Make It Pretty

Dieter Rams says that good design must be beautiful as well as useful. Why? Because “the aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being.” That means the more you look at something, the more of an impact it has on your senses.
If you’re looking at a hideous design day in and day out, you’re going to internalize some of that hideousness, and it’s going to affect your interaction with the world in some way. Maybe you’ll be a little more irritable to the barista at the coffee shop in the morning, or you’ll frown a little deeper and grip your steering wheel a little tighter when you’re stuck in traffic.
If you’re a designer, that ugliness might affect you in even worse ways (well, worse for designers at least). If all you’re looking at is bad design, your taste – or what Rams calls the “aesthetic” – will reflect that, and it will skew your perception of what “good” design looks like. After an onslaught of crappy designs, your own output will suffer, and pretty soon you might catch yourself actually contributing to the crap pile instead of fighting against it.
Don’t do this to your fellow designers. Take care with your aesthetics and inspire others to be and produce their best as well.