Through

“The only way out is through.”

— Dan Benjamin (via Quit)

Managing Change

I once heard someone say, "Do something that makes you uncomfortable". I think that being uncomfortable is one of the keys to growing. Life has a way of letting you settle into your normal, your schedule, your happenings. And then wham! something changes and you're forced to react, adjust and settle in again. Change is the one constant in life. And the more we resist it the more difficult it is to accept. I made a career change or rather an adjustment lately. After freelancing full time I decided to take a permanent full-time position working for a company and while also maintaining a part-time freelancing career. Part of the reasoning was personal and part of it was that I think I was ripe for change in my professional life. After designing and illustrating for a few years and enjoying the work that I was doing I wanted to try my hand at something close but somewhat new. I took a position as a UX designer and front-end developer and am working for an organization designing it's online content management system.

I've realized that designing a product and building and improving on that one idea is quite different from designing for games or web projects. It requires a different mentality and approach. Where I would have project stints for one game or website or design project, now I am working through a release cycle in an agile environment on essentially one product. In some ways it can be exciting to know that as your product grows you grow with it and you make changes for your clients and improve on your initial assumptions. On the other hand you don't have that release where you send your work out into the world and set it free. True, game and website development isn't necessarily finished when you release it and you can improve upon it but there is still that big launch when it's completed. In an agile product development cycle, your work is evolving and growing. You have less time to finalize your decisions and have to make compromises for the sake of business objectives or time restraints. It is quite challenging for someone who is comfortable developing a project and refining it before it's released. In terms of production it is a huge change for me and can be quite challenging on it's own without the design challenges that also comes with it.

I'm uncomfortable and nervous and anxious but also excited, hopeful and determined. I'm working in a way that I haven't worked before. In designing game interfaces and websites, you have to think about UX but the types of users you're designing for are different. Designing a software product or service poses different challenges in UX, UI and graphic design. Your audience is different in many ways. The context in which they use your product is different. Their motives are different. The tone takes a more serious turn. Your product must allow them to perform the tasks they need to without too much hassle and also give them some other functionality that they hadn't realized they could use. Your design aesthetic changes a bit as well. Your designs are sometimes based more on business objectives, time constraints and development challenges. It's an uncomfortable position for a designer to be in and though I welcome the challenge it can be frustrating. I do believe that being able to design within these limitations or restrictions is beneficial to growing as a designer. On a personal note it also allows me to enjoy and appreciate my freelance projects more because I have a certain level of artistic freedom and creativity. You can definitely be a bit more playful and have a sense of humour when you design for games or websites (depending on the website). I have counted myself lucky to have had and to continue to have amazing freelance clients who trust me and believe in my work. My full-time gig has given me insight into what it takes to be part of a development group and face the challenges many designers face: defending and arguing for the sake of design. I've never had to fight for design like this but I think I have been in a unique position until now and this experience will only make me a better designer.

Be True to Yourself

The one drawback about being a creative person is you have ideas running through your brain constantly and at warp speed. Actually, let me correct myself, that's not a drawback that's what makes creating fun! But the drawback is in trying to sort through all those ideas. I am constantly looking for inspiration and because my work is mainly digital I spend an awful lot of time on my iMac. So I surf the web. Constantly. Twitter, especially, makes it easy for me to follow people who inspire me and I see and am introduced to more and more things every day that inspire me. And as most creatives are, I am an avid note taker. I make notes, I bookmark links, I draw sketches, I buy books... anything and everything to try to jot down my thoughts for later reference. This is great but I'm constantly inundated with stimuli. The difficult task is to sift through everything and find something that truly means something to me and is inspirational in a way that allows me to be true to myself.

I admire a lot of designers in the web industry, in illustration, in graphic design, in fashion design, in art... there's so many! And I'm guilty of looking on in awe and failing to refine my style. I'm still trying to find it. I don't even know how to define my illustration style... accurate is the only word that comes to mind and that's such a boring description of something that should be so free and creative. I'm so OCD about my art that I stress over inaccurate details, which can be a good thing but also a hindrance to developing personal style. If art school taught me anything it was to make work that is you, there is no perfect in art, there is only true genuine reflection of you and what you perceive.

I guess more important than developing my personal style in my work is to be true to me. To be instinctual enough to make decisions based on what I like and what works for me - or, of course, my clients and their projects. Basically, what makes sense to the project at hand. There's always going to be designs and illustrations that you look at with envy because you admire them so much, but they may not be appropriate for the work you are producing and more importantly, they're not you.

It's also about being confident in your work to know when to stop. Art school also taught me that. You can constantly rework things, redesign things, redraw things, but the best artists are those who know when to stop. Take the abstract expressionists for example. To us looking on it seems that they haphazardly placed colours on the canvas until they got tired. But they made elaborate decisions on which would be the last brushstroke.

In my current efforts to redesign my website I am currently at the third iteration of my redesign. And yes, of course, experimentation is a part of design, but I can't keep changing my mind every time I think I've finally come to a decision. I need to stop looking at other people's websites and do what is true to me and when that happens I'll know to stop. I need to try to listen to my instincts and not try to emulate something I admire but let my ideas flow. I'm sure my struggle isn't a unique one. It's a constant struggle for creatives. And maybe the equivalent of a writer's block for artists is not just a lack of ideas and inspirations but also too many ideas clouding your own. The only thing I can think to do now is to stop looking at my favourite designs, stop looking at other websites, stop following links on twitter. Return to the sketchbook, clear my mind and try to hear my voice amidst the chaos.

I suspect that the process of sifting through one's ideas and finding one's voice doesn't end. It's there with every thing you create... in fact, it constantly happens through life. So I'll also try not to be so hard on myself and just let things go... Besides as artists and designers we hope to always do better and better work so the process is constant.