What’s it all for, anyway?

Posted by Ezekiel Bruni on March 5th, 2007.

Ezekiel Bruni is a seventeen-year old Canadian web designer, currently located in Mexico. Aside from design, he likes books, poetry, music, and good food.

http://

Ezekiel Bruni has posted 7 articles.

RSS Feed for fadtastic.net RSS Feed for Ezekiel Bruni

Full Profile →

I was talking to a friend the other day about design in general. He asked me how web designers get famous. In my experience, the designers don’t often become well known to the world at large, but their work does, and I told him so. Then he asked a question that made me look at the reasons I have for doing this in the first place:

“If you don’t get famous, how do you make money?”

Now, there are different ways to become known to the clients, including job search sites, word of mouth, and more, but that isn’t the issue. Sure, it’s necessary to make money, but what if you’re one of those people who only designs as a hobby? Why do we do it?

We could take the easy way out and say, “Because it’s fun.” That’s true. Design is great fun, but there has to be more than that. Something that inspires and motivates the good designers out there?

Accomplishment

Frankly, I design because every time I complete a project I get that warm, tingly feeling of accomplishment. I get satisfaction out of knowing that I have created something that will serve a purpose. I don’t care, really if the the world knows I did it or not, I just like to see my work being used.

It’s not about making money. In fact, I don’t even do commercial design nowadays. And it’s not about fame. Sure, it’s nice to be recognized, but I’d do it anonymously as long as my work was used for something.

So come on, tell me what inspires and motivates you to design, would you?

Share This

( 11 so far )

Comments RSS Feed

I think the way I look at accomplishment has changed as I’ve matured.

When I was 18, I measured success on how cool my friends thought the design was.

A year or two later, and starting out down the web standards path, I measured accomplishment by how many CSS galleries a design go into. I bet a fair few out there use this as a measure of success. It’s not an awful way to gauge success, but it’s a little vain.

Nowadays, I tend to think of accomplishment as more of a silent thing. A quite appreciation, positive email from a designer or a ‘thank you’ often makes me feel 10 times better than an entry into a showcase. Not that I’d say no to it, mind! A goos success story told by the client always gives me a boost.

Interesting question. Thanks, Ezekiel.

Andrew Faulkner
March 5th, 2007
#

I’d say you and your work needn’t be well known to make a living at web design. You just need to be a competent designer. The designers I know do freelance work or work as in-house designers. The talented, committed freelancers make more money, but in-house ones make a decent living all the same.

What they all tend to have in common is a measure of local fame, not internet fame. Web design is a business, and a businessperson needs contacts, and the contacts tend to be the ones you meet face-to-face.

So regarding the two questions in Ezekiel’s post, I’d say what motivates me and what helps me make money is personal affirmation of my work: a friend who likes what I’ve done, or a potential client contacting me because someone else in town made a recommendation.

Andrew Whitacre
March 5th, 2007
#

I only design as a hobby, but I do it for the same reason I draw (also a hobby).

Art for art’s sake.

Kaida
March 6th, 2007
#

I got asked a similar quesion to this the other day at a job interview. The question was “What do I get out of my designs at the end of the day?”. To me, I need to firstly love the design I’m working on, if you arn’t happy with it, the design won’t gel together, and it will be disjointed (I’m mainly talking about website design). Secondly my creative director needs to love it too and get excited about it. And finally, when the client comes back to me and says he/she is blown away by the design, that just does it for me. It makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Needless to say, I got the job :)

Muzz
March 6th, 2007
#

Congrats, Muzz.

I find it interesting seeing people’s responses based on whether they design commercially or not.

Andrew Faulkner
March 6th, 2007
#

I design because I like the chase - the journey, the hunt for the concept, the smile of the client, the tactics, the brainstorming, the research, the edge of your seat meetings, the launch of the project, and, of course (I nearly forgot)… the paycheck.

Matt Davies
March 6th, 2007
#

I will say that the best feeling about design is hearing your client say “I love the new look” as well as the users.

The money can be good, but doesn’t compare to satisfying a client.

J Phill
March 6th, 2007
#

I second that…

Matt Davies
March 6th, 2007
#

Ok I won’t be as modest as you guys; I like seeing my work in css galleries and watching my stats and referrers rise. I also get motivation from seeing the work of others who are really “making it”.

Gareth
March 6th, 2007
#

I have, so far, only designed for myself. The reason I keep on with this masochistic hobby is because I trying to reach for perfection. It may never actually happen, but slowly making my way in that direction keeps me going. Every new design is slow progress to where I ultimately want to be.

When I finally reach the state of perfection ( whether it be under my own recognition or under the acclaim of others) I guess it’s time to find a new hobby :P

Steven Teskey
March 7th, 2007
#

For m, it is a means to express myself. I dont want to be famous at all.
The works speaks for itself, good or bad …

Johan
March 7th, 2007
#

↑ Jump up to the comment form

The above post has obviously kept you amused. Why not discover similar material:

The posts Brand Identity: What’s Your Threat Level? | Small Business Marketing & Branding, Site Credit Information - What’s your take?, The Life and Times of Cool, Designing brand identity: book review, What’s so “Super” about Supermarket logos?, are related to this post.

Or why not take time out to find out about the author of the post.