The Power of Why
In my first blog post I discussed having fallen out of love with design after 15 years in the discipline. It is time to elaborate as I prepare to embark on a new journey. I have decided to study UX design, but arriving at this decision was a bumpy road. I’m not sure if this is the next piece of the puzzle, but I believe it is the right direction and I am excited to see where it leads.
“We build out of the unfinished idea, even if that idea was our former self.” -Sarah Lewis from The Rise
This quote from the book The Rise by Sarah Lewis has been guiding me: “We build out of the unfinished idea, even if that idea was our former self.”
The funny thing about being creative is that it is part of your identity. When you couple that with it also being your livelihood, things can really start to get messy. This is the heart of my conflict. What does it mean when the thing you love, that you believe to be an integral part of you, is also the thing that has sucked the life out of you?
It’s not creativity itself that has drained me, but the politics that come along with it being a profession. There will inevitably be a time that it brushes up against (or conflicts with) your values. When that happens you are presented with a choice, take a stand or keep pushing forward. Neither is wrong, but they can both cost you in different ways.
This had lead me to question everything. Who am I if I am not being creative? Is this the harsh reality of existing in design? Can you change so much as a person that you no longer identify with this thing you loved for so long? This thing that is a part of you? The answer is yes…but that doesn't mean it’s the end. It just means it’s time to evolve. For almost two years now I have been actively searching for the answers to these questions. Scouring my inner landscape. I still don’t have them, just more questions. But that is a great thing.
“Can you change so much as a person that you no longer identify with this thing you loved for so long? This thing that is a part of you? The answer is yes…but that doesn't mean it’s the end. It just means it’s time to evolve.”
I started thinking about the many loves of my creative life and the evolution those pieces took to make me who I am. My first (and forever) love was photography. Even as a designer my inherent nature to observe and capture is ever present. The subject that always drew me in was people. At first, it was fashion and creating art out of the human form. Then it was portraiture, getting to freeze a moment of time, a glimpse of someone’s soul through their eyes. The chase is indescribable. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to tell stories using more than just my camera.
Enter graphic design. It gave me a whole new set of tools and forms of expression. Though it was still the people that kept me going. Collaborating and bringing someone’s vision to life, for their own art or business in the form of branding. Then moving into art direction, crafting and leading photoshoots where I got to use all of my skills . That all somehow led me to working in marketing and advertising and that is when things began to take a turn. Those industries are a machine that needs to be fed constantly. Forever starving for your energy and effort. Even though things are slowly changing, design is still seen as a means to an end (that end being profit over people’s well-being), not one of the building blocks of success. My experiences made me feel under-valued, over-worked and it was no longer fulfilling.
So what was driving me? What was the common thread running within everything I had done before? What really mattered to me? It has always been people, more specifically the unique stories we all have to tell and the hidden worlds within us waiting to be expressed. At first it was capturing a moment of them (photography), then it was helping them extract something inside of themselves to communicate a larger narrative (graphic design), and now it is the hope to build things to help them thrive (UX). I look at it as unlocking a deeper level of design, getting closer to the core of who and what we design for. And for me personally, it is taking another step closer to re-imagining my why.
“…UX has created a spark and I have to follow it’s light through the dark to see what is on the other side.”
Now I know these sound like lofty (sometimes idealistic) goals. I know that I will face similar challenges within this discipline that I have in visual design, but UX has created a spark and I have to follow it’s light through the dark to see what is on the other side. Like Sarah Lewis said, I’m just building on the unfinished idea. Hoping to get closer to myself and helping others in the process.