Stop overthinking the logo.

One of the best parts about working with businesses to design their logo, brand and identity is taking part in the big picture. Often many people are pretty short sighted and think that getting an awesome logo will fix their issues and it is all up hill from there. But that is often, as many of us know, just not the case.

Something that as creatives, we often struggle with finishing. I published a blog earlier about why perfectionism is killing you. But this theme often has big implications in the quality of the product. We struggle with completing a job and saying that it is indeed "finished". This constant fear is what keeps us back from growing and essentially getting more (and important) work.

The constant need to nitpick, change kerning, colors, types, adjustments here and there in order to make it perfect. But this over-analyzation is not what is important.

One of the most recognizable logos on the planet is the Nike Swoosh. That icon can be seen around the world and even if some pretty far off corners and everyone still knows what it stands for. But the question I often ask is. "Can I (or you) make that?"

Am I able to make a logo like that. Now there is nothing incredible special about the check mark. Is the check mark so good that it helps Nike sell billions of dollars of product? Sure, a solid logo always helps. But is it the only reason they are so successful? Surely not.

Many designers are perfectly capable of drawing the swoosh or coming to a similar solution. It is not, technically speaking, a difficult logo to create. Nothing that makes the mark inherently impossible at a skill level for someone to come up with it.

The power of a mark is often found on the other end of things. The business and marketing aspect of what makes the company great. Does the company tell amazing stories? Offer incredible value? Impeccable customer service? Top of the line products? Etc etc. These are the things that make a company great and in turn make the logo have value.

This is why I encourage many designers to finish. If you have any chops you are able to make a good logo. Now, will it become as powerful and well known as the swoosh? That is up to the company and how they use the mark. Plenty of businesses are started every day and have fantastic logos. But poor execution and a million other reasons dooms them for failure.

This type of thinking leaves us designers open to be more valuable if we have the know how to help those companies get the most usage out of their identity. This valuable relationship helps us become more then just pixel pushers.

It doesn't need to be perfect, don't overthink something that just needs to be good enough.

Perfectionism is killing you.

I always thought that with my creative projects that I was a "perfectionist". That everything had to be just right in order for me to call the project finished. Embracing it as some kind of quirky creative character flaw that seems to follow most people in this community.

As I started growing in my understanding of self, I found out that this perfectionism was killing my growth and was simply an excuse to not ever finish work and start more.

Perfectionism is fear.

I will draw this example to show you what I mean. Let us take a fine art piece I begin working on. I start getting to the fine tuning end of the project, the final details so to speak. I used to not be able to stop picking at it and call it "done". Tons of creative artists never "finish" projects. When you call a project finished, that means that it is open to review...open to criticism. Most of our egos are pretty fragile and we like to keep it as safe as possible.

By not ever finishing anything and when we run into criticism, we can simply say, "Well it isnt finished yet...." This protects our ego's from the stones of opinion that get tossed at our work. Work that often we pour differentiated levels of ourselves into. The ol' blood, sweat and tears.

We want to take this thing that we have created and protect it...protecting ourselves from the reality of what other people think.

This inability to deal with 3rd part influences or criticism keeps our growth at bay, from truly tapping into something great that we have to offer our community.

It is our duty to finish our work, whatever it may be. Mark it and label it as finished, that way we can send it off into the world for further review. Maybe everyone hates it but then again..what if they don't? Often times, the success is more daunting than the failure, since failure is often expected and success isn't.

Finishing work lets you get started on more and repeat the cycle. Increasing your chance of finding something that is worth doing, something that matters.

Stop making it perfect and finish it.

Self improvement is a life long journey that requires daily labor.

Every creative person has some kind of process they go through when they start doing a project. Some are super organized others are utter chaos. Most of us seem to fall in the middle somewhere when it comes to the process.

One thing that would help me become a better designer is organizing my chaos better and having a more direct plan of attack. Documenting how I got to where I ended up and my reasoning as to why I made certain decisions along the way. It is helpful to document this for future employers, clients or even just self criticism in hopes of self refinement

I tend to start on paper, lots of sketches, wire-frames, ligatures or whatever it may be that I am working on. Lists, maybe some words, phrases etc that will be helpful in my development. I do tend to get distracted a little bit at this point. Using your hands to create allows for so many different looks, the possibilities are endless. So to go off on tangents and exploring looks that upon a stricter self criticism would prove to be pointless, can certainly be a better usage of your time. So make sure you audit yourself to know where you can be most and least productive at teach stage of development.

Just the same when I get to a computer...I try to be almost too thorough. Exploring typefaces that often have no business even being explored. Just to say I was thorough in my exploration. Again wasting time in favor of finding some pile of gold in a giant pile of garbage.

