I have nothing to show for it, but trust me, I’m a great designer

Or, why people can’t be trusted to know how super awesome and amazing you are without proof.

If you decided one day to make a living as a creative, and the next day you were making a living as a creative, bless you, and I hope that your 10 remaining years, before that demon comes to collect, are amazing.

For the rest of us, with our souls safely secured (yes, I’ve been watching old episodes of Supernatural a lot lately), we can go about doing the work that gets us the recognition we deserve (and desperately want, because why do anything if not for people to notice, right?)

If you’re in a creative field, by choice, chances are, you didn’t just start getting into “creative-type” things one day. Most of our pursuits, whether they are hobbies, or careers, start from little seeds early in life. How cute.

Personally, I got my official start in design by creating a flyer for a chili cook-off at work. I remember at the time feeling like I was cheating the system because I was working on something I enjoyed while being “on the clock”.

Look at that beauty. Yes, yes, that IS Papyrus you eagle-eye you. I was a bit of a savant when it came to typeface selection. I mean, if Avatar can come back from it, certainly I can!

I guess this is what they’re talking about when they describe humble beginnings. Just so you know, I’m pretty sure that this was created in Word, so it was actually pretty advanced stuff.

That really set the tone for my career. I’ve made it to where I am from being scrappy.

Using Word to create my first “poster”. (Wrong)

Using Photoshop to do magazine spread layout design. (That’s so much harder! Why not use InDesign?)

Using Illustrator to create 3D renderings, long before Illustrator had any real 3D capabilities. (I’m actually impressed by this one.)

But I digress. While my limited access to the appropriate tools of the trade early on, and this stroll down memory lane has been mortifying, it can’t all be fun and games. I have a point here.

My beginnings are not important. As you’ve seen, it doesn’t take much to get started. The important thing is that I didn’t stop creating and learning. And that’s what I want to relay to you today.

There are many quiet creators out in the world, hoping that their genius will be recognized and then they’ll finally begin the career of their dreams. Spoiler alert: I can say with confidence there’s, like, a one out of a million chance that it’s going to happen that way.

But I’d like to invite you to explore an alternative.

I read a quote a while back, from Ira Glass that I feel is appropriate to share here:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you got to know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s going to take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just got to fight your way through.”

So if you take away two things from this quote I hope they are “do a lot of work” and “it’s going to take a while.”

We live in a time of instant-gratification. Selling our souls for a quick win. But google “overnight success story” and most will talk about their decades long journey to that overnight success.

Begin creating, share your terrible work, get feedback, learn, grow, repeat. I encourage, no challenge you, to start putting your work out there early. And hopefully for you, it will be way less than 20 years before you have some old piece to cringe at. While I by no means have “arrived” where I want to be in my career. I’m finally putting the pieces together on how I can share what I’ve learned, and encourage the next generation of creators.

So if you want people to listen to what you have to say. Give them something to talk about. Good or bad, they’ll see you’re doing the work. And you’ll get to hang onto your soul to boot!