Become a BETTER Designer

If you’re looking to become a better designer, let me share a few things that worked for me and can definitely help you along your own path.

Back when I was living in Korea, I had no idea CNC machines even existed. I was designing parts and projects as if a machine could do what I needed, simply because I didn’t have access to one.

I imagined the machines I needed, then created designs that I hoped would work. When I finally discovered that these CNC machines were real, everything I had built in my head and on my computer actually made sense. It clicked. The parts fit, the tolerances worked, and the designs were functional. That weird, roundabout way of learning actually helped me become a better designer.

One thing I’ve learned through all this is that there’s no substitute for experience when it comes to becoming a better designer. I spent years designing digitally with nothing but pixels and ideas. I didn’t get my hands on a physical CNC machine for five or six years. But when I finally did, it changed everything. If you want to fast-track your progress, go out and get yourself a small CNC machine.

It doesn’t have to be expensive—spend a couple hundred bucks on a basic 3D printer. That machine will teach you so much about real-world tolerances, material behavior, and design limitations. Once you’ve got that down, jumping into laser cutting, CNC routing, plasma, or other fabrication tools becomes a lot more straightforward. They’re all similar in their fundamentals; the differences lie in tolerances and curve behaviors.

To really become a better designer, you also have to understand materials. This is something I’ve run into countless times, especially when working with architects. I don’t know what it is, but there seems to be a huge gap in material knowledge. People assume that half-inch plywood is actually 12.7 mm thick. It rarely is. Sometimes you get 15.875 mm (5/8 inch), but again, that’s not precise either. When your design relies on exact fitments, and you don’t account for real-world material variations, it fails.

Take Corian as another example. It only comes in 12.7 mm and 15.875 mm thicknesses. If your project needs something thicker, like 31.75 mm (1-1/4 inch), you have to laminate it. I’d glue three sheets together, then throw it on a CNC router to level it out. That’s how you make the material work for your design, not the other way around. You can’t invent materials just because your design calls for them. Design has to work with reality.

Another lesson that’s been pounded into my head: what looks perfect in CAD often fails miserably in the real world. CAD lets you cheat physics. It’ll let you mash together parts that don’t actually fit, support weight that isn’t feasible, or assemble materials that don’t bond well. That’s why I keep saying—buy a little CNC machine and start prototyping to become a better designer. Seeing your idea physically fail teaches more than any tutorial or lecture ever could. That moment when your tabs don’t line up or the slot is too tight? That’s design education.

I also work with a lot of designers who think one machine will do everything. Maybe they saw a CNC router once and now that’s all they design for. That’s a problem if  you want to become a better designer.

There are so many ways to cut and fabricate materials—laser, plasma, waterjet, router, CNC mill. Even oxy-acetylene if you’re dealing with really thick metal. Each of these tools has its strengths and weaknesses. My job is often to say, “You want to use a laser for this? You really should be using a waterjet instead,” and then explain why. Once designers understand the reason, they usually agree. It’s not about proving them wrong. It’s about showing them better options.

A big part of becoming a better designer is staying flexible. That applies to your ideas and your materials. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain that 15 mm acrylic isn’t a great choice for outdoor use. It warps, it discolors, and you might not even be able to source it. Designers need to accept that some materials just aren’t suitable for certain applications. You can’t invent a material that doesn’t exist and then expect someone like me to make it work. It doesn’t matter how nice your design looks if it can’t be built.

And let’s talk about material efficiency. If your design requires 35 different materials, all cut into weird little shapes, it’s going to be expensive and time-consuming. Try to consolidate to become a better designer. Use the same materials where you can. It speeds up production, cuts down waste, and saves money. When I see a design come in with half a dozen materials that could have been reduced to two, I cringe a little. Keeping your material choices simple makes life easier for everyone involved.

You know what really helped me become a better designer? Learning how to weld. That might sound weird, but it’s true. Welding teaches you about material distortion, heat management, and tolerances in a very physical way. If you’re welding a long metal piece and run a bead from one end to the other, you’ll end up with a warped mess. That’s a hard-earned lesson, and it applies to other materials too. Plastics warp when they’re heated. Wood can twist if you remove too much material in the wrong direction. When you learn how materials behave under pressure, heat, and cutting forces, you start designing with that in mind.

Fabrication is not just about cutting things out. It’s about assembling parts in a way that works and holds up. Every machine operation affects the material. The tighter your tolerance, the more expensive the part becomes. I’ve had projects where the client needed something within 0.025 mm (0.001 inch). That’s doable, but it means lots of testing and iteration. I might need to make 150 prototypes just to get one that’s dead on. That’s not practical unless the application truly demands it.

You also need to consider part orientation. The way you place your parts on a sheet affects everything—cut quality, strength, grain alignment, heat distribution. Nest parts poorly and you’ll get inconsistent results. Design with grain direction in mind. Think about how parts will be clamped or how heat will spread during cutting. These little details can make or break a project.

Another concept to grasp to become a better designer is tolerance stacking. Say you have ten pieces, each with a small error of 0.1 mm. At the end of the build, your whole assembly could be off by a full millimeter. That’s enough to cause real problems. I design with forgiveness. Tabs are a bit loose, joints are a bit flexible, adhesives are factored in. You can’t always hit perfection, but you can design around its absence.

Perfection comes at a cost. CNCROi.com can build things to incredibly tight tolerances, but it’s not cheap or fast. Want 0.01 mm precision? Be ready to wait and pay for it. Most of the time, it’s better to relax your specs a little and save time and budget. You don’t need every hole to be exact to the micron unless it’s mission-critical.

If there’s one takeaway from my experience, it’s this: to become a better designer, you have to engage in the full process. Think beyond the screen. Understand how things are made. Try different machines. Experiment with materials. Test your ideas, revise them, and learn from each failure. Contact CNCROi.com when you’re ready to make your ideas real. We’ve helped countless people take their designs from concept to creation. And we’ve seen all the avoidable mistakes. Don’t reinvent the wheel—just learn how to make it better.