Shadowing Practice: How To Get An Unfair Advantage In Graphic Design (FULL GUIDE) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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and the first part of today's video is the advantage over ai
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and in case you're wondering why my voice is like this
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and where i've been i'll talk about
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that later in the video you've probably heard it a thousand
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times by now ai is coming for your cushy design job
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you see the incredible designs it generates in seconds the interfaces it mocks up in minutes
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and the voice inside your head tells you
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that you're going to be replaced
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and let's be honest here it's not entirely wrong is it i mean for a certain kind of designer anyway
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but here's what you might have missed
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and something i missed for a long time too for every skill
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that ai can do there are deeper human abilities
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that it cannot even get close to we're not just yet anyway these are the skills
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that great designers have been using for decades to create work
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that connects that persuades and
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that actually matters the other end first let's be clear ai
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is a beast in of itself it gives us speed volume
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and a level of consistency no human can actually possibly match
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it's an amazing brainstorming partner it spits out hundreds of concepts
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and visual directions faster than you can finish your iced macchiato it can kill tedious repetitive tasks
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that used to drain our will to live you know resizing
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a million assets basic color tweaks you name it on that front it does it
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that is all true
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and any designer who refuses to learn the new workflows are going to get left behind in the dust
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but that's where the power ends
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and your advantage begins think of it this way ai is an engine
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but there's no one really in the driver's seat it can generate options
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but it has no opinion it can mimic patterns but it has no real fundamental purpose or crux
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the mistake is thinking that design is merely the act of production of producing something
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when it's not design is the act of discernment and in that arena ai is completely out of its league
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so let's break down the skills
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that give you the edge these are the abilities ai can't just copy
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and they're your new currency in this creative modern future world the first
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and maybe the most important unfair advantage you have is taste but it goes probably deeper than you think
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an ai can generate a thousand technically good designs you can follow entry -level rules of composition color theory
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and layout perfectly not always perfectly but it cannot tell you
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which of these feels right or
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which one of these works it has no way of understanding
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that subtle almost invisible line between a design that is merely correct
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and one that is truly compelling
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and functional now taste isn't some kind of just mystical ability
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that you're born with it is a collection of experience as a graphic designer
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and as you move through this world of design
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it's built from watching real people get frustrated with an app you designed
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it's built from launching a campaign
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that completely flopped where you spent weeks figuring out why it's
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the muscle you build after hundreds of clients call you
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when you finally learn to translate make it better into a
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smart design direction ai has none of this it has no memory
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or fighting for good ideas in an email thread or the intuition
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that comes from seeing your work fail in the real world it's a machine trained on the past so
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while it can create an excellent remix of what's been done before it does struggle to create something genuinely new
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and contextually perfect for right now novel and new being the operative words here
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and as ai floods the market with generic good enough aesthetics
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what people are calling ai slop the value of genuine human curated taste skyrockets your ability to discern to choose
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and to look at 100 options
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and say hey this is the one based on a deep understanding of the brand target audience
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and the culture that is a skill no machine can automate it's your first
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and most powerful advantage so next up is the power of deep critique
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and iterating with intent because it sounds like a mouthful
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but let's get into it an ai can generate variations
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but a human designer iterates with actual real memory
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when we refine a concept every change is built on the last one we remember what works what didn't
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and most importantly why that's why does actually compound
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and then that leads to a final product that is more coherent
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and more smart
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while modern ai tools are getting better at remembering context in
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a single conversation they don't truly understand the intent behind your
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choices they're just kind of responding to new inputs really
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and this brings us to critique a human's critique goes way beyond the surface we can look at our design
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and analyze how its hierarchy the typography of negative space all work together to achieve a specific goal
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and we also ask questions such as, does this actually guide the user's eye where we want it to go?
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Does this font actually truly feel like the brand's voice?
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Is this call to action clear enough to get someone to buy this thing?
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An AI can't ask these questions with real understanding.
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Its feedback is based on data patterns alone.
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They can tell you if your color contrast meets accessibility standards, which is helpful, sure, but it cannot tell you if your color palette is going to resonate with
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that specific subculture that you're trying to target with your design work.
