Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal meaning to throw it at someone else; you’re the one who gets burned.

–Buddha

I look at my daughter on the first anniversary of her birth and feel nothing but gratitude to the people – all of them – who were instrumental in my finding my way to her, my wife, and our present life. Without knowing these folks I’d never have gotten here at all, although it’s taken me ages to see this clearly. My life’s trajectory altered radically a few years ago when I finally realized that no matter what others did to or for me, I was the only person who actually chose my path; nobody else could have done it for me. I chose to act, to react, to judge or not; I chose it all, though in some cases I didn’t know any better. I am so deeply thankful I know a little better now.

In the past, I blamed a few people for many things. I thought some particular woes were all their fault – that I was completely innocent, a victim of their undeserved villainy. I cut entire swaths of people out of my life to avoid them, moved, hid… Ugh. It’s hard to admit it now. The only way I can bear the thought of all that time and energy I burned is that it is what I had to do to grow up. For whatever reason, I had to lead myself down to the rocky bottom and back up the other side. I stand here, dazzled by the new day and I have a choice: I can lament the time I toiled in my personal ravine or I can let the beauty of my new vista lift me up. I have decided to learn from my past so I can live today as a better person. I no longer choose to drape a veil of woes over my shoulders to grieve for dusty wounds I myself kept open.

What I have learned is this: whenever you have a choice, choose love over fear. I’m not telling anyone to subscribe to any new religion, just saying what experience has finally gotten through my thick skull: love not fear. Fear begets anger and hate, so see your rage for what it is: the slime trail left over by your own personal terror. I have always dreaded to find I was unlovable, not good enough, or all alone. When some crap went down that seemed to confirm all of this, I got angry, chose badly for a long time, and eventually made these bogeys into realities. I was only a victim for a moment in time, but then I embraced the role of hired mourner at my own private requiem. I’m not saying we should go limp, either: if someone is an asshole, remove him (or her, or them) from your life as honorably as possible. When you can, find some compassion for all involved, especially yourself. Some people have certainly done me wrong, but if I’d chosen love once I’d survived the initial shock, they would have had very little negative effect on my life. I clung to fear and keened over old pain until I had no remaining option but to try another way. It was messy, painful, and costly as hell. Maybe you can avoid that.

About a week ago, one of the people I’d once decided was so awful to me died, far too soon. I had not seen or spoken to her for years, had not really thought about her for a long time. She was an amazing, bright, intriguing person, though we had not ended on good terms in the past. When I heard she was ill, the first pang I felt was empathy. Some of the old crap burbled up a little while after like heartburn, but what stayed was tenderness and care. When I got the text saying she’d passed, I wept. I would much rather be in a world with her in it, though I’d not yet thought of becoming friends again. She’d lived a good life, loved well, had a beautiful child. She should still be here.

There is nothing to be done but to go on, and the only way to honor bygone lives and loves is to learn and do better. If I am very lucky, my own child will bury me decades from now. She will hopefully be a strong, self-actualized person, loving and living contentedly. Maybe I will get to meet her children, should she choose that path. I also pray she will say goodbye to me with an underlying joy due to our long and loving relationship. There is no guarantee of this dream coming true at all, so I must be grateful for every day I get to see her grow and do the work I have to to change. I hope to take what I’ve learned from everyone I’ve known and distill it into a little wisdom my daughter can absorb before she chooses fear. Some of the most valuable lessons come directly from those I once considered my tormentors, and for that I wish them good lives, each and every one.

Dear M,

You will read this when you are much, much older and able to understand. I just thought it all needed to be said in the meantime.

I am home alone, waiting until tomorrow morning when I can go see you and your other Mom, Jen, in the hospital. You are both to stay there until Sunday, when Jen’s incision has healed enough for her to come home. It’s been a rough couple of days for all three of us and I am so tired. At the same time, I have never been happier.

