Is it easier to design for other's rather than yourself?

[ricib]

I find inspiration comes a lot easier when I design for clients, but when it came time to my personal (not business) website, I automatically forgot where I left my creativity.

Does that happen to any of you full-timers? Do you lose the inspiration when you have to do it for yourself?

 

[MindBender]

Yes... plus I think when you design for yourself, you're never happy with what you deisgn. Too close to the subject I guess. I always end up building things and then hating them, not getting one little detail how I want it or some thing and scrapping the whole project. heh

 

[Rantin Al]

Maybe not easier. The customer input, corporate colour / design, deadlines (and not least the cash at the end of the job) means that you don't have time for inspiration to come upon you.

It's nice to produce a masterpiece, but it comes down to commercial viability. Many times I've had a rollicking for over-tweaking client artwork. No place for perfectionists!

For personal work, keep a small notepad handy and be ready to make notes of ideas when you are out and about. Anything that catches your eye, whether the effects of streetlights on a misty night, a city skyline, a film intro on the TV, even waking up from a wierd dream.

Sometimes that is all you need to get a kickstart.
You (I!) can't just sit down and hit the "Get creative" button.

My thoughts anyway.

Al.

 

[MindBender]

Dilbert speaks on the issue:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert200312187134.jpg

hehe

 

[C9Mouse]

Yes, creating for myself can be such drudgery sometimes. Take my current portfolio site - it took me six months just to come up with the entrance page idea. After that the rest came easily.

Working for clients, as Al says, is tougher. There's a deadline to meet, and no room for creativity. If you're blessed enough you get a client who povides enough info to finish up the job quickly, or otherwise you get one who doesn't know a pixel from a pushcart and it can become a migraine.

But that heady rush of free-floating nirvana that comes when true creativity breaks through seems elusive. It is as rare a commodity as the short story is for writers.

Besides, as MB pointed out, you are never quite satisified with what you've produced. You design something, mull over it, come back to it again and again, and yet it's never quite right.

We are always are own worst critics

 

[bigcloud]

Dilbert speaks on the issue:

worthy of printing, framing, and hanging on the lobby wall of any design studio.

[beat dead horse]
... yeah, I find it very difficult to design for myself. Designing for clients entails having restrictions (time, budget, color, size, etc). All these elements form a goal that is easier to attain than just an idea with no real limitations. Feedback and colaboration are different for personal work. It's your own so you don't collaborate as freely and feedback is often greeted with a touch of defensiveness.

What Rantin Al pointed out is a great idea. Always make notes... ON PAPER. Personal experience has taught me that the brain doesn't always hold all the information you want it to. :\
[/beat dead horse]

 

[ricib]

Thanks folks for confirming I'm not the only one here that loses all sense of creativity when it comes to your own personal stuff.

I agree about making notes, it's something I do while at the computer, (a pad for clients work and aq pad for my personal stuff), if I do something a client's work might have had, I'll try it out for my own stuff. Maybe it works and maybe it doesn't.

I find myself paying closer attention to say even the news stations, for their graphic work for stories etc. Sometimes I see something nice, but mostly not. I hate to look at other peoples work though and say I should try that. That's the same as stealing, esentially.

As for the short story comment, I also happen to write stuff in my very rarely spare time, so I know what you mean by that comment. I have stuff that's taken nearly 10 years to finish writing.

It's odd how things like a sunset for instance can inspire something of a sunrise graphic. Maybe it's just the right colors, or being in the right city when you see the sun setting, that'll do it.

Enough babbling, thanks for the input, and please if there is anymore, add to it.

Ric