When I finally have a typeface or look decided this is where I really start to make some moves. I find that I can make different ligatures, spacing, angles, cuts etc etc to quickly develop a mark or layout into something that by this part only needs refinement.

So somewhere from the beginning to the middle is in need of refinement. I tend to get a bit scattered brained in my direction, the scope is a bit too wide. If I could become a bit more organized in my process, I could do better and faster work.

between each of these steps I tend to just toss my process out. Old sketches, or major breakthrough. I will delete the beginning stuff simply because it does not look good in favor of the finished product that looks great. Which ultimately ignores how you got there. Sometimes the process is the most important part.

Self audit yourself and process. To each their own but knowing your strengths and weaknesses is great insight. It is not wise to recognize character flaws and issues and just ignore them...or worse...except them simply as what makes you unique.

Self improvement is a life long journey that requires daily labor.

A regret of mine.

One of my biggest regrets in my search for knowledge and growth in design is the lack of time spent doing work growing up and in college and not taking more internships.

The amount of time that I had to be able to work on my skills and crafts seems endless when compared to the amount of time that I have now. Hindsight...honestly it seems like it is all the time in the world way back when. Little responsibilities to my name and so many more extra hours in the day to spend time learning something, anything! Could have learned more coding, worked on my hand lettering.....and especially work more on my typesetting/layouts skills. Typesetting being one of those kills that no matter how good you get, you always feel like you have so much left to learn.

Also the lack of taking on more internships would have helped me immensely with garnering real world experience before I even entered the workforce. Being able to learn the real ins and outs of the business side of things and how it works with the creative side of things. Real life problems and how to solve them, how to interact with employees/bosses and management. Let alone all I could have learned in design from working professionals. Talk about pissing away opportunity.

There is much to learn and much to do yet. Take advantage of the resources that you have available. Especially if you are young, you have so much time. You can run well on little sleep, eat ramen to get you through....and put in the time.

If I could go back....the one thing I would change is putting in more work...more late nights and early days. Put in the work while you can!

Make better Photoshop selections.

One thing that has really pushed my photo editing and manipulation game to the next level is my ability to select exactly what I want and need.

Those little "marching ants" is what is keep you back from some exemplary work. Even with the best typographical, composition, color theory and illustration skills. If you are making crap selections for your photography then it will painfully show through.

A lot of young designers do not put enough practice into selections simply because it is hard and tedious. Do not get me wrong, it sure can be. Understanding photo resolution, how the selection lines interact with the pixels, how to adjust your feathering, which tools are used to create the best selections needs etc. It can be pretty daunting for a newbie, let alone someone who has been at it for awhile. But with many hours of practice it is well worth the pay off.

The basic selection tools are a great way to get started. Practicing with how everything interacts with one another will help you build a quality foundation. Just getting good at those is an accomplishment.

If you want to step up your game you can learn how to use layer masks. I used masks for awhile but I found it bothersome and lacking the exactitude that I wanted and needed. At least for my liking. So i ditched that for the tried and true pen tool.

Being able to control exactly where the pen line goes has helped me create perfect selections for any type of editing need.

I cannot stress taking the time to learn the pen tool, how to use the anchors and get your ants marching just right.

But maybe you like the other tools better, maybe you have a way that is different then my own. That is wonderful. Whatever you find yourself enjoying the most is the best tool for the job.

Make amazing selections and do some beautiful edits.

Discipline > Inspiration

There is an ongoing pervasive trend throughout any community which requires hard work. This idea of constant need for inspiration and motivation.

Now, do not get me wrong. I am not here to say that these two things are not vital in our search for well, anything. But I am finding that many people are using these two ideas as the foundation for where they build their house.

Much of the life lessons that I have learned from have come from either my studies of art and design or from the world of sports and performance. Many have built some kind of false dichotomy between these two. That they are incompatible and offer little to know understanding between the two. But I would like to humbly disagree. The people tend to be pretty polarizing and at face value of no use to one another. There is so much more to the two groups then what we like to believe.

One of the major ways that these communities are almost exactly alike is their use of motivation, inspiration and discipline.

Social media is overwhelmed with every piece of content available to us through every available platform, absolutely chalk filled with motivational pieces; photo's, quotes, videos, blog posts and everything else. Some can light a fire so hot under your ass that you feel like you can jump over mountains. It can be pretty sickening and almost nauseating at all of it.

This being said in full understanding that we are all in different places in life, that we all require different things at various stages in our lives. Which is super important to understand. But I continue to say this,

Inspiration sucks it isn't your friend and often will get you no where.