You were born 24 hours ago after a hellacious induced labor and eventual c-section. Jen and I were holding hands in fearful anticipation; suddenly, you drew your first breath and let loose a gorgeous angry cry from behind a thicket of medical attendants. Although Jen was in a cloud of painkillers on the operating table, she immediately started crying tears of joy. I had been crying already, so I just sobbed harder. So happy.

The fact that I’d ended up here was a miracle: I had long ago given up the idea of ever becoming a mother.

When I was in my twenties, I imagined myself having a few kids once I’d become world-famous and rich. I never managed to actually date (except for that one crazy lady) and besides, I dreamt the decade away. In my thirties, bad choices, bad relationships, and a stout case of self-absorption all contributed to one incredibly lonely little lifelette. I thought I had it made, free from all those silly dreams; meeting Jen revealed the error in my thinking. I was so wrapped up in my tiny world that it actually took me a couple of months to realize we were going out on dates. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but suffice it to say I had never been head over heels in love before I met your Mom.

Jen and I have been anticipating your arrival in our own ways: she has been cleaning every inch of the apartment and freezing homemade food. I have been waking up several times during the night to snack on said food for months–hence the 12 pounds I gained in honor of Jen’s pregnancy. I have to admit I’ve been a little scared. I never spent much time around babies, what if I break you? And will my life and career be forever altered like everyone, and I do mean everyone, has been telling me? Oh God, what the hell was I thinking??

After your cry in the operating room, an attendant hurriedly congratulated me and handed you over. Your eyes were open, although obscured somewhat by the ointment that had been applied for some reason I should have read about during the last 9 months. You craned your little head towards me when I spoke and you looked me right in the eye. My heart, my heart had no idea what hit it, actually. I’d say it melted, but that would just not really give you due credit: it vaporized and reformed, it evolved after a short trip to another time/space continuum, it got bigger, better, stronger. In one bright and seamless moment, my love for you became the most exceptional thing about me…

You? You blinked twice and looked towards Jen’s cooing, demonstrating your precocious curiosity and charm.

Although I am two subway stops away from both of you on this starless December evening, I can feel myself stepping up to the task, hand-in-hand with Jen. All my fears dribble away like so much rain water and I am left resolved and firm with this lovely, shining new purpose. Around us are the other thousands of new parents in Brooklyn: we are all joining in a silent paean of welcome and awe: whatever it takes, little one. Whatever it takes to get you started safely on your path, we will do.

I love you,
Momma

I am having fewer ideas, but they seem to be of better quality than the flood of ideas I used to get when I was younger. How can I take advantage of this? 

I am 40 this year and I have to say, things look a lot different than when I was 25. I used to be a babbling brook of ideas for my art work: I filled sketchbooks and journals with odd thoughts over the years. A lot of them were crap, but still, it felt great. I do have to admit, life was a lot simpler then… I did not have nearly the amount of responsibilities or cares that I have now, but I think my brain has changed. In fact, I know it has: the Seattle Longitudinal Study showed that we get way more efficient at processing information as we get older. We can’t work as fast or as long as we could when we were young – but we shouldn’t need to, since we are working better.

So I am better at thinking of ideas, but how can I get in to a state of flow? Turns out, plenty, and those things apply to people of any age:

Have a regular time to get work done

I try to work every day on my personal projects, though sometimes it’s impossible. I  have been training myself to get up earlier so I have some really productive time to myself. So far, it’s been alright although I still go to bed too late. Losing sleep is not the answer, so I have to work on getting my 8 hours of sleep. More on sleep in a moment. 

Set goals and establish strong motivations

I have to know where I am going before I start the journey, so I set a clear goal for the time when I work. I also try to keep my motivation for achieving the goal clear in my mind. It is always so much easier to do Monstress work than all the stuff I am supposed to be doing, so I use that work as a reward. For instance, today, I needed to write a syllabus for a course we are voting on this week. I worked for 5 hours, so I get to work on this essay until dinner. 

