When I matriculated at NC State last semester, I took several steps to help myself transition from being a full-time artist to a graphic design masters student. In the past, I found that I had access to a well of ideas as long as I continued to produce something, anything. Last semester, however, this well started feeling more like an endless drought.
What helped me overcome this drought was becoming fearless and working through my ideas. I didn’t care so much about failing or creating the best work — I simply wanted to learn. Additionally, I began to understand that creativity is essential in graphic design similarly as it is to fine arts. I needed to take multiple bits of information, often conflicting, and find ways to piece everything together.
I think not only as artists, but as people, when we are moving into a new direction we instill doubts in ourselves. I’ve recently started asking myself, what exactly am I afraid of? Am I afraid that I won’t be able to create great work? Am I afraid that people are not going to quite understand my work? Am I afraid to find out that my ideas are unworthy? I feel sometimes we get blocked even before we allow ourselves to imagine what we want to create — and this applies to any field.
So I will leave everyone to reflect on the following questions: What if we judged our thoughts less? What if we detached from this high level of self-criticism? I wonder how many ultimately worthy, interesting and creative projects we would allow ourselves to work on if we were less critical.