my primary focus is the client work. Besides that, my time is occupied with content creating, publishing on Twitter, sharing the work, learning, experimenting, and all of the stuff that starts when the client's work stops.
If you’re interested in what I produce in the future, Twitter is the best place to see what’s happening.
Thank you for sharing with us Marko! To view more of Marko’s work, visit his website and check out his Dribbble shots.
Marko was nominated by Dribbble. All art courtesy of Marko Ilic.