Discipline is what drives the engines, which keeps you going even when gas is on E. Everyone that I try to learn from in my studies has overwhelmingly one thing in common. It is simply that they do not rely on motivation as their foundation.

We have got it backwards. Lets take a look at building a fire.

You start with small flammable pieces of wood/paper/etc, things that can get caught on fire easily. Like a match. We all know how fast a match can burn out tho, almost just as fast as it was lit. We have to quickly add other things to it, building up volume and mass for the fire to catch till we are slowly adding branches, then cut up limbs then eventually logs.

These types of fires are the ones that burn all night or even longer. Just like our own work capacity, we want to be able to burn for a long time.

The beautiful thing about these types of fires is that even the morning after and all you are left with is coals. These warm coals can be quickly turned back into a fire with some oxygen. Add some small pieces and you are back in business.

Just like anything we work super hard for in life. You need a strong base of discipline. Something that you work at and practice daily. That way if the flames ever go out or you are in fear of them doing so. All you have to do is add some inspiration (oxygen) and you are back at.

All to often people start something with just a match. They don't add anything more. There is no substance to back it up, nothing left to burn once the motivation is gone. People hit a cycle of striking another match just to have that burn out too. Rinse and repeat for any major goal.

Add to your spark and make it a glorious blaze. That way even in you darkest, laziest, uninspired moments you can find solace in being able to add a touch of motivation to send it ablaze once again.

Teaching as a way to learn.

One of my favorite ways to learn anything I find myself not doing as much as I should.

Teach someone who wants to learn what you know.

Every time I give someone Photoshop lessons I find myself constantly reminding and remembering tricks, tips, even basic fundamentals that I often overlook. The ability to take what is in your head and put it in a way someone else can understand, is one of the best ways that I can think of for ingraining information.

I will use my Photoshop example.

When I am working by myself on a project you sometimes enter this autopilot mode...where you just go through the motions, plugging away at keys and clicking the mouse till something resembling progress shows up your screen. When people have watched me work some describe it as almost robotic. Knowing what each key does, the fastest way to do things, running scripts etc etc.

While all of these things are good, I often find myself getting ahead of myself. Skipping steps or moving things around or even adding things that shouldn't even be there in the first place.

Breaking something down as complicated as Photoshop into small understandable bits helps me constantly ingrain better habits. A couple things that I am always relearning each time I give lessons.

• Do not just rush into the program with an idea to begin with, start with paper and create lots of ideas.
• Be organized! Label your layers, put them in proper groups and order so you know exactly what each layer is for.
• They give you an awesome grid for a reason. Use it to balance designs. (I find myself taking for granted my eye instead of using grids) Which ends up taking less time and is often better balanced anyway.
• Use more shortcut keys, learn them all.
• Ctr+S saves lives, tap it more.
• Make a back up.
• Make a back up to the back up.
• No not on a thumb drive.
• Rulers are your friends
• Keep originals of photography and of large edits.
• Learn the pen tool, practice and master it.

These are only a small list of the things that constantly go through my mind. This is just the technical stuff too. This doesn't even touch on the the basic and fundamental design Gestalt theory.

Whether you are learning a sport, a program, a new skill anything at all. Trying and teach whatever you have learned to someone else. It will only make you stronger at that skill.

Helping myself

There has been one thing that has helped me the most in my search for growth as a designer. It is pretty simple

Do more work and make it public.

I always thought that I was a perfectionist growing up. That I did such little amounts of pieces and work because I always wanted it to be perfect. But in the recent years I have learned that that is a bunch of crap.

I was and am.... scared.

When I was younger my sketchbook was always filled with finished pieces mostly and not ideas. It was filled with things that I would be proud to show people if they thumbed through my book. I was scared to have anyone look at stuff that wasn't good, that wasn't finished and that didn't show my skills. There was some kind of irrational fear that showed itself as perfectionism. 

There was a moment where I became a bit more self aware about my own growth as a person and designer. I was stagnant and boring...there was nothing being added and I professionally suffered for it (hell even personally).

So I decided to do more work...and show people. I made a online portfolio and an Instagram account along with some other platforms to showcase my work. It forces me to continually do more work, practicing, trying new ideas trying to better myself. But most importantly I have it public. For all eyes to see, to judge, to like, to not like..to comment etc etc.

This helps to keep me honest. To slowly build a body of work that represents who I am as a designer and person.

Hopefully this lesson doesn't come too late for me. Hopefully any damage done can slowly be mended as I try to "Quiet the lizard brain." Seth Godin. And do my best to be proud of my work.

So my tip to anyone out there. Do more work....and show it.