When I finished it, I was like, damn, this is beautiful! It looked way better than I had imagined and sketched it in my little sketchbook. I had had the concept sitting around in my head for a while, but I didn’t think it would turn out the way it did and get the response it got. When I first put it “on paper” (I draw everything in Photoshop), it looked like this…
You know when you try to convince yourself that something is nice because you made it and you spent a lot of time doing so, although deep down you know that it’s not? I did that. My wife, on the other hand, was pretty blunt – she said it looked like a Satanist symbol.
I started to give up, telling myself that I probably wasn’t as good as I wanted to believe I was. I had been working on it for days! Then, one evening, in between changing our daughter’s diapers, burping her and (struggling to) put her to sleep; as I was playing with shapes, and randomly laying transparent photos of cows and dancing women on top of each other, it happened. The Mrs saw it on the computer screen while walking behind me and went like, oooh I like that! I was finally getting it, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I remembered a pattern I had made for another design and I added it to the mix; and like the saying goes, the rest is history.
The whole process took me back to a place I hadn’t been for a long, long time. A place where I used to always find myself when I was bored, a place I’d go to dream, a place I went to a lot, before the University degrees, before the corporate jobs, before Twitter, before the blogs and the activism… before life happened. A former secondary school deskmate reminded me how I’d always be drawing something in class (sometimes to the disappointment of my teachers). It was my happy place.
It’s a place I’m learning to explore again, although, I must admit, I’m quite sceptical of my ability to make it. I mean, to make it as a designer, which is what I’m timidly calling myself these days. I haven’t really drawn anything in years! And I don’t have formal training… do I need formal training? The few tricks I know I taught myself from browsing through YouTube tutorials. Is that enough? I look around at real artists and graphic designers out there and ask myself, am I really worthy of being a member of this club? What if I can never make anything as nice again, if not nicer, and I end up just another one hit wonder? What am I even, am I a fashion designer or a graphic designer who occasionally designs clothes? And what is my style? Do I need to have a style? What do I need to be or to do to make people want my work beyond just doing it to support? How do I make something that’ll make them want to buy without asking me to remind them next month or to make it in a different colour, not white (while wearing white)? Am I even doing it for other people, or am I doing it for me? Can I afford to just do it for me, if it’s not going to generate enough income, while I have a family to take care of?
Questions… I have so many swimming back and forth in my head right now. Sometimes I can’t sleep at night. Sometimes I wish I didn’t even have the ability that’s making me ask myself these questions in the first place. Someone did say that to whom much is given, from him much is expected. Sigh. Am I getting ahead of myself? Am I biting off more than I can chew?
I don’t know. The only thing I know is, I’m here now! Wait and see how this story unfolds! I've already jumped off the cliff. Homba homboka, as the saying goes! You can’t win (or lose) without trying! If it happens yay, if it doesn’t, well I’ll just call it a day and return to my regular programming.
That being said, if you have time, take a moment and check out my portfolio. If you like what you see, remember me when you need some graphic or web design work done. I’ll appreciate it!
Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you for making it this far!
P.S. leave me your e-mail in the form below if you’d like to be notified about a new blog post or something else on this site. I won’t spam you, I promise.