Self-indulgence is vital as a designer.

 

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Music and links from this episode

Outro by Komiku

The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch by Chris Zabriskie

The Simulation Hypothesis by Revolution Void

Line-by-line notes

It’s easy as a designer

To get bogged down in the day to day humdrum

Of things like client amends

Projects not going your way

Or you just not being able to produce your best work

That’s why it’s OK sometimes

To give into self-indulgence

And indulge yourself in some side projects

This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess

Peaks and troughs are natural in anything you do

Something can’t be amazing without there being something bad to compare it against after all

And even today, I go through times where the work I produce isn’t my best

Or I don’t feel its my best

Even today, I still doubt my abilities

And question whether I’m a good designer or not

And wonder endlessly whether I’m good at my job

It’s natural

It’s self doubt

It’s what we all do.

I don’t seek to remove self doubt in my life though

Because I see self doubt as a positive thing

When I’m doubting myself, I know it’s usually for two reasons

I’m doing something new or challenging

And I care about doing a good job

And neither of those things are things to avoid

Obviously I know I care about doing a good job

But even when my subconscious is doubting

I know even in my subconscious I care about doing a good job

That was a weird meta-tangent

Anyway

The reason I say this is to make a point that everything we do won’t be great

Every design you knock out isn’t going to be your best work

But there is a place where you can always do your best work

And if it doesn’t turn out to be your best work, you can just scrap it and try again

In side projects, you can always try and do your best work

There’s no restrictions on time, effort, feedback

You just do the work you want to do, when you want to do it

That’s self-indulgence

And whilst the word indulgence is often seen as a perjorative

I don’t see it like that at all

To get better as a designer you need to be indulgent

If you stick to the sometimes tight confines of a client brief

You’ll never push past and do your best work

Often clients don’t let you do your best work

Not because they’re bad clients

But because some of your design work won’t ever be applicable in a commercial setting

For example, I’ve spent about 4 weeks on and off making a illustration of Jeremy Corbyn with a Hulk Hogan badanna on

I didn’t do it because I had a client in mind

I did it because it popped into my head and I had to produce it

It was purely self-indulgent, and unlikely to be ever sold to any kind of client

But I had to do it, because I wanted to

That’s self-indulgence

And I believe we should sometimes give into it.

MUSIC

This was AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess

Music featured in this episode was:

Outro by Komiku

The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch by Chris Zabriskie

The Simulation Hypothesis by Revolution Void

For a line by line rundown of this episode go over to https://www.askadesigneranything.com/ep155

Find me on Twitter at @craigburgess

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