Make the problem compelling to solve

I try to split the problem at hand into smaller bits, but those bits can’t be so small as to be meaningless. I like to leave a little meat on their bones, if you get what I mean. If I break a problem too far down, the tasks can become mindless, and that is precisely what I have to avoid. I do not respond well to mindless tasks unless they are gesture based, like pulling a 100 silkscreen prints. And if I don’t break a problem down enough, it is overwhelming. You have to strive to achieve some balance. the problem needs to be doable, but not too easy.

Take breaks and play 

Not only do I need to get away from the screen of my computer periodically, I need to get off my butt and do something amusing or restful or otherwise refreshing activity. I try to not get sucked into Facebook, but I do let myself get momentarily distracted by my cats, or by a lovely passing thought. It’s okay to look up from what we are doing every once in a while as long as we don’t lose our core momentum.

Get enough sleep (naps included)

I find that I work best when I have had a full 8 hours’ sleep. That is hard to get, however, so I take naps whenever I can. Catnaps do nothing for me: I need to pass out for at least an hour to feel rejuvenated. This differs from person to person, however, so do what feels right for you. I require full-on nappage, complete with scattered pets and softly playing  radio. Love it love it love it.

Think of others

I work best when I am doing something that will benefit other people and myself. Just working to make my life better is not as fulfilling or as compelling. There have also been studies showing that people are more creative when they literally distance themselves from a problem and imagine other people having it instead. It’s just too visceral to think of yourself all the time – you can’t lift yourself above the fray into the abstract realm. Thinking of others not only stirs up altruistic feelings and motivations, it allows us to get some perspective on a problem.

Change your perspective

I have slowly learned that I choose how I see the world around me. This is not what I thought when I was 25 – I figured the world was just how I saw it. The fact of the matter is that my assumptions completely color what I see, so I have to take responsibility for those assumptions. I have to work to bolster my ability to make them, strengthen my power to observe and draw conclusions. I have to learn to perceive my own perception, if you get my meaning. I have to be able to examine my seeing of the world as being dependent upon the lens through which I look, and I have to be willing to change that lens from time to time. 

Articles used to write this essay:

Best Rest Practices for Optimal Productivity and Creativity 
Psychology Today, Jeffrey Davis, M.A, April 30, 2012

Boost Creativity: 7 Unusual Psychological Techniques 
Psy Blog,  Jeremy Dean 

Why Thinking of Others Improves Our Creativity
Creativity Post, David Burkus, Jul 26, 2012 

Change the Way You Look at Things and the Things You Look at Change
Creativity Post, Michael Michalko, Jul 11, 2012

So after the drama of last week, my friend Nina mentioned that maybe, just maybe, I would feel better if I did something for someone else. What a concept! In my turmoil, I absolutely forgot that there are other people  out in the world, perhaps in need of some help. 

Here are some resources to help find opportunities for service:

New York Cares

The 7 Best Places To Volunteer In NYC

 There are measurable benefits for people who do service, actually. Or, at least, there seems to be:

Is Altruism Good for the Altruistic Giver?

For myself, I have to say that altruistic acts are the direct opposite of and cure for unmitigated self-absorption. It breaks the spell instantly, frees me from my fascination with myself, and humbles me back into sane behavior. So I am looking around my community and looking for opportunities to help my fellow man, no matter how menial the task at hand. I’ll let you know what I find.

Uhg. I’ve been so down the last 2 days,and I am fighting like hell to get out of it. I figured one way to make this worth going through is by coming up with a list of anti-dejection methods you might find useful.

I don’t know about you, but my doldrums come in distinct flavors. This time, it’s the my-work-is-meaningless one, all juicy and fetid and festering. It is a whopper for me, very seductive in lulling me to my inner rocky bottom. I am, for all my aw goshery, really rather ambitious. I’d like to matter to a few people, be a resource for others in my field. This is slowly, SLOWLY happening to be sure, but there are times when my demons decide that it’s never going to happen: I’m destined to reside in obscurity forever, all my work is for naught, the only way I can get people to look at my work is to give it to them for free… The inner chorus continues and I spiral down to my most inert state, curled up in the fetal position.

I have to fight the pull of my personal vortex, but how?  How can a person combat her most compelling strain of despair?

Take a long walk. 