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that requires a human perspective i .e your brain
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and by the way if you are finding this breakdown valuable
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and you want to go deeper on the future proofing of
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your career i put together an entire playlist for designers in
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this age of ai it's all about staying ahead of the curve
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and that link is in the top right corner now here's a massive advantage
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that almost any algorithm will find impossible to replicate we're talking about context politics
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and also people
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so great design design has always been born from navigating a
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complex messy web of human factors just think about it for
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a second how many times has the best design on paper being killed
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because it doesn't really fit the true agenda of the brief
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how often have you had to read the room in the presentation
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and completely change your pitch on the fly this is the world of human dynamics
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and AI isn't built for it it cannot model the subtle
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power structures in a client's office it cannot grab a coffee
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with head of marketing to truly understand their fears about a
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project these aren't soft skills as such they are really core
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strategic competencies ai also lacks a true business context it doesn't know about the budget cuts
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that just happened the internal rivalries
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or the unwritten rules of a company culture a human designer
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learns to work within these constraints turning them into creative challenges
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instead of just roadblocks we have the emotional intelligence to give tough feedback without crushing someone's spirits
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and the storytelling skills to frame a design so
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that everyone in the room gets excited
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and on board as the execution of design gets cheaper
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and also faster with ai your ability to communicate the why becomes one of your most valuable asset skills
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now that brings us to the final and arguably one of the most important
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or powerful advantages you can have and
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that is strategic problem framing ai is an incredible answer engine
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but it can't tell you
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if you're asking the right questions the most valuable designers are
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the ones being paid to help to find the problem in the first place
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and your role is evolving from make this design get accepted
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by your client to what should we even be building
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and why this requires a strategic mind
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and something i keep coming back to on this channel
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and that's because
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if you are serious about design this is going to be
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a huge part of your future it means doing the research
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to find unmet user needs analyzing the market for a gap somewhere in there
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and working with products
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and business leaders to set a vision a true bona fide
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vision AI can support this work sure it can summarize research data
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or transcribe interviews but it cannot lead the charge
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that is your job
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and problem framing is about empathy feeling the weight of a user's frustration it's about navigating the ambiguity
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when no one knows the right way forward
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and it's also about having the business sense to connect a design choice directly to a business goal
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or goals many companies are realizing their biggest risk right now
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is around building the wrong thing entirely the designer who can set up
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and help to find the right problems to solve becomes indispensable
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so is ai actually coming for your job well in some cases yes
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and definitely live designers who you know they're just doing repetitive tasks mindless non -thinking design
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but if you are someone who leans into
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that unique human side of design design thinking the strategy and the psychology then you are going to become
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less replaceable you're going to have more of an advantage over ai and other designers
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let's say there are 1000 beginner graphic designers all with an eagerness
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and a passion to excel in this industry if you understand
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and start to develop the theory of emotion as i'm about
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to explain you will likely be in a one to two
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percent group of those first 1000 designers who actually understand this stuff
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and thus you're going to be ahead of the game from
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the very beginning here are two designs take a look at these designs
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and ask yourself which design feels more energetic which one seems more peaceful
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and more relaxing now it should be really obvious right
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and the only reason it is obvious is
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because the creators of these designs understood the theory of emotion
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so this floral hello design is obviously more peaceful and more calm
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but can you actually determine why from a design point of view.
