Making It In Design

If it’s all about the big break and making it, how do you know when you have made it?

When have you “made it” as a creative pro? When does that magical moment of validation and affirmation occur? Is it the first time you see your work in a national ad campaign? Your first gallery showing? Is “making it” the first step taken down the runway by a waifish model wearing your designs? For industrial designers, is it the prototyping phase, or the first time you sit in a chair you designed? For writers, is it that first byline or the first time you see your book on a store shelf? When, exactly, have you “made it”?

Have I made it? And, if so, when? When I was 14 years old I received my first illustration commission. Did I make it then? When I was nineteen, I first saw my name credited in a magazine as production designer. By age twenty, that credit would become creative director, so maybe that was making it. A few years after that I was a fully self-supported freelance graphic designer. Was my self-sufficiency the yardstick by which I should measure my degree of success? When I founded an agency and took lead on contracts for Time-Warner and Playboy, where did that fit on the yardstick? Was my moment of validation the day I began working for Adobe? If so, then did I “un-make it” when I left to go back to freelance design and to create several of the best known creative industry blogs and Websites? Did I make it as a writer when my first article was published in print? Or maybe, I made it when my first co-author credit appeared in a book? But then, maybe “making it” was the publication of my own first book, which sits alphabetically on bookstore shelves between David Blatner and Sandee Cohen (a humbling place to be). When, exactly, did I make it as a creative professional?

When did you?

The Lessons of Flipping Burgers

Grass is green. Ink smudges. Sugar is sweet. Creatives struggle. You cannot experience the exhiliration of doing something about which you’re passionate without the longing that comes from not doing it.

In addition to all my creative work, I have: flipped burgers and dropped fries, frothed cappucinos, driven a forklift, tended gardens, waited tables (more than once), supervised a 411 call center, delivered newspapers and phonebooks, scrubbed toilets, pierced ears, laid out other people’s resumes, and sold paint, clothes, coffee, and jewelry.

Every one of those activities, humble and uncreative as they are, made me a better creative professional.

Working restaurants you learn how to answer then anticipate customer needs. You also learn how to multi-task and manage projects: Table 3 will need a round of drinks in about five minutes, table 5 needs ketchup, table 7 was just seated, the order for table 13 just came up, and the salt shakers all need to be refilled before the lunch rush. Supervising a 411 call center for a major Southeastern U.S. market I learned about dealing with unhappy customers, how to listen for what was really upsetting them, and how to calm them so a productive discourse may ensue (I also learned how to triage gunshot victims over the phone, but that’s a story for another time). Delivering newspapers or phonebooks piecemeal, you learn to plan, to map out and refine a route for maximum efficiency, and how to make every little action part of getting the job done quickly. Selling—especially jewelry—I proved that selling doesn’t have to be about telling the customer what she wants to hear, that people will buy from an honest salesman. Tending gardens, you learn about patience and the value of experimentation. From just about every one of these so-called straight jobs I learned crucial lessons that made me a better creative, a better constultant, writer, and project manager. Various bosses taught me how to (and how not to) treat people.

Every job will teach you something that you can use as a designer. Thus, every job is part of your training for a design career.

Too much is made of…