zfaust
change my identity by dragging the items onto my body
Designing Without a Community.
Can someone be a designer without a design community?
I ask myself that everyday. I know what the answer is. I’ve lived both sides of the argument and unfortunately I think I already know the answer I prefer.
It doesn’t mean I’m right. And it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. But at the end of the day I still feel wrong for questioning it.
I long for community. I love the concept of it. The idea of being a villager makes me feel warm inside.
That is, until, I’m within a space of my peers. Then I feel my skin start to crawl, my focus goes elsewhere, and I desire to be alone again.
Whenever I see my colleagues, coworkers, and other designers marveling at the sight of posters, fonts, books, ephemera, etc I don't feel the same passion as they do. That same enthusiasm. I see their eyes light up with gusto. At everything. No matter what it is they find something positive and electrifying.
I know when I like something and I know when something is an objectively good piece, but I'm not compelled by the higher presence like they are. I feel bad questioning them, but are they faking it? What do they see, what do they feel that I don’t?
I see them inspect every piece at a museum, do deep dives on are.na, and reference the obscure. Unable to relate I just nod my head and smile in agreement.
Maybe my brain is rotted. Or maybe I just lost touch with my designerly self. But if so, then how do I get that back?
Did designers always feel in love with their profession? Did they always have this sort of community?
Did the printers from centuries ago gasp when they saw a specimen for a new typeface? Did the illuminators locked in a monastery freak out when they caught glimpse of another monks work? And how the hell did the lithograph printers feel when they saw a print with more colors and textures than they could ever imagine using?
More importantly, did they even observe the works of others outside of their communities? Did they have access to that?
Whenever I think about my purpose as a designer I reflect on the sign painter who owned a shop near the library where I used to work. Day in and day out his sole job was to letter anything and everything. Every time I passed his shop he’d be painting. And in the following weeks I’d see his work somewhere in the county.
Eventually I found the opportunity at work to hire him for a project. Eager to talk with him and learn about his career, I counted down the days.
When we finally met, I learned, quite matter of factly, that this was just a job to him. And nothing more. He learned the trade, got good at it, and that was that. He never desired to be in a gallery. He never took his work more seriously than what it was. And he always did an excellent job at providing his clients with exactly what they wanted.
He was an important facet of the community, but he didn’t see himself that way. He talked with his neighbors, kept his property clean, paid his taxes, and frequented community events in his neighborhood.
He never went to AIGA meetings, rarely talked to other sign painters, and didn’t fascinate over his career.
Having met someone who I feel like I relate to in this way, why do I feel guilty?
Maybe because I live in New York, and I feel like I’m squandering opportunities that others would die for. Maybe because I feel like most people in my life don’t feel the same way as I do.
But why does that matter to me?
There was a moment when I was alone as a designer. I moved out of Philly, and away from my design community. And for the most part I loved it. I was afforded a space where I could breath, and take a step back from thinking about design.
I could step away from my laptop and refocus on other things I wanted to explore. I learned that I could be creative in other ways. I could express myself through cooking, drawing (without a creative brief), weaving, writing, and dancing. I had time for hobbies and I could have conversations that revolved around them instead of work. I started to break free from the idea of having to monetize everything I did, because I could afford not to have to think that way.
Life felt grand. It felt purposeful, but in ways I didn’t think they could.
But it came with a trade-off. I started to lose my purpose as a designer. I quickly filled it with many more projects, many more jobs searching for purpose in that. I made it complicated.
And now I’m in this space where everything feels confusing.