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firstly the colors used are desaturated and muted washed out pastel
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and desaturated colors automatically appear more calming contrast
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that with the vibrant lime green on the other design
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which is energetic also on this floral design we have well flowers
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and nature this kind of imagery is automatically peaceful and calming
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because it triggers the nature side of emotion there is a
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lot of open white space on this design as well
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which allows everything to breathe and to have peace on the design itself
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and then also we have that freehand cursive fonts on the word hello
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and this is very organic and very personal and
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that just adds to the more peaceful nature and
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so as you can see each aspect of this design can be linked back to emotion in some way shape
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or form if it's a typography the color the imagery whatever it is it's all emotional based
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this process has three simple steps
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and the first step is to identify the emotions you want to evoke on your design
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and to do this just simply take your design brief
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and then gauge what emotions you want the audience to feel from design brief
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and to show you how
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that works let's take this video game poster design brief as
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an example a lot of designers will look at this and they're
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and miss the crucial key points on this brief the emotions notice in the brief it says excitement
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and also fomo
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or fear of missing out these two golden nuggets of information
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are what we're looking for in this first step next step write down somewhere four categories of color typography imagery
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and layouts these are the main essential building blocks of your design
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or any design for matter the third step is to write
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down ways you can express the emotions within those four categories
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so for color we might want to use reds
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or possibly vibrant bold colors this is because these colors are hard -hitting
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and exciting which leads back to
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that emotion of excitement for typography we might want to go with futuristic bold sans serifs
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and that's again leading back to excitement
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when it comes to imagery we could maybe include a countdown timer on the poster
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and this would make the audience feel like they don't have much time left to buy the game
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or to wait for it to launch.
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Or we could even make the poster look like it's a really crowded virtual world of many different players.
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See it's simply about linking emotion to design choices
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and yes you will need to learn about the basics of things like different typefaces and how they evoke different psychological attributes.
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But stuff like that does come with experience.
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The emotion is the key factor
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or fabric of a design however there is a trick i've got on my sleeve
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that you will want to see now this is chat sonic it's kind of like chat gpt
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but some would say it's better and hashtag not sponsored it could bring up articles
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and information all the way up to the present day something chat gpt cannot do
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but for today's video here's the trick
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that you can use for any design project using this thing now here i'm explaining to the ai
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that i'm working on a poster design project for an electrical gadget store
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and like we saw in today's video i want to leverage emotion within those four categories of color typography imagery
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and layout a chat sonic is free by the way
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and as you can see here it gives us some guidelines
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for the design in regard to those four categories now importantly as you can see it explains every single suggestion
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and it backs it up with some theory this is great for those who want to learn
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but also it gives you ammunition in any design pitch to
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a client it allows you to back up your reasoning
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and your design choices now i can take things a step further
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and i can ask it to expand on the typography section
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and suggest some actual typefaces for my poster design
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and with these results coming in we can see some suggestions for headlines
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and key messages and then some typeface suggestions for the body text
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and so on these suggestions should be considered
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and thought over by the designer rather than just blindly following
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them also at the bottom here chat sonic has other further suggestions
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that you might want to explore for example some color palette suggestions yeah this tool is really cool
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and again i'm not sponsored by this i just think it's a really cool thing to use
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when working on design projects let's reverse engineer a design using
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that three step system we looked at earlier and this is just
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so you're very crystal clear on how to use it on next project
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so we have a branding project by vadim karazhan and
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that is netrunner now i do love this branding project
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and before we reverse engineer it as i briefly scroll through
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the project think about everything we spoke about in today's video
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in regard to emotion this is what professional graphic design is
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all about consider what emotions this design might want to leverage
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and evoke and why does it want to do that how has a designer made sure this design does leverage emotion
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but yeah this branding project is really neat
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and let's just scroll back up to the top
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and actually talk about it so we know the first category is color
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but what do you get from the color palette in terms of emotion on this design
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so it's mainly blue purple and a kind of black and
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when considering emotion typically what do these colors represent well blues
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and purples do represent a lot of peace calmness and trust
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and that makes a whole lot of sense when we read here
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that the brand deals with healthcare insurance
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and biotech industry sectors the emotions of peace calmness
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and trust are perfect reflections needed in those niches the color palette here isn't a fluke
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or just a random choice that should be obvious
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but hey let's move on to typography
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which might be a bit more complicated looking at the typeface what can we notice here in terms of emotion
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for me firstly it's the recognition that this is a sans -serif font
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and it's an ultra sleek sans -serif at
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that this helps evoke emotions of modernity which plays into the biotech industry
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but also it's quite clean which helps point to healthcare as well
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furthermore the logo is seen in lowercase letters the designer could have easily used uppercase here
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but the use of lowercase letters is more informal and more soft
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which does help evoke trust again that's great for the insurance
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industry sector also notice how the clean curves on the typeface mimic the style of the logo
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and speaking of the logo
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if we look down here we can see the logo is slanted it's almost italic
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and also it's split up which according to the designer evokes a sense of speed and movement
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that plays into the modern approach of this logo in terms of layouts we have a very clean
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and a very minimal layout and this helps reinforce the other emotional connotations we mentioned earlier
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and when looking at the imagery it plays right into the modern
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and the cutting edge industry sectors so yeah it's not a fluke
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that this brand new project is a success
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and it works well the designer has used the theory of emotion to make design choices
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and has excelled in their role of brand visionary.
