What We Enjoyed Reading This Week

OCD, the designer’s gift, and curse.

• If you’re not obsessed with what you do, you’ll probably never do it well enough
  If there isn’t a fire burning inside you to become a better designer everyday and to constantly putting out your best work, which inspires others and yourself, you’re just going to end up as another name in the design community.
  On the flipside if you are a little OCD about your work, you’re constantly looking at ways to make your design better, perfect, and that’s great, but don’t split hairs over the design if you can’t get it just right, just yet.
• We all start with a black hole standing between our current skill level and the level at which we want to be
  Sometimes, the journey of becoming a better designer starts with knowing what to change. You know you can call yourself a serious designer when you’ve put out a great design but you know that you can do better, and it becomes a little harder to let a seemingly mediocre design slip by as the final version. #truestory
• The journey is the destination, *T&C apply
  The process of becoming a better designer should never take precedence over the designs themselves. Experimenting with designs is great, but not at the cost of the quality of output for a project, or it’s deadline. It’s crucial to know when to let the journey be the destination, and when to sojourn in a familiar place.

The skill comparison that kills

• Comparing your skill with anyone but you is a leap into the rabbit hole of, frustration, career choice questions and depression
  As humans we have the tendency to perceive everything in relative value, so as individuals we may be great, but there’s someone out there who’s better than us, and then there’s someone out there who’s worse off than us. When you compare yourself to someone who’s greater than you, you start to feel not so greatly about your own self and feel like the climb to be a better designer is a steep and uphill trek. When you compare yourself to someone who isn’t as great as you, you lull yourself in the false security, that where you are is good enough, and that there is no need to get better. Both of these comparisons are not good headspaces to be in and are detrimental to the designer in you.
  So when is it okay to compare your work to someone else’s?
• Compare if you need to, but only if you want to learn
  The only time it’s acceptable to compare your work to someone else’s work is when you wish to learn from them, how effectively the design solves the problems it intends to, why do you like it, how you could emulate an element usage in your design with similar requirements.. There’s always something to learn, as designers, we just need to keep our eyes and minds open.
• The best person to compare with is you
  No one has had your opportunities, your strengths and your weaknesses, so when you compare yourself to anyone, let that person be you, from 6 months ago, and then to where you want to be in the next 6 months. The feeling of seeing how far you’ve come in half a year is nothing short of exhilarating and the feeling of where you want to be in the next half year is nothing short of exciting, and that’s how you’ll grow #truthbomb