It sounds so super cheesy, but it’s the one thing I could drag myself out of the house to do. I put the latest album by Passion Pit on repeat and hauled my sorry ass around the park. Then I walked across town to my studio, just to soak up some extra exercise. I felt a bit better, so I did it again today.  In fact, I do it most days and it helps, it really does.

Look back with compassion.

I am lucky to have a lot of my old work online here and there. When I start to feel hopeless, I go and look at what I have done and try not to tear myself to shreds. After a while, the circulation returns to my compassion nodule and I begin to see my efforts for what they are: honest attempts at improving some little iota of the world. I think everyone can do this in one way or another, just try and be gentle with yourself. Look in the faces of your children, feel your weathered hands, remember some accomplishment that usually brings you a measure of happiness and repeat the following to yourself: “I did this, I can’t be all bad.”

All you are trying to do is to make the tiniest of cracks in the onslaught of sadness, so keep it simple. Breathe.

Open up and let it out.

This is hard for me: I am kind of a loner in a lot of respects. I don’t like to be a bother, whatever that means. But if I let this feeling just sit here and stew undisturbed, it will only grow stronger. I finally opened my mouth and told my partner what was going on. She listened until I had spat most of it out, then made some gentle suggestions when I could actually hear them. The magical thing about telling someone what you are actually going through is that your emotional state becomes more human-sized in the telling: it is no longer some untraversed, endless continent to cross. It’s a mood, a feeling, and it will pass.

Don’t live in dread of your feelings.

I run on the moody side–this is something I have known for a long time. I have learned to respect every part of my emotional spectrum, even the unpleasant parts. As I have learned to respect them, I have learned to take responsibility for them, to not take them out on other people for the hell of it. I do not like feeling so down, but it does throw the rest of my life into a lovely high relief, highlighting how great life actually is. I am not thrilled that I am so sad, but I refuse to ignore it or pretend it never happens. No way. I doff my cap and give the mood its due, then I inch my way away from it as best I can. Feelings are important though unreliable sources of data–they are the filtered feedback that only we as individuals can produce. I try to pan for what truths they reveal then let the rest go. 

Get up and fight like hell.

Now that I feel a little better, I am scrambling to take action. I woke up early and finished packing up work to send to my heroes, a chore I had let slip for weeks. I wrote this essay. After this, I am going to take a break and have a nice hour or so with my sweetie. I am doing things that may not be the top of my to-do list, but they are things that I really enjoy doing. To hell with efficiency, I am fighting for some pure, unadulterated quality here. I’ll get back on schedule when I am feeling a bit stronger, which should be soon. I just have to pop-start my motivation by doing the things I really want to do. A little indulgence can be a good thing.

So that’s what I have done for myself today, and I can feel the mood breaking slowly like a fog in early morning. The one big lesson I have learned over the last few years is that I do have control over my own perspective. I can change how I look at my situation, and sometimes that alone makes it better. I do these few simple things to shake my frame of reference up so that I may be able to reposition it if only slightly. Most of the time, that is all I need to start my way back to the land of the living.

Before you click away, just wait. I’m not saying every person in the world behaves in ways that are always good. That is not possible, and I know that. I am saying that each and every one of us has the potential to be and do good. That’s the whole reason I get out of bed in the morning, make stuff, and generally live. It’s important to check in with your core motivations once in a while–that way you can tell if you are still on course, as it were.

My logic goes like this: 

1. People have the potential to be and do good. In fact, unless we are stunted in some way, we just naturally tend to do and be good.
2. Any person can do good by reaching out and helping others learn to tap that potential. 
3. The entire world gets incrementally better the more #2 happens.
4. There will come a day when everybody born will have a reasonable chance to be and do good.

This is all fine and dandy, but what does the word “good” mean? I am not a philosopher, so forgive any vast generalities, but I think at the very least, being “good” entails the following:

1. You are kind to yourself (meaning you don’t harm yourself).
2. You are kind to others (meaning you don’t harm others).
3. You contribute to society while doing #1 and #2. 