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I'm about to show you the websites
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that will give you an unfair advantage as a graphic designer
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so get that mouse ready to click and bookmark these hidden gems.
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The first site is called Product Hunt
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and it will keep you updated with the latest design tools exactly on the day they launch
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and as you can see here there are the design tools
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and products launching today as of making this video now you
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can see how many likes each one has as well as
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browse over the comments to see what the design community is thinking about each product
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but importantly check this out at the top we can browse the best products
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and skip into certain categories so perhaps simply graphic design tools
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and the cool thing here is that we can filter the results
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if we want to but crucially we can arrange them from top rated
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so now we can see the relevant icons here showing just how acclaimed each tool is
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and this list just goes on and on and on guys
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and so it really does keep you informed in the design community
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and later in the video i'm going to show you what
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i think is the best ever design related website i've ever found i found it
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while making this video next however something i have dreamed about for a long time in my life as designer
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and that is filtering out typefaces based on psychology the cool thing is
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that the filter here is in real time
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and you don't need to use every filter option in the list i find this very quick
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and it does narrow down the selection really well and
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if you can't find the font you want it does give
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you a good idea of the kind of direction you want
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to be heading in also you can play with this screen ui settings right here
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and they also have a list of the best fonts
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and the newest ones or the freshest ones shall i say
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but yeah for me the psychology filter really is neat
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and it does work quite well too we're now going to
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take a look at what is coined as the google for color schemes
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this is another tool that lets you narrow down a design choice in lightning speed
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and for example you might be working on a project for an insurance company
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so let's drop that into this search
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and yeah we immediately get some good results what i like here is
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that the cohesion that shows us that the pattern
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or trends of blues and pastel colors does run throughout the insurance company niche
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but we can click one result and then simply click to copy the hex code.
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The downside here is that you need to copy each individual color instead of the entire group.
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You can always save the image or just screenshot it
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but this is a good way to get a read on the industry standards
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and the norms in terms of color psychology and color schemes that you're working in right now.
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but next up we have a really in -depth icon library
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from streamline hq now this is a freemium service meaning we have a bunch of free icon sets
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but also some that are exclusive to paid users
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but there are a ton of free icons to snag here
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and they are all quite good quality as well the paint sets are obviously larger
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and are labeled as pro you can also browse the newest icon releases
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and other categories as well at the very top overall it's
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a resource you probably want bookmark as like many of the
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websites in today's video it will save you time now the next website is completely free
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and it's a great glimpse
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and insight into the most professional depths of the design world
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with brand book you do need to sign up with your email
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but it is completely free you can see the latest brand books
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or search and filter your results as you need to
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but you can get a look at how the best
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and top brands have arranged their brands and branding guidelines
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which as a branding a logo designer it can give you inspiration
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and show you how to fully lay out a brand style
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guide i mean like right here citron have gone into great
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detail on how the logo should be used even on dealership signages and
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so on seeing how the top level brands do things can
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translate into your own work very very easily now i really really love this next website
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and it has some of the best curated inspiration specifically speaking for web
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and ui designers but you have categories at the very top
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and as you can see we have some of the most creative ideas
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that make websites and apps that much more interesting
