What Inspires You As A Designer
Tags: School, Design, Inspiration, Graphic Design, Opinion Piece

Man, what hasn’t inspired me? I guess this’ll be a more personal piece so sorry if the casual language is off putting. With that said, let’s get down to business. What inspires me as I create designs for not just school, but myself or others? Some things I think are fairly universal: family and friends. And these things are inspirational but there’s a couple other things that are significant when I’m in the design process.

As mentioned, family is something that inspires me. Not only are they supportive of my choice in major (art technically) they enjoy seeing what I make. My parent’s frame my designs on the wall like they’re owl drawings on the fridge, and as childish as this my seem, it’s really encouraging. Yet sometimes they don’t “get” what I’m doing when making a piece, how could they? My parents are on the older side, 50 and 64 years old to be exact, and sometimes they can’t see everything on the design. I believe in order to make good design it has to be accessible to everyone, you have to get the main idea across. I think about them and this principle when crafting anything.

Now, my friends and I are a different story. We’re all a bunch of assholes who have a good time with one another. We tease and poke fun at things, but most importantly we’re honest with each other. Critique is an important part of the design process and feedback shouldn’t be taken personally. If something doesn’t look right, or doesn’t send the message that I intended they’ll let me know. It reminds me though, that no matter what I make not everyone will agree with what is being presented. In a way, it inspires me to create design not just for those who consume it, but for me as well. Cause yeah, you have to turn in your work and ship it, but if you don’t enjoy it who else would?

Something that has always inspired me but I’m no longer apart of was my romantic relationship. When I started my design major she was very influential not only in ideology but in practice. I would implement what she meant to me in my design work: things such as beauty, depth, and confidence. I’m no longer in that relationship, yet those ideas still stay with me. They don’t represent her any longer, but more the artwork and my “relationship” with design itself.

The last thing I want to touch upon is design. Like, all of design, not just the graphic part of it. It’s a very broad term when you think of it. A lot of things are designed like cars, clothes, and my favorite, games. I take a lot of inspiration from game creation and practice. I personally believe that video games are the greatest culmination of art: a medium that combines music, theater, writing, visual art, history, and yes design. Those designers have to think about almost any way the player will interact with their games and work with it. Sure, the earlier games are simple and constricted to the technology of the time, but they designed around these limitations. They were fun and challenging, and often innovated. Now a days you have big open world games that let you do whatever you want yet this is designed too. In terms of graphic design, how do you convey the information you want with no instructions, no voice over? The same way good games do: with researched intuition, testing, and receiver ingenuity. A design isn’t complete without its audience, they too play a part into the piece and are responsible for adding their input to it as well. I can go into this all day.

But we don’t have all day. No, time goes by and things move on. As much as I love graphic design the pieces in it aren’t going to last forever, despite how well made it can be. In this sense, it’s inspirational to know that I am apart of an ever expanding field. I know it’s dumb to say “I inspire myself” but I think you should. Look what you’ve risen above, and take pride in your work. Just go for it. Nothing is perfect, nothing stays forever, but the fact that I’m an active participant in growth is notable. I’m always eager to see what I can do, and although I imagine my work should be that of my older self — a more seasoned, harden designer who wouldn’t make such student mistakes — I think it’s good to know that I have these expectations of a better designer. My future inspires me.