I have worked as a digital designer since graduation. Amassing 20 years ago in an industry that has seen my work range from advertising, to products, from small boutique agencies to large global organisations.
To some extent, everyone dreams of what they might do differently. What they would have done if they had had the time again, with more information, and a different approach. What paths would I have taken? And of those choices made, how would I have then executed differently? These are pieces of advice, written to my younger self, at the point where I have just graduated from college. About to start a career, this would be what I would have liked to have known then, along with the bravery to do them. They’re presented in no particular order.
1.0. Talent does not exist.
Early in my career and especially during my design education, I was fixated with the idea that there was some innate ability that some people had and others didn’t. People described this as ‘talent’. Especially in a creative field, talent suggests the idea there are things you are born with, your future is set and that success would be unattainable. Or more accurately, only attainable for those that had it already.
Accompanying this was the constant comparison between yourself and others. That somehow everyone else had the very thing I…