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and more functional like here on the 404 page results these are some really neat ways to make a boring
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and annoying web experience become a bit more interesting
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and a bit more of a joke
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and then here we have some apple website easter eggs
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and i just love seeing the creativity in these results here
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but hang on a minute someone has seriously put a six
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seven easter egg in the age form on an app now i don't really know what to think about that honestly
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but next on this channel i always talk about design psychology
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and design thinking well this gem of a website appeared on my radar very recently
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and it literally goes into detail on teaching you every psychological design principle there is
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or the vast majority of them anyway now it approaches the teaching from a ui
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or web design point of view but the content does translate
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and education is very very on point
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and it is an amazing resource to bookmark that is
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if you want to improve your knowledge of the deeper style of graphic design something ai cannot touch
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but most of these are still coming up soon
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so it shouldn't be too long before they can finish up this list
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and now the granddaddy of graphic design websites that will give you an unfair advantage
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as i said at the race starts i found a website
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that truly is the best resource i've ever found and
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that is tools .design it's like a giant search engine
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that has most of the resources
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that exist on the internet in one place you have a ton of categories to search over
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and each resource is shown as free paid or freemium
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and really there is
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so much to go over on this website it would take all day realistically
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but here for example some free open source fonts
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and how can i actually say know and already i found something
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that i love about house archive i'm going to be downloading
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that one later for sure but yeah this website has
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so much stuff to look over
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so i do actually urge you to go take a look none of these advantage websites are sponsored today
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and they are linked in the description box for today's video
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but do make sure to bookmark this video
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so you can refer back to it any time in the future
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so i hope you found that video useful
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and you now have an unfair advantage
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but going back to where i've been well i've been traveling
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and in doing so i called a sinus infection hence my voice is like this
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but next week we'll have new and fresh content
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so kind of sorry for the clip show but yeah until next time guys design your future today peace
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How To Get An Unfair Advantage In Graphic Design”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: design, designer, color, emotion. This video has 363 sentences and 4345 words to shadow. The speech runs for 23:57. The speaker talks fast, about 181 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| typography noun | /taɪˈpɑɡɹəfi/ | The art or practice of setting and arranging type; typesetting. |
| typeface noun | /ˈtaɪpˌfeɪs/ | The particular design of some type, font, or a font family. |
| font noun | /fɑnt/ | In metal typesetting, a set of type sorts in one size. |
| imagery noun | /ˈɪmɪd͡ʒɹi/ | The work of one who makes images or visible representation of objects. |
| evoke verb | /ɪˈvoʊk/ | To call out; to draw out or bring forth. |
| layout noun | /ˈleɪ.aʊt/ | A structured arrangement of items within certain limits. |
| icon noun | /ˈaɪ.kɑn/ | An image, symbol, picture, portrait, or other representation, usually as an object of religious devotion. |
| poster noun | /ˈpoʊstɚ/ | A picture of a celebrity, an event etc., intended to be attached to a wall. |
| bookmark noun | /ˈbʊkmɑːɹk/ | A strip of material used to mark a place in a book. |
| palette noun | /ˈpælɪt/ | A thin board on which a painter lays and mixes colours. |
| unfair adjective | /ʌnˈfɛɚ/ | Not just. |
| browse verb | /bɹaʊz/ | To scan, to casually look through in order to find items of interest, especially without knowledge of what to look for beforehand. |
| leverage noun | /ˈlɛv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/ | A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot. |
| translate verb | /tɹænzˈleɪt/ | To change spoken words or written text (of a book, document, movie, etc.) from one language to another. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. | |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| bring up verb | To mention. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| finish up verb | To complete the last details of a task. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| lay out verb | /ˌleɪ ˈaʊt/ | To expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been using · i've been traveling |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | i've been · you've probably heard · what's been done |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be replaced · been done · is built |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | one that is · standards, which is · someone who leans |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 49 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, ammunition /ˌæmjuˈnɪʃən/, frustration /fɹʌsˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, variation /ˌvɛəɹiˈeɪʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: typography /taɪˈpɑɡɹəfi/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, desaturate /diːˈsætʃəɹeɪt/, repetitive /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/, energetic /ˌɛn.əɹˈdʒɛt.ɪk/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like emotion, typography, typeface.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.