Just to be clear, “bad” is not necessarily the opposite of this “good.” If a person is addicted to drugs, he is not bad so much as seriously dysfuntional. I am still trying to figure out if I believe in evil–look at the shootings in Colorado. Is that perpetrator simply evil, or is he massively twisted into a state of not-goodness? Can someone be irredeemable, or is everyone worth trying to reach? Ugh, it sometimes keeps me up at night, thinking about it.

There is more to life than just contributing to society at a basic level. There is the state of being wherein you contribute to the best of your ability, at the top of your particular, individual form. There are great theories on this state, as found in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is the state I am shooting for, it’s what I think every person capable of thought should be helped to reach. This, this is why I create on every front of my work. On the one hand, I hope to help others reach their fullest potential, and on the other, I am trying to reach my own. It’s win-win. Thus the world slowly notches upwards on its spiral, and eventually it will evolve on the whole into a better place than it is now. Just think of how far we have come–on the front of illness, think of polio, or the guinea fly. We have made progress, however small. Better to be a part of the upward evolution then part of the grinding friction that slows us down as a whole.

How can I be so optimistic about humanity as a whole? Because I look at the units of which it is made up: individual humans. We crave stimulation, and our natural tendency is towards reciprocal altruism. We want to improve ourselves and one of our best and most used strategies is to do things that benefit ourselves and those around us, especially those we love. We continue to improve (or are at least capable of improving) throughout our lives, barring illness or serious misfortune. 

Graphic design and visual art are the avenues I found first for self-expression, and they led me deep into working to make the world a better place in my own little way. But teaching has been absolutely instrumental in getting me to truly give back while adding to my own knowledge pool.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

All of this leads me to the point of this whole essay: what about you? What is your core philosophy? I’m not looking to argue it out at all, I just want to know. Are you on the path that you intended to be on in your idealistic youth? What beliefs have you discovered as you have moved on? What books, ideas, or people have influenced you? Where have your ideals led you? Please leave a comment below, or email me your thoughts.

I was born short, gay, near-sighted, chubby, and slightly odd all around. Oh, and female. What the hell was I going to do with that in a sexist, homophobic, pro-skinny world? As it turns out, just about anything I damn well please.

The biggest hurdle I always have had to conquer is my underestimation of self. Society can be prickly at times, but in reality no one person usually gives enough of a damn to hurt someone else. We are all way too concerned about ourselves to mess up another person’s day–unless we are obsessed or imbalanced in some way. I have been the target of haters, so yes, it is possible to evoke active resistance from other people. It just isn’t all that likely. Society may like to whisper some poison nothings in our ears, but it’s up to each of us to give them life by believing them. I chose to believe the crappiest stuff for a long time and ended up feeling alientaed, frustrated and generally miserable. I’d like to share my experiences in hopes of helping someone out there shed a little unneeded baggage.

I was closeted about being a lesbian to my family until I was in my mid 20s. When I finally told them, my parents were a little sad that I might have a tougher row to hoe but they loved me just as much as before. I’d tip-toed, lied, and played the pronoun game* for decades and it was all for naught: they’d known for years. I’d solemnly pledged to myself that I would not come out until the eldest members of my family–my grandma and great aunt–were dead. Ridiculous, and more than a little selfish. They were both amazing, intelligent women, and even if they might not have accepted my being gay, they would still have loved me. I withheld entire sections of my life from my dearest loved ones and developed the habit of heavily editing the self I presented to people. Basically being closeted just made me a better liar… all because I thought I could not handle other peoples’ reactions.

Yes, there are times when it’s best not to let your freak flag fly–like when it might get you hurt or worse. But 99%of the time, it has been so much better in the long run to be perfectly honest. I used to insist on not revealing my orientation to new acquaintances until the other person considered me a friend in an attempt to ensure she or he would not reject me. It was silly, evasive, and it lent a power and significance to  a single attribute that did not merit such sway.

I did all sorts of stuff to compensate for what I thought were my deficits: I went to the fanciest school I could to get my Master’s degree to prove I was smart. I moved to New York City to prove I could make it anywhere. I became loud and outspoken so people would pay attention. I tried to be one of the boys until I wrecked my shoulder and couldn’t work in a warehouse any longer. I drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney to fit in until my body flatly refused to deal with that behavior anymore. See the pattern? It’s blaringly obvious now, but at the time, I couldn’t figure out why the hell I was so tortured all the time. It all boiled down to the fact that I was terrified that other people would not like me. And no matter what I did to puff myself up, I ended up still being me.

Slowly, I have learned to let go of my fear of rejection and just get on with my life. It’s not really my business what others think of me anyway–all I can do is be a good person according to my most deeply held beliefs and hope for the best. And if someone doesn’t like me, it isn’t simply a case of that person being an asshole. He or she has a point of view, and I can glean some meaning and value from that–although my conclusions may run counter to that person’s intent. Turns out the world is not sexist, homophobic, or pro-skinny unless I believe it is. And I am not the freak I always thought I was. Once the spell is broken, I can easily find some hope and move the hell on.

I was so fortunate to be born part of so many “Others:” it has taught me to always work to be circumspect and compassionate. I may not directly know what it is like to be the object of racism, but I sure as hell can identify with the shock, the hurt, and the anger it engenders. I may have the use of all my limbs, but all I have to do is struggle with an object designed for someone 6 inches taller to gain an inkling of what it’s like to be excluded. I have very little experience being an ultra-conservative Christian in the middle of liberal territory, but I can certainly see the isolation that could evoke. It sounds strange to say it, but my believing I was an Other has helped me in my design, art , and teaching. Immensely.

The biggest irony is that every single person out there can feel like the Other in one way or another. We have a choice to make: either we can hide behind trappings we acquire or we can work with what we’ve got at hand. It’s not that huge a leap once the fever of fear passes and we are left dazzled by the morning sun. 

*The pronoun game: never specifying the gender of the people with whom you’re hanging out.

My partner Jen is 5 and a half months into her pregnancy and I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of our daughter. I have to admit when we learned she had gotten pregnant, I had this flash of terror that my career, for which I had worked so hard, was over. It was going to be subsumed by diapers and play dates and burping, I was going to lose all touch with who I was, the whole bit. I rode out a few little waves of aftershock for the next couple of hours as I got my head around the idea and became more and more overjoyed with the news.

It all got me to thinking, and then I happened upon Tina Roth Eisenberg: The Power of Side Projects and Eccentric Aunts, a talk given by Swiss Miss earlier this year. In it, she speaks about using the births of her children as inspiration for her work. She said that when each of her children were born, she used it as an opportunity to reassess and evaluate her life and career. She has used their births as catalysts for major life changes.

How my child’s arrival can change me for the better

I see the impending birth of my daughter as an opportunity to leave behind the last remnants of my wilderness years, when I just looked out for me. The things that have slowed me down at times–my goofing off, my self-indulgence–will have to take a back seat to parenting, there are no ands, ifs, or buts about that.

• I get to learn what my priorities actually are in the face of exhaustion and amazing, never-before-experienced love
• I get to work with my partner to figure out how to parent, thereby growing all the closer to her.
• I get to learn how to balance work and family… I have never had a balance like that before. I’ve always just lived to work.

How I am preparing myself for motherhood

I haven’t been reading the manuals and such as much as I would like, but I have been cleaning house on a personal level.

• I have been reestablishing friendships with people I love so I can introduce my daughter to those I think most of. 
• I’ve been purging all kinds of crap I have held onto for years. 
• I’ve been working to be a better family member both to my own fam and to that of my partner–I am part of a larger whole now, got to get better at being a reliable part of it.
• I’ve completed several projects that I had put on the back burner and tried to establish some key contacts in the industry. I need to be the designer I have only dreamed of being before.
• I have tried to go through my client list and pare off any that expect me to be on call 24/7.
• I have tried to pick up some key good habits like working efficiently. Normally, I tend to dawdle a bit…

How having children will make my career more meaningful

I think of my mom, who raised three of us in the backwoods of Virginia. She was amazing: despite the fact that we were poor, she always made sure we were well taken care of. No matter what, she also always held onto her dreams: she fought hard to always own horses, even if she had to buy them from the meat-market guy. I grew up riding beside her on my very own pony–I cannot complain about my childhood at all. Instead of feeling neglected when my mom worked with her horses, I felt proud of her. 

