Drawing Sickness

I’ve been suffering from an affliction that seems to affect a number of people I know. If I’m full of energy about a particular project, then I’ll wish to devote lots of time to getting it underway.

The problem is that when I spend more than a certain amount of time working on a new design, I get slapped with a stupid stick. I lose any ability to make sensible judgement about what is good and bad. The only solution seems to be to walk away and lose interest for a while.

I’ve spoken to people who suffer from this with painting or writing, and I’ve always summoned the appropriate amount of sympathy while not quite understanding what all the fuss was about. OK, I get it now!

I’m really hoping that when I get home tonight I’ll have regained an objective eye, but right now I honestly have no idea if I’m going home to a work or art or a kid’s crayon drawing.

Posted:

May 22, 2006 @ 12:10

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Design

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5 comments so far

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  1. If it turns out to be a crayon drawing, we’ll pin it to the fridge.

    Seriously, I think all people in creative jobs risk being blinded by their subjectivity. To make matters worse, they spend so long focusing on the same project they losing any kind of artistic judgement they might have had in the first place. This is one of the reasons I think it is important to be honest and frank, even brutal when giving others feedback.

    When you’re too close to see the quality of your work, you’ve got to have friends and colleagues who can either give you honest feedback or keep you down the pub long enough to look at your latest project with fresh (if beer fuelled) eyes.

    Fancy a pint?

    Comment by Grace, May 25, 2006 @ 11:22 am

  2. I like that – a concrete solution. I’ll have to get a sixpack to keep next to the photoshop box.

    Comment by Oli, May 25, 2006 @ 12:59 pm

  3. Hey Oli, great to see you have this project up and running! Re: ‘Making a judgement on what is good and what is bad design’….. welcome to our world ;-) evey day i ask myself this x1000 times. Design can be massively self indulgent/gratifying/a right-royal-pain-in-the-ass. When working on your own projects it is generally the latter! I guess that as long as the information you’re presenting is clear and the ‘feel’ of the design represents what you want then that’s good enough…you’ll never please everyone. If it all gets too much stare out of the window at the blue sky and green trees …..it’s only design. Nice site by the way…what’s the icon in your logo signify?

    Comment by david, July 11, 2006 @ 10:15 am

  4. I guess I’ve found it strange how you can see something completely differently after sleeping on it and going back to the pc. It’s weird to not really know what to expect when you switch the monitor on.

    I’m not sure how to answer about the icon without sounding pretentious, but I’ll try :)

    I love how japanese typography is an artform, but also something functional. I’m very interested in this balance, and how to produce practical and efficient technology while paying attention to design and emotional content.

    I didn’t want this to be blatant, so made an abstract symbol roughly based on katakana, as this is used when writing about foreign words or objects (and I am!). Hopefully this doesn’t come across as trashy and cheap…

    Comment by Oli, July 11, 2006 @ 11:45 am

  5. you closet designer :-)

    Comment by David, July 20, 2006 @ 10:37 am

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