Do you think your vision/dream of yourself as a well-known designer impacted your attitude as well as your portfolio? I found that the more entitled I felt (about becoming a great designer) the more my character and work suffered. When I was able to humble myself, my work would become more authentic and my personality was much more approachable.

Thank you for the lovely compliments!

When I was in school I had a vision of being a well known or noted designer… not really thinking about the actual type of client I’d have, just that I’d have my own business and would be in demand. About 2-3 years after school I realized that if I wanted the kind of work I enjoy I’d have to direct my portfolio toward it and specialize. I’m about 4.5 years into “specializing” in illustration and design for children’s products and while I’m glad I did, now I’m heading the other direction and trying to diversify for broader freelance work again.

Great blog, great work and amazing writing about design!

Sounds like you have a really interesting and varied background. I wish that I had more time in school to pursue areas other than design like printmaking, life-drawing, and photography. I have the design fundamentals and am now trying to apply them to other areas, which I’m finding a little difficult. Sometimes I let myself get caught up by the fact that I may not initially know how to do something. You might have a leg up on a lot of designers who don’t have a broad range of media to choose from when they approach projects.

I wish I had put more effort in becoming a better drawer, as my illustration skills are really weak. Because my curriculum focused so heavily on drawing from observation, I have a really hard time drawing something not from observation, specifically on initial concept sketches.

Another thing I’ve realized recently about myself is that almost all of my personal project ideas are skewed towards fine art rather than problem solving. The only difference is the end product; instead of making a painting, I design a website. Because a lot of my personal projects focus on exploring social interactions, I usually end up with some sort of interactive space for users with the most obvious solution being a website. I try and convince myself that it’s the ideas that count, and rationalize that with relatively successful projects posted on design blogs that have a really simple design, Clients From Hell being one of them. I guess I think that if I have a cool idea but actually put some time in working on a custom site rather than a Tumblr template, something might amount from it. Who knows, though.

Looking at the larger picture, sometimes I feel like a fine artist with a designer’s toolkit, which isn’t really the best position to be in.