• By making sure my work life means something to me, I will be in a position to enrich my child’s life immensely. My mom shared her passion with us and taught us so much in the process.
• By having a healthy sense of perspective, I’ll be all the more effective at work. Instead of getting wrapped up in the academic drama, I will do what I need to do and get the hell home.
• I’ll not be as tempted to take on too much at work, leaving my focus clear and concentrated.
• I get to set an example for my children using my career as teaching material.

How has having children enriched your life?

Think of this as a primer for the novice designer and a call back to arms for the experienced art director. 

For those of you unfamiliar with design work, there are different chunks to be done. There is the high-level thinking where you come up with ideas, there is sketching where you develop your ideas visually, and finally there is production, where most of the thinking has already been done and all you do is implement the design. In general, production is viewed as the least challenging from a design point of view, and it usually falls upon the lower-level employees to complete it. For the most part, I call the routine, lower-level stuff bread-and-butter work as it puts a lot of food on the table.

I used to work in a small agency where I handled all of the interaction design. Occasionally, I had access to interns who could do the grunt work for me, and certainly, these were respites from the crush of jobs. I started to think that perhaps I needed to find a position where I would never be asked to perform the less glamorous tasks, where I would only be given the high-end design ideation. I thought about it, though–basically, the grunt work is what taught me whole swaths of my marketable skills, so I need it to continue growing as a designer.

The work may be rote, but you can use it as an opportunity to grow.

I remember my first real design job, at Agency.com. I knew next to nothing about design, but I was young, eager, and willing to learn. I was immediately given gobs of production work to perform: re-coloring buttons, applying templates, and archiving old files. I soaked it all up and learned at an exponential rate. Wax on, wax off! These little repeated gestures eventually teach us steps to entire dances! I still use production work as an opportunity to master new skills. Also, I have had to learn that the job of graphic designer can’t be all bubbles and puppies. It entails loads of hard, repetitive tasks. Even this far into my career, I have to be willing to do the grunt work. 

If you lose touch with the overall process, you risk losing touch with the work entirely.

Nothing within the process of design should be below you. You can’t afford that kind of snobbery. Take interaction design, for instance: things change constantly, technology advances, styles age and wither. I have never been able to claim programming as being a huge skill, but I dabble as much as I possibly can because it informs my design intimately. I try to build at least some of the sites I design because it teaches me what is possible and what is to be avoided. Programming is not grunt work by any means, but there is an intersection between programming and design where all there is to do is production. If I do not stay informed about what is new with HTML, CSS, and Javascript, I lose touch with what I can do with my design. If I don’t learn how programmers implement my designs, I am going into projects blind. I will make bad decisions that will cost my client and eventually myself. The same applies to every type of design, be it print, installation or screen.

You have to establish your own level of excellence, and that should become your everyday standard.

No matter how small the gig, every client deserves my very best work. Now that I am a freelancer, I am responsible for every step of the design process. I have never grown so much as a designer as I have since leaving the office-jockey life. I have had to teach myself how to do everything better than I ever did before because it’s my reputation on the line. I wish I could say I held myself as strictly to an ideal of excellence when I was an employee, but it’s simply not true. I worked very hard, but if I didn’t agree with the art direction, I could let things slide. I had a little maturing to do, obviously… So all I can say is I now have a base-line standard, and it is higher than I ever knew I could maintain.

I cross all my t’s and dot all my i’s because I love what I do. Or maybe I love what I do because I craft each detail as carefully as I can. I don’t know, but whatever, it’s working.

Since becoming a design instructor, I have become a better designer. And amidst all of this, I have become a much better artist. I am incredibly lucky to be caught in this particular upward spiral, and I hope to help others find their own cycle of growth through teaching and writing.

