In recent weeks, I've discovered something I never really thought about in my time as a graphic designer/visual creative. It was something that hit me square in the chest and resonated like a metal bar ringing through the air.
My job revolves around my creative and corporate self - I jump between corporate and freedom from a design point of view; one minute I'll be confined to strict rules and guides, and the next I'm asked to come up with new design ideas, new visual direction and more creativity.
Going back and forth between these two opposites was something that took me a while to get used to, and leaving the freelance, free design and somewhat boundary-less world of design was something I didn't realise I missed until now. This transition has left me feeling somewhat adrift, and it's seeped into my professional headspace. And it's beyond frustrating.
Feeling this creative block has definitely left me in a bit of a slump, and it's becoming borderline problematic at work - hearing back from colleagues and clients that work I produce (in draft stages, albeit, still work I produce) that it doesn't look 'designed enough' (which seems to make sense but still made me blank for a moment) and for the first time, my creative self had been questioned. During university, and my short experience as a freelancer, my work and emerging creative self was very self sufficient, and selfish - I designed to a brief, and I was judged on the merit of whether I ticked the boxes, and received a number for such efforts. However this time, not only is it paid but it's something I am enveloped in 8+ hours a day; something I learnt and developed as a love and addiction turned into a job, into something that, I knew I wasn't going to love all the time, but turned in such a way it surprised me.
I haven't ever had my creative self brought into question - of course hearing feedback from friends and teachers has been the basis of my professional sphere; critique and feedback is the other half to all things design, but to hear it from those who are not in the profession gives me pause. They are the client, are they right? Or am I right?
Staying creative is a full time job I didn't even realise I was working in.
Here's to breaking the block:
Here's to breaking the block: