falling in love: a testimony of my rocky relationship with design

In 1994 I became obsessed with a show called "Pappyland." At this point in my life, I am convinced that I am the only child who ever knew this show existed. If you're too afraid to click the link, let me explain...it was a show about art. Pappy would draw something and you would draw along with him. My dad's office is still wallpapered with my Pappyland creations. Fast forward, I am a senior in high school and I'm pretty much obsessed with art. I was a good student in general, but this was the turning point where I dropped Statistics so I could have extra studio time. I created some stereotypical "high school" things and won a few awards and got a scholarship and got into art school...and then I went to Kent State. (Which I was initially bummed about, but it turned out to be the absolute best thing.) Between painting still-lifes and sketching nude models, I somehow stumbled upon Visual Communication Design (VCD). My childhood dream (besides being an all out R&B diva) was to illustrate books and VCD had illustration classes. So despite my lack of interest in graphic design, I made the switch.

VCD was (mostly) wonderful and I spent the next few years being completely sucked into the world of typefaces and color swatches and compositions. I had stumbled into one of the best design schools in the country and they were teaching me well. I learned that I would present approximately 300 terrible ideas before I landed on the good one and that even then it would take hours of tweaking to finally land on something worth using. You should never be so married to an idea that you can't let it go and Comic Sans is the equivalent of he-who-shall-not-be-named. It was fun, it was hard, I made a few friends, and I cried a lot (I'm chalking this up to too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and countless dollars wasted spent at Kinkos).

My senior year rolled around and the last thing I wanted to do was look for a design job. Or even put together a website. Looking back I believe I felt this way for a few reasons.

1. I was sucked up in other things that I thought were meaningful, but weren't, and I wasn't "all there" while I was creating. I wasted a lot of time and a lot of potential. (Don't worry, it bit me in the butt hard and I learned my lesson.)
2. Comparing myself to others + a disappointing set back led to a lack of confidence in my abilities.
3. I worked for a company that was world's away from what I wanted to be as a designer. It was a temporary position and when I left I was completely drained. (It was not a bad company in any way, and I am grateful for the opportunities I had while working there. I learned alot about an area of the industry I knew very little about...and so much about myself! It was definitely not time wasted.)

May 2012 I was completely burnt out on design. It felt like a chore and I remember thinking often, "If this is what being a designer is going to feel like, then I want nothing to do with it."

It is now a little over a year later, I have a design job that I love, freelance projects that excite me, and a brand new, shiny website in the works. What happened?

I fell in love.

Taking a year off allowed me to stop trying to push creativity out of myself just to please others.  I worked on very few projects bigger than doodling verses and quotes in my journal. And the more I did projects just for me, the more I started to develop a real style. I found designers and illustrators who are real and creating meaningful work today. And I didn't love them just because my design history book told me I should. (Saul Bass, you are still the man.) I collected inspiration and made note of work that I loved. I pored through issues of Communications Arts realizing that everyone featured was once a brand-new designer lacking direction like me...and then they got their crap majorly together. I read articles and books on design thinking (just for fun!) and was reminded that design isn't just about making someone's stuff look pretty. Designers are the ultimate storytellers (I could be biased...)

Maybe most importantly, I let go of being perfect...not every idea is great, but sometimes the most important thing is not how perfect the work is but just that you got it done. This is a job after all and I can guarantee that few people are judging your work as harshly as you are. I had been crippled by my own need for perfection.

It has been easy for me to look back with disappointment on how I treated some of my years in design school, but now that I am working everyday as a designer I can see so clearly how much I actually learned during my years at Kent. It turns out that no time was wasted...I just took a crazy roundabout way of getting here. Wherever "here" is.

I am now in a place where I am completely head-over-heels in love with design and I am really excited to find out what that means for my future. I do not want to limit myself to titles such as "designer" or "illustrator" ... I am those things, but when the ultimate Creator formed me, he made me to be a creator, a maker...I want to fully embrace that. I am often happiest and most myself when I have ideas stirring around my head and crazy projects I am working on.

Right now I am pretty much working the two best jobs ever (for me, right now, where I am) and I know this, because rarely does it feel like work. Just another cheesy idea that turned out to be totally true. I actually had that thought in the car the other day...Life is cheesy and we just need to deal with it. 

And as a final thought, after all these years, I am still not sure if the plural of still-life is "still-lifes" or "still-lives."

Coming soon: a new 10 things post! It's been awhile.

ALSO...I just signed the lease for a house that has an EVEN BETTER porch than the one I have now. Oh yeah baby.