Author: Josten Dooley

Do not let anyone belittle your expertise

 
This should be a given for any profession. Just because we are designers this should not be any exception. Those who do such a thing would not go into a doctor or lawyer, and tell them how to do their job.

Recently after question a person about their design choices I was belittled. Because you and me both know we only want the best for them design wise. The situation taught me that you have to let them see the big picture. Even other times there are clients who don’t want good design.

You may say clients don’t want good design? Well more so it may be the end result of the project. Because even though you see beautiful design work on instagram, dribble, behance and etc it would not work. By not working it will not work for an actual client. But at times that may be different.

Therefore in regards to some belittling your expertise focus on the clients that matter. Do not let yourself get worked up by someone who does not appreciate your advice.

Are you crazy enough to believe?

 

Whether you believe it nor not many of us are. Therefore they will continue to going whether people believe in them or not. Having the belief in ourselves is what is most important.

If your focused on I wonder what my family will think if I work to startup a business and or do something nobody in my family has done. Thinking along those terms can be very bad over the long haul.

For one you will continually question yourself as if will you win the approval of your family and etc. Instead of getting approval focus more on the support. The approval that you should only worry about is yours.

If you are not crazy enough to believe in yourself then there is someone else who will believe in themselves, and achieve what they are striving for.

Knowing when to take a break


When you notice that you brome a workaholic it can be hard to take a break. For example if you are used to working with taking a short break, then changing that routine can be hard.

Another example is if you are working a day job and at night your working on your actual dream job or startup. There are many things that you can compromise for overworking. Your health is one main factor.

If you don’t have the energy then how are you going to be able to keep up. I for one do not need more then 5 hours of sleep. But I exercise regularly and do not need more then that. For you it may be a bit different. Therefore not all of us are the same.

To put things in simple perspective remember to take care of yourself. Listen to your body and your soul. If your working on a project or dealing with a client learn how to say ok I”m going to take a break.

You are more creative then you think

Everyday you do things that are creative. From the way that you tie your shoes and even the way you avoid certain collisions.  Even the way that you cook your food and prepare it. Because whether you believe it or not that requires a bit of creativity.

At times we think of being creative as being only from certain individuals. I just want to keep this nice and short and let you know that whether you believe it or not your creative. The type of creativity you may have is one that does not work for lets say building houses and or drafting furniture designs.

So don’t let your creativity just go to waste go and make use of it.

What will die with you?

What are you doing right now that you know you should and or could be doing? Therefore what will die with you ?

Because at times we can be so scared to attempt something because of the social conditioning we’ve gotten from friends, family and society in general. So think of it this way its better for you to live life saying “I’m so glad I tried” instead of “I wish I had tried that”.

Realizing you’ve wasted time

This is at times something very hard to admit. Whenever I do not have a structured day I feel as if I’m just all over the place. When you schedule your day you don’t have to be upset at not getting anything done. Don’t live in the fantasy world of thinking being busy is a sign of progress.

When you are busy it depends on what you are doing. It is so easy to waste time on reddit and many of the various other sites. Because once you finish reading something you want to find another to read. The similar thing can be applied to taking drugs, food and etc.

Just to keep this short.

While your wasting a day you have an less and less time to get your desired goal achieved.

 

Knowing your work is not good enough

 

 

This is a realization that I came to the other day. Because over time while we post our work on our portfolio site it becomes boring. In other words we realize that its not good as we think it is. For example you have to pay attention to what people are saying.

If people are not saying anything that tells you a lot. The life of a project after getting posted can die a slow death. As humans we like to see knew and exciting stuff. If I did not update my blog 5 days a week you would go find another blog to read that constantly has new articles.

This is pertaining a realization that I need to update my portfolio section more. Really this is all in being honest with yourself. If you are like me and you’ve developed a better taste for design, then you expect more from yourself. So therefore the only way to get better quality of work is to make time to get better.

While you get off from your day Job whether you work as a designer full time or a day job like I do and design after your day Job get to work. You have to dig deep down to have energy to want to make that transition. Another thing I feel we experience knowing our work is not good by getting comfortable. One simple way to put it is being lazy.

But wait there’s one main point that I want you to remember is that:

Look at your current design work and then your previous work.  Are there things you see immediately that you did wrong? Now go look at your current work are there things you see you did wrong?

Those few questions will help you realize whether you’ve improved your work and also your vision of a completed piece and how its supposed to look.

Failing to learn

I still have been applying to hopefully secure a graphic design position. But there was one thing that I did wrong. On my resume I had a careless mistake. The mistake was have just one single letter that was a mistype. I immediately caught the mistake compared to the first time.

But the thing I want you to realize that if I did not improve as a designer then I would not have seen the mistake immediately. This is something that I have noticed about myself. The other day  I was looking through my old schoolwork and I realized the changes that I would make and then what I did wrong.

Then the realization that I have improved skill-wise and I have improved the way I see design. The same thing can be done for you as well. The amount of discipline it takes to want to improve in every way possible is almost insane. Because you have to dedicate yourself to the grind of day after day. Failure after failure which then leads to success after success.

Remember this that failing is not a bad thing if you continue on the fact that you failed and do not take the time to realize what you could learn from it and what you did learn from it.