Flow with the Design

2005.07.14

I love Design Observer. And I especially like the writings of Michael Beirut. Sometime ago, he republished an article by Michael McDonough called The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School. One project that I’m stuck on these days reminded me of Michael’s words of wisdom:

95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
Only 5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most of the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking, negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If you don’t learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of your profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will never succeed.

If it was paper work, fact-checking, negotiating, selling, collecting money or paying taxes that take up my time, it would have been bearable. But when it’s the design itself that has become a bore, any ambitious designer should be very, very concerned. If you don’t love the primary work of your profession, life can be quite difficult.

A design project you don’t love not only results in a poor product, but also affects the work that you really love doing. It uses up time that is better spent on other projects; you need to think harder because your mind wanders off on to more pleasurable things; your colleagues hate you for being the irritable asshat you’ve suddenly become. It affects your mood, and drives you to make depressing blog posts.

And that’s exactly what this immensely boring print design job doing to me. There’s a very interesting web design project running in parallel which I want to get on with, and there are three more websites that need attention, including the upcoming redesign to Vesess. If only I could finish this print design. Perhaps I should put more effort in to the bullshit which I’ve already applied in plenty.

To make life easier for those designers who might face the same dilemma, here are some guidelines:

  • If you feel like you hate the project, check if you seriously hate it.
  • You might be surprised to find that you actually don’t hate the project, but just that particular project co-ordinator or the client. Visualize kicking client’s ass. It helps. Get on with the project.
  • OK, you hate this project. Don’t fight it. Flow with the design. Accept that you are different, your design and you. Try to bridge that gap with bullshit.
  • If nothing works, think about the money. Focus on the whore point.
  • Still don’t want to do it? Give it to me. I can do with some extra [your currency here].

Permanent Link | Filed under: Design, Life, Thoughts

3 Comments

Comments Feed

  1. Kev

    July 14th, 2005 at 2:03 pm

    Nice post Prabhath. Certainly made me chuckle.

  2. Vicki

    August 2nd, 2005 at 5:28 pm

    And when you get boring project after boring project you start to get - well - bored! So how do you liven things up?

    Obviously that depends on the individual (and I’m not a designer as such; more of a coder) but my tactic would be to think of what really does get me excited and actively seek those projects. If I’m not in a position to chase that type of client now - then I consider: what do I need to do to get myself in a position that they will want what I have to offer?

    Prabhath, I think what you have written about is a very real part of any (even moderately creative) web worker’s life. As you say, when you’re learning it’s all fun but out in the “real world” there *will* be projects - and clients - that you just don’t “gel” with.

    :-)

  3. Prabhath

    August 3rd, 2005 at 1:05 pm

    Well said Vicki. Of course, it’s the same for any creative profession, like programming as you say.