Make Sure You Still Create Designs for You
Image generated by Microsoft Copilot AI, with the prompt: "a designer who is designing for herself, watercolor"
Design is all about people - and that includes yourself! It’s super easy to get caught up in making designs for projects and clients, and meeting our deadlines is always important, but we can’t forget about ourselves in the process. It’s important for us to be able to take a step away from work and remember why we do this in the first place: because we love it. Sometimes remembering why we love it requires us to create for ourselves and nobody else.
Make Stuff Nobody Will See
It’s no secret that when we design for a client, it’s all about the client and the user. It’s important to be able to follow guidelines and produce what people want and need to see, but we also need to let ourselves loosen up at times. Creating designs for others gets us caught up in critique and perfection - we need to make sure that what we make is going to meet the approval of those who see it, and who doesn’t want to present only perfect work?
But when we only create design and art for others, we fall into a rutt where other’s opinions are more important than our own. As illustrator Nicke smth puts it:
“Your art becomes safe. Sure, you may be pushing yourself a little, but not in the way you would if no one was watching. When no one is watching, that’s when the true growth takes place.”
When we focus on creating work that is going to gain the approval of others, it creates a fear of branching out and trying something new. New ideas fail all the time, and we don’t want to create failures for others to look at. That’s why we need to create for ourselves. When we try something new and it doesn’t go right, we can just shake it off and toss it and move onto the next project. We don’t need to explain or defend ourselves to outside opinions. This allows us to really break out of our comfort zones, and sometimes trying something new goes really well, and you have a new and wonderful talent or style that can be used for client work, too!
Don’t Forget Yourself
When we focus on creating designs for others, sometimes we can lose a bit of our personality. If working for others becomes our entire life, we will find that we lose ourselves. Medium discusses how staying true to yourself and your values often leads to a happier life, and this is extremely true.
When we are working on a project, it’s not always our personal values that we are designing for. Everyone has different hobbies, and sometimes you’ll be designing for a very passionate person, but share none of their passions or interests in what you’re making, and that’s okay! You don’t always need to be super excited about your projects, it’s not going to take away from your design abilities, but when the work day is said and done, make sure you give yourself time to work on something that you are passionate about.
Sometimes it may seem like creating a project entirely for yourself is going to take a ton of work and time, but you’d be surprised at how easy it turns out to be. Once you get into the groove and you start working on something you truly love, the time will fly by, and you’ll usually end up with something you’re super fond of, even if it’s not your magnum opus!
Creating For You Can Help Your Mental Health
Not only can creating projects for yourself be super fun, it can also be a huge boost to your mental health. The University of Washington explores how engaging in art for self-care can be immensely gratifying. Sometimes words can’t really convey how we’re feeling, but something we create can. We can represent in images what we can’t always get out in words, and that can be a super soothing feeling.
This art doesn’t need to stick around long, either. This is the kind of art you can create and then destroy with no consequences. Sometimes getting our ideas out of our head and down on paper is what we need in order to start working through what we’re feeling, and being able to communicate how we feel, even through art and imagery, is immensely important to our mental health.
You’re Number One
We all take pride in our work and our ability to create for clients and other people, but remember put yourself first. Your own health and wellness is super important - how can we really create our best work if we’re suffering because of it? One of the best ways to ensure we don’t fall into hyper critical ruts is to remember to create what we want to make. We all fell in love with design for a reason, so let’s make sure we don’t lose it as our journey continues!
Hey! I’m Maggie Theall
I’m a graphic designer with a passion for creating work that not only looks great, but functions as intended.
Through my design journey, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learned lessons from every one of them. This blog exists to document my experiences and research, so let’s learn together!
Have similar experiences or want to discuss further? Reach out, I’m always excited to connect with other designers!
