consumerized, corporate, and grey

I am a designer? Right?

Formally there really is no question, I have a degree in Graphic Interactive Design (or whatever fancy words are on the slip of paper) so of course I am, by trade, a designer. Yet there exists this conflict inside me, am I really a designer?

I’ve grown to hate the world of graphic design. 

Consumerized, Corporate, and Grey.

Everything about my education in the design world up until now has become this: Who makes the best logos? Who has the best rates? Who runs the best side-hustle? Who has the most clients? Who has the largest online presence? Who can etch the values of the corporate world into their hearts best and will make it the furthest in said world.

I’ve only ever enjoyed making designs in the interest of self service, making love letters to hobbies or pieces of media I’ve grown attached to. I feel dislocated from it all, while peers celebrate visiting designers or lectures where we learn about studios, client work, and brand initiatives.

The most comfortable I’ve felt since joining this field is with a pen and paper. I still love the concept of graphic design, I love the type, colors, layouts and more created by others. Rather than seeing it as for the purpose of monetary gain, I enjoy it more as art than I do as communication. I enjoy hearing the unique problem solving and solutions a designer has come up with, yet I hate the systems and clients the solutions were made for. 

I am a hypocrite, but we’re all sometimes hypocritical I guess.

I’ve enjoyed the many writings I have made about the design field before; talking about movements, aesthetics, or how we can do better in the design field. I’ve also written a lot about education and pedagogy, exploring how to foster better environments for students while showing them alternatives from a system hell bent into turning them into a product.

I just love reading and learning, then writing about what I’ve read and learned, in hopes of communicating an idea to others. That doesn't just extend to the design and education topics I’ve addressed, instead, I love to write about much more than that. 

Inside me I begin to wonder whether I’m slipping away from Graphic Design as part of who I am.

I wonder if that’s okay, if I can be an educator in the design field while simultaneously viewing the field this way.

I wonder if I am allowed to talk about things outside of this bubble. Is it okay to simply address freedom, with no intention of tackling some great design issue?

I wonder if any of these feelings are valid. Am I simply acting alone in some self service that society will view as incorrect.

It takes a lot to get these feelings in check, with a half confident grin I tell myself what I am doing is valid, that the problems lie in the systems around me. After a heavy wave of these anxious thoughts, I look back at my paper. My mouth feels dry; I sip some water. 

Once again, without much inner thought, my fingers slide across the keys in a monotonous yet infatuating rhythm.

The original name for this writing before I started was “I just want to write.” That surely is an understatement, I thought maybe that having a writing semester would free me from the chains of needing to make. In my mind, maybe it was possible I would begin to make again without these pressures. 

I think I was wrong. I simply don’t feel the need to make. 

Making feels like it needs to be for something. 

That I need to have some grandiose content or idea to push forward, whether for a client or as activist work or anything. Without that pressure telling me to make, staring at a canvas feels empty. I don’t want to work without meaning, I’d rather be reading, playing a game, hanging out at a coffee shop, writing, or really any other activity that I naturally lean towards when I have spare free time.

This ties in a lot with how I view the field and hustle culture. The need to grind and work outside of office hours is ingrained into society like an ancient curse mark. Since making design has become such a consumerized idea, design has become a system of work for us. To make design feels like work because of that.

What does design freedom look like?

Can you truly be a graphic designer and make only for yourself?

Will it ever not feel like work?

Am I a writer? Am I a Graphic Designer? Am I a Design Writer? Am I a creator? Am I an artist? Am I something else entirely?

These labels don’t matter in the end, but I want to figure out who I am in this world, how I can fit into the puzzle while preserving my own identity and beliefs.

Reading my writing back, I realize the amount of damage that growing up in this system has done. To me, to my life, to my career, to my dreams. The amount of doubt and confusion it has sowed into my life, making living while maintaining these ideals feel like an insurmountable mountain. Lucky for me, I already started learning how to climb. I have the tools and thoughts available to me to find an answer, I just know it’s going to take a lot of time to get there.