I’ve been reflecting often about how different my career is now than when I first started in 2007. Not only is New York City very different but the whole world transformed during 2020. The pandemic was a potent chapter marker for most of the world.
For me, I note how my eagerness to both jump in and sit back and soak in the creative atmosphere in my first design job has transformed. Now, I want to really understand the scope of everything I work on. I find complaining pointless and questions useful. I find challenges lead my creative process. The things that are not working guide me towards creative and more satisfying solutions.
I have found that I am quite skilled in intuitively anticipating market and business shifts from both a macro market perspective and a homed in corporate business point of view. I’ve also become adept at managing up. I find that identifying my supervisor’s blind spots helps me immensely to understand how to rewire my workflows to anticipate pain points in our working processes. This skillset has quantifiably streamlined my design process and my problem-solving skills. To alleviate the need to stay extremely late on a nightly basis, as I did in 2007, or work on the weekends. This ability has a positive effect on my time management skills and allows my team to nimbly pivot and make time sensitive projects quickly deliverable.
I have also been considering how my accomplished design sense has evolved. I can easily envision a few changes that will have the greatest benefit in my mind’s eye. This ability allows my imagination to skip quite a few rounds of updates and changes. However, I understand the value of being able to visually explain to clients or internal teams who are not able to envision these changes. They need to actually see what is NOT working in order to fully understand the design conclusions I’m presenting them with. Skipping this explanation step is not helpful in selling innovative design solutions. While some designers may find this frustrating or remedial, I see it as a valuable skill. Thinking through solutions and identifying the steps that are needed to review with non-designers is greatly helpful for getting all teams to buy in. New can be scary. Being able to explain and back-up all fresh ideas is extremely profitable.
Lastly, as I review my design career. I pinpoint the most pleasurable chapters of my history. I find myself remembering managing a creative crew who freely shared tips and learnings as they grew. This environment was not always fun. There were quite a few occasions when we were pushed beyond what we thought we could do. But I find those moments of feeling stretched from which I continue to pull wisdom. As an example, I recall a time when my team was already working late and a last-minute change from the VP came through. Our presentation was due first thing the next day. Rather than freaking out and making my team start it over, I took a five-minute break. I went and grabbed a soda from the kitchen and took a moment to re-think the changes we needed to make for the morning. I realized we did not have to redo everything. There were a few tweaks we could do with photoshop to get the idea across. If the project went well, we could then go back and implement the changes in a more complete way. This situation is a reminder to me, to take a break. Let my mind wander and rethink problems. As a result, getting frustrated and upset is not my first reaction to tough design situations.
I’ll repeat myself and say I do not find it useful to complain. I do understand the need to vent. I understand we are humans and imperfect. I have been in too many situations to count where my supervisor’s inability to adequately address issues has led to complaints on all sides. For me, I want to learn. I strive to grow and build upon these situations so that I don’t have to complain. I cannot change my bosses. I can only change myself. I prefer action instead of complaining. I guess my personality as a designer is to constantly streamline processes and problem solve all aspects of everything. I want everything to look great and work well. To me, this is why my seventeen years of experience is invaluable. I do not repeat mistakes. I don’t fall in the same pitfalls that I have last time. I’m always learning, always growing and always looking for the positive take away, no matter the situation.
I love learning from my team and taking on new challenges with people who are different from me. I find it gratifying to bond with teammates and learn about their perspectives on color and design. I have strong opinions, make choices quickly and stand by those choices until I get to try them. I enjoy playing with design and trying as many things I can think of. I find it satisfying to work hard and put elbow grease into everything that I work on. I’ve decided that even though my career is showcasing my digital design skills, I’m really a maker at heart and always enjoy seeing my work implemented on the market. There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing something I worked on out in the wild.