Why I Stopped Sounding Like Every Other Designer on LinkedIn

There’s a certain type of profile you see on LinkedIn.

Passionate. Strategic. Multi-disciplinary. Award-winning.

You read it. You nod. You forget it five seconds later.

That was me. That was my Linkedin not a while ago.

It wasn’t a lie. But it was a very polite, very forgettable truth. It sounded like I was applying for a spot in a university brochure, not running a design studio. And if you’ve ever tried to stand out by sounding like everyone else, you know how dumb that is.

So I burned it down.

Let me rewind.

I’m not looking for a job. I’m not freelancing. I’m not trying to impress recruiters from BigTech™. I co-run DNSK WORK — a UI\UX Design Services Agency that embeds inside fast-moving teams, cleans up their UX mess, and builds interfaces people don’t hate.

That means the usual LinkedIn shite wasn’t just useless — it was working against me. The kind of people we work with? Founders who move fast. Product leads drowning in bugs. Startups that don’t have time to read your design manifesto.

They need signal. Not noise.

And mine? Was all noise. High-pitched. Fluffy. Unintentionally hilarious.

Here’s how it used to go:

“Award-winning designer with 8+ years of experience across tourism, fintech, healthtech...”
No one cares. This could be anyone’s profile. Probably is.

“Creating intuitive, user-friendly experiences for modern digital products.”
Oh cool, you mean like... every designer ever?

“Strong focus on clean interfaces and best practices.”
A+ in saying nothing while sounding employed.

So I rewrote it.
In my voice.

Here’s what it became:

“I design the part of your product people complain about.”

“You know that screen no one wants to touch? That’s my happy place.”

“I design calm — even when your sprint board screams.”

It felt risky. It felt weird. It also felt like me.

And within a month, I had more DMs than I’d had in years. From people who actually got it.

There’s a weird fear designers have around sounding human. We default to vague professionalism, like it’s safer to be generic than honest. We bury ourselves under buzzwords because specificity feels vulnerable.

But here’s the thing: no founder has ever said, “I chose this designer because they were passionate about cross-platform consistency.”

They choose you because they believe you’ll solve the problem.

So say that. Say how you work. Say what you love fixing. Say what you refuse to tolerate.

I stopped listing tools. I started telling stories. I stopped acting like a polite applicant. I started sounding like a partner.

A few lines that didn’t make the final cut, but I wish they had:

• “I do my best work after your last designer rage-quit.”

• “I like my Figma files tidy and my onboarding flows ruthless.”

• “I don’t design dashboards. I design decisions.”

(Still might use that last one.)

If you’re reading this, wondering if your own profile might be wallpaper — it probably is.

Ask yourself:

• Would you contact you based on your own profile?

• Are you writing to please the platform, or attract your next real client?

• Is anything you’ve written actually memorable — or just safe?

If not, rewrite it.

Make it weird. Make it clear. Make it sting a little.

Because the internet is loud. And the only thing worse than sounding like an idiot… is sounding like everyone else.

I’m not the best designer in the world. Yet, I’m trying to become damn good at design work I do. And now? My LinkedIn finally sounds like it.

Feel free to steal any of this — just make sure it actually sounds like you.

Otherwise, congrats: you’ve just redesigned your own lorem ipsum.