I hate being the first designer in a company.
I skimmed through the list of startup designer characteristics by Paul Stamatiouhoping to find something that I could confidently say, nope, that’s not me! and yet I find myself saying, shit, that is me af. Not because I want to be, but because this is the kind of work I found myself doing.
Often times I find myself having to value speed and pragmatism over going deep in the craft because that’s what the project demands of me. I absolutely crave going deep. I have to spend extra hours of my weekend to itch this craving, doing work over the weekends and labeling it as ‘fun creative experimentation’. It’s not fun creative work to me because I’m prompted by work. I don’t like the idea of work fuelling my fun or creativity.
But this is also an ongoing issue with my own balance between work and [play](On Play). A lot of my joy comes from exploring new ways to create, and in some ways, those also become a source of income. Art and design used to be something I liked to do for fun, but now it seems that I’ve made it something to do to survive.