I guess this feels a little like a last will and testament. It is my intetnion that this will be my last design job, but this does not change the fact that I really do love the craft of design. I’ve always been more of a theorist (or possibly an idealist) than a realist, and once my design education started leaving the theoretical and entering into the reality of working for clients, I quickly became disenchanted with the service portion of our industry. And Graphic Design is a service industry. However, I don’t think that it means we (designers) need to be pushovers with our clients. We will have times of being subservient to our client’s “irrational” demands, but I hope that you’ll serve your clients by challenging them aesthetically; to not settle for stale visuals and dated color palettes and boring ideas.
Style is an integral part of our craft, and in a lot of ways feels like produce. It’s at its best when it is ripe, but quickly expires and quickly needs to be replaced with fresh fruit. I used to want to be “timeless” in my work, but outside of a logo mark, I think it is a fool’s errand to pursue timelessness. I think it’s better to pursue being embraced and loved by the audience you’re designing for and marketing to. Any logo that may seem timeless (Coca-Cola, Nike, Pepsi (before they ruined it), Apple, IBM, the old united logo, the Golden Arches) I don’t think was actually timeless, but rather, those logos have been embraced by consumers and dare I say, fallen in love with. Interestingly, love has nothing to do with the logo design, but rather the product being sold. People don’t really care about logos. They care about what the logo represents, and they care about the stuff that the logo is connected to, whether it is food, a gadget, a service, or an idea. My point being this: work for clients you believe in, and don’t settle. Coach House was a blessing of a company, because they make a really good product, and from the top down, their company cares about quality and seems to care about more than just the bottom line. That is rare, but I want to encourage you to channel your energies as a designer into finding these clients and doing your best work for them. They are rare gems, and if you build your portfolio with work for clients that you are passionate about, your passions will bleed through and you’ll have an amazing book. Now I know I’m being ideal and sentimental, but I think if you lose your idealism, you might as well quit, because pessimism is the first step to bad design.
So all that is a means of introduction to a list I want to share with you. You will be the closest thing I’ll ever have to a “design progeny” so I want to leave you with this list of things I hope you’ll aspire to during your tenure as a designer. These aren’t things you have to do, but I hope you’ll consider doing them. A couple caveats: I realize I’m only a couple years older than you, but hopefully you can look at my experience and decide for yourself whether anything I say is true. Also, I’m young, and I imagine this list will change in a decade and beyond. In a lot of ways this list is for me too (I printed myself a copy). It will give me a chance to reflect on myself in several years to see what I thought and how I was in my mid-twenties. Lastly, a document of this nature is pre-mature, and that is because I’m “retiring” early. Nothing I can do about that. So, without further ado, here is a list of ten things I hope you’ll aspire to as a designer in the years to come. A lot of it you know, but now it’s typed and you can read this for reference.
It’s been a pleasure working with you.
Style is an integral part of our craft, and in a lot of ways feels like produce. It’s at its best when it is ripe, but quickly expires and quickly needs to be replaced with fresh fruit. I used to want to be “timeless” in my work, but outside of a logo mark, I think it is a fool’s errand to pursue timelessness. I think it’s better to pursue being embraced and loved by the audience you’re designing for and marketing to. Any logo that may seem timeless (Coca-Cola, Nike, Pepsi (before they ruined it), Apple, IBM, the old united logo, the Golden Arches) I don’t think was actually timeless, but rather, those logos have been embraced by consumers and dare I say, fallen in love with. Interestingly, love has nothing to do with the logo design, but rather the product being sold. People don’t really care about logos. They care about what the logo represents, and they care about the stuff that the logo is connected to, whether it is food, a gadget, a service, or an idea. My point being this: work for clients you believe in, and don’t settle. Coach House was a blessing of a company, because they make a really good product, and from the top down, their company cares about quality and seems to care about more than just the bottom line. That is rare, but I want to encourage you to channel your energies as a designer into finding these clients and doing your best work for them. They are rare gems, and if you build your portfolio with work for clients that you are passionate about, your passions will bleed through and you’ll have an amazing book. Now I know I’m being ideal and sentimental, but I think if you lose your idealism, you might as well quit, because pessimism is the first step to bad design.
