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Do what makes you happy? Keep that fire burnin'!






















Recently I've seen a lot of posts by people advocating designers to do what makes them happy. That's quite a statement, because very often you'll have to do work you don't find challenging. Here's a few thoughts on keeping your motivation and building ambitions.

Taking on shit work


First rule of the book. When you're working for an employer, expect them to accept shit work. Don't blame your boss too much, you have to understand his position. He needs money to flow through the company in order to pay you and your colleagues at the end of the month. That automatically implies taking on work he'd rather not - but pays well.

No space for improvement


The biggest challenge of every designer is time. Everybody expects your best work for the lowest price. I am not a big Steve Jobs fan, but the one thing you have to give him credit for: he knew why design matters. Design makes your product unique. Not investing in design means you don't get to stick out of the bunch. If you limit my time, you limit my creativity. Your employer's goal is to get you booked for 40 hours a week (or secretly a bit more). That leaves no space for improvement, for gaining knowledge, for testing, for improving...

No passion


Passion is a funny thing, its contagious as hell. Everytime I thought of something outside of the box and explained my ambition to Front-End Developers (your best friends as a designer) - I found that my passion flowed to others and because they started to participate - we kept going and going. Working a bit longer of in your own time was not a problem at all. This passion is gold! Unfortunately you don't get to meet your client often enough and your sales people have different goals. So remember that your passion possibly isn't their passion.

Unrealistic expectations


Account Managers need extra attention from the team. Very often they have unrealistic expectations of how much time quality needs. But they are the biggest influence for your client. They are the first line. They often seem to count like you can do the work for 2 days in 1 day. I recently had a great talk with a client about deadlines (I don't believe in them) - and she actually agreed. Awesome!

Investment


Your employer gives you your equipment. However, I have never been in a situation where my current workstation is better than my machine at home. And my machine at home is 4 years old... Count yourself very lucky when your employer understands the need to invest in decent equipment. The strange thing is that employer seem to not understand that your workstation is going to deliver the company money. Its a necessary investment.

Team


I've been fortunate enough to visit award shows and have my work published. The first thing you'll learn is that at the moment your work is going down well - you don't get credit for it. Your employer, manager or the Account Manager will take the credits - thank you very much. It would be great if people give credit to the team that has done the work - even if you're the lunch lady supplying the sandwiches, you helped!

What a downbeat view...


I know what you're probably thinking by now. This is all very negative and why on earth would I want to be a designer? Well, because you can fight all these bad symptoms of old-fashioned business. No, you HAVE to fight - if you're not going to, you might as well give up.

Now for the positive: ambition


I agree with the recent posts on making yourself happy. You have to be able to be proud of your work. But there's a balance you'll have to find. Sometimes you'll have to do stuff you don't like, that's part of every career I think. Your ambition and the fire in your eyes is what will save you.

For myself I've always set the goal: for every crap project I need one brilliant project. In the past I have been sacked because I didn't agree with a company copying work for a client from one of its direct competitors. My own ambitions didn't match those copy-cats and so in the end we both agreed to split. It was the best solution for both of us. My manager could continue to tell stories, while I did great work elsewhere.

If you look at my career I have worked all over the place. I've worked for big companies and small companies. My longest term somewhere was 5 years. I am not proud of that, but it does show that I have my own ambitions and I am willing to cut the cord if I have to. I've seen people get stuck in their work in the past and I don't want that for myself.

I feel my ambitions have always helped me secure work. I don't want to deliver shit, I want to deliver gold. Simple as that. If that doesn't suit you -we're done. But there are many companies out there looking for gold. So, make sure you have ambitions for yourself and stick to them. If you have to give in too much, you're in the wrong place. You deserve more, you can reach a higher level elsewhere.

Love what you do


I think the baseline is that I love design for digital media and I have a view. My view is also my ambition and I will do everything in my power to achieve what I want to achieve. Don't mistake that for arrogance or ignorance, its actually the opposite: it is the fire in my eyes, it is what drives me, it is my motivation to do what I do.
So as a summary I would like to say: keep that fire burning. No, you're not crazy - you're spot on. Go get that gold tiger, don't settle for shit.

All the best,
Corné
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