This is a series of very short films from some of the top creative minds of our day (such as Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Wolff etc.) on surmounting the fear of failure. This was originally put together by the students of the Berghs School Of Communication in Sweden and I assume they did this because it’s a subject that worries every student.
The fact that other designers feel like this, even successful designers such as Stefan Sagmeister provides some comfort to myself. I always feel like once i become a better designer, once i get a placement etc. I will feel confident as a designer. However, i don’t think this will ever happen. I think no matter what i do i will be afraid of failing and I won’t ever think of myself as a good designer. The fear of failure is something i have struggled alot with over this last year. I am always desperate to do better in my work, and sometimes my passion for graphic design doesn’t always translate it my work. This is because I am fairly new in the graphic design world and i have a long way to go yet and alot to learn.
Milton Glaser provided an interesting insight into success and failure. He said “to be successful you have to create a brand, you become a specialist” to get here you have to “demonstrate you have something unique and that you can do it over and over and over and over again until you lose interest. Until the point at which it hurts you”. By hurt he means we will never develop or learn anything from being successful and surely as designers we always want to be growing and learning so that we become better designers. He ended by saying “embrace failure”. This is something I need to bare in mind when i leave university for the working world. I will not get everything right straight away. If I fail I will learn more and this will make me a better designer.
Another quote which i will remember from this series was a quote by Stefan Sagmeister. He said “If you do not start it now you will not start it later”. This is a quote every design student should remind themselves of regularly. I am one of those people who leaves jobs right until the last minute when I am forced to work under pressure. I work well this way but it is not always the best way of working in terms of design. Good design should not be rushed.
1 comment:
It is true, good design should not be rushed. But in a commercial environment there are strains that means there is always urgency - to do with time based deadlines and budgetary constraints... in which dealing with comes with practise.
The creative director I work with recently said to me "embrace the fear" as I was worrying about time constraints on a recent project and me feeling like I wasn't 'nailing it' But that fear of failure has to be turned around, embraced and thrived upon.
Failure is part of the job, as long as you learn from your mistakes it will make you better, quicker and a more intelligent designer.
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