So all that is a means of introduction to a list I want to share with you. You will be the closest thing I’ll ever have to a “design progeny” so I want to leave you with this list of things I hope you’ll aspire to during your tenure as a designer. These aren’t things you have to do, but I hope you’ll consider doing them. A couple caveats: I realize I’m only a couple years older than you, but hopefully you can look at my experience and decide for yourself whether anything I say is true. Also, I’m young, and I imagine this list will change in a decade and beyond. In a lot of ways this list is for me too (I printed myself a copy). It will give me a chance to reflect on myself in several years to see what I thought and how I was in my mid-twenties. Lastly, a document of this nature is pre-mature, and that is because I’m “retiring” early. Nothing I can do about that. So, without further ado, here is a list of ten things I hope you’ll aspire to as a designer in the years to come. A lot of it you know, but now it’s typed and you can read this for reference.
- Guard your heart – It is very easy to get jaded in this industry, but I think the great designers are the ones that stay soft, and keep assuming the best of people, even when the bad ones out there wrong you. Idealism is scoffed at in some circles, but I think the idealists are the ones who are crazy enough to think they can do something extraordinary, and then they end up doing it.
- Learn from your mistakes (even when they are pointed out by others) – It is easy to get arrogant and prideful and not take input of people. It makes sense that this happens in design, because we’re getting critiqued on our little creations that we poured a lot of love into. William Faulkner is quoted as saying, “Kill your darlings.” Which I take to mean, don’t be too precious with your work. And don’t be afraid to scrap an idea or design that you love in the hopes that it will lead to something better. Being too precious with our work can stifle the best creativity and you lose the opportunity to see the evolution of a project. The rub is that the people that will encourage us to kill our darlings and the people that point out our mistakes are never us, but people from outside of us. This can make it hard to receive, but we need fight to receive criticism well, because the default mode is to be defensive. Defend when necessary, but always hear people out. Even the morons. (And out of that, choose your battles wisely.)
- Continue to care about typography – Bad typography is the easiest way to not get considered for an interview. Great typography is the best way. You’ll be fine in this regard.
- Give dignity generously to difficult people – You will continue to come across difficult people and it will be easy to treat these people like crap. Ironically, the reason these people usually are difficult is because they have had a lifetime of being treated like crap. Dignity is rooted in every person having a story that we don’t know about, and this story informs how they act. Difficult as it may be, I try to find out about these people and learn as best I can to treat them well. You don’t have to like someone to give them dignity. That is a choice we make. It is a risk, because some people take advantage of it. But others won’t and those people you will see grow and change and that is rewarding. As for the people that remain difficult, after a time and concerted effort, I’d say it’s okay to part ways.
- Be respectful of older designers – I’m guilty of not doing this, but I think we need to recognize the valuable experience that older designers have even if they lack fashion or style. This is hard, and in America, we value youth over oldness. So I think it is something we need to be intentional about. Older designers can be frustrating, but I think if we give them patience (as they are giving us) there is a ton to be gained from them. It’s the older designers that taught me about the value of typography.
- Be respectful of younger designers – There is nothing more discouraging for an intern than to be treated like crap. Being treated poorly does produce growth, but it’s a deformed growth that perpetuates the cycle of condescending the young and inexperienced to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Being respectful of younger designers is hard though, because they are usually naïve and arrogant; a lethal combination. But we must persevere and remember that we were that same arrogant and naïve kid once and depending on the circle we’re in, we will be that person for the rest of our lives. Young designers need compassion and I think this is fertile soil to place around them to help them grow.
- Be brave enough to fire a client – Clients have the money, but we need to keep their power in check. There is always more work out there to be found. Don’t be afraid of the financial strain you may feel to cut ties with a client that is bringing you down and does not in any way help your professional advancement.
- Never get too old to learn – Those people are the worst.
- Always listen – Especially to clients. Even more to your creative collaborators (your boss, creative director, art director, project manager, other designers, interns, etc.)
- Don’t stop looking – At billboards, at books, at magazines, at movies, at fashion, at everything. Our eyes are our most valuable assets. And like any muscle, they need to be trained. We train them by looking and getting a sense of what visuals are resonating with the culture at this given moment. Salvador Dalí said it best, “I live with eyes lucid and wide open, unashamed, without remorse, and emerge as spectator of my own existence."
It’s been a pleasure working with you.