I started out as a fine artist, specifically a printmaker. My work was diaristic in nature, a lot of pictorial navel-gazing. Nothing much remarkable happened until I got to grad school and switched unexpectedly (involuntarily, even) to graphic design. All of a sudden, I had to confront and examine all these presuppositions I held about the act of cultural production. Here are a few I have successfully unraveled:

You have to be obscure to have street cred

I had always seen myself operating on the fringes of society, speaking to a select few. In the graphic design department at school, the designers were all striving to reach entire strata of the general population. Speaking to the mainstream in any way seemed like an immediate loss of credibility to me. It took a while for me to finally see that the point of creating work should be inclusiveness. I had this moment of revelation when I realized I could strive to bring the very best work to as many people as possible and still be a relevant creator. I’d been an elitest snob for years and hadn’t even known it. 

Graphic designers are sell-outs

I thought that graphic designers were all sell-outs, using their creative powers only for monetary gain. This was a hard idea to unlearn–there is no denying that designers work for clients a lot of the time, and sometimes for unsavory ones. Such is the nature of making a living: you occasionally have to do something unpleasant or even counter to your ideals. I just had to do a little growing up to start to see how wrong this idea really was, there was no short way around it. Graphic designers (including myself) are here to help clients formulate and broadcast their message to select audiences with panache and circumspection.

If a client wants to lie or cheat his audience through your work, you can turn him down or walk away. If you can’t get away immediately, start looking for a new job with a better agency. No matter your situation, your ethics can guide you in making the best work you can. Certainly, I have done my share of unsavory bread-and-butter work, but over the years I have structured my life so I can curate the jobs I take carefully.

It’s fame or failure

I assumed I’d either become famous or die trying for a very long time. I assumed there was no point to being an artist unless you were showing in MOMA. I secretly dreamed of becoming the next art rock star, taking the Whitney Biennial by storm. I had no real conception of what making a living as an artist really meant. I got a pretty clear picture once I moved to Brooklyn and tried to keep my art practice alive amidst all the jobs I had to work to keep food on the table. I eventually had to choose between art materials and rent, and I chose to keep the roof over my head. Once this happened, I felt like a failure and my art practice ground to a halt.

What came to the rescue? Graphic Design! It was how I was able to get on my feet financially. It taught me how to work consistently and finish projects. It taught me how to ideate well past the clichés. It taught me how to use a computer, how to build a website, how to break down a project into manageable chunks. In essence, it kept my creativity alive for the years in the wilderness, when I thought all was lost from an artistic point of view. It was also the context in which I became a full-fledged adult, and as such I am eternally grateful to the entire discipline. 

Typography is easy

Holy cow, did this belief have to go. I thought there was nothing to it, you just grab whatever font is on the computer and have at it. It didn’t take long for my fellow designers to point out that my work was nearly unreadable. Luckily, I had learned about letterpress typesetting while I was training as a printmaker. I dug up my notes and started to realize that setting type is this lovely artform, and it can be performed with compassion and grace. I love type, I love letterforms, and now I can safely say I love typography. I view the act of setting type well as activism: facilitating the transmission of a message to audiences with the finesse it needs to ring brightly is a task to be performed with honor.

All in all, I have learned a great deal from Graphic Design and its practitioners over the last 12 years. I now proudly count myself as a designer myself, one who can constantly improve if I keep an open mind. That has been the biggest gift of all from Design: I am now aware of and responsible for my own perspective. It is up to me to get off my ass, own my real motives, and finally to assess the situation with a little wisdom. You know what taught me that? The design process. Working with clients. Taking a problem apart and finding out what possible solutions exist. 

I mentioned earlier that I am grateful, and I’d like to end on that note as well. My life is enormously improved, my career is taking off, and my artwork is bubbling happily along, all because I stumbled into a profession upon which I once looked down. I feel very, very lucky that I ended up where I did all those years ago.

What mindsets have you had to unlearn as you have established your career path?