As I burn the midnight oil - a few thoughts from a designer who refuses to back down.
As I burn the midnight oil, this post takes shape in my head. This is my happy place – busy and working long into the night. The quiet solitude of a mid-week night is my creative solace. I am by default (almost want to say by design) a night owl – like the majority of my family on my mother's side. Regrettably, dragging my feet and pouting, I had to change this years ago because clients expect me to be conscious during the day.
It's been a while since I was as busy as I am right at this moment. The market, the AI, a series of world events, mixed with the ineptness of the last few and the current government, made it very hard to just enjoy work lately, let alone look optimistically into the future. These last few weeks have reminded me how much I love what I do.
The good times make me reminisce.
My first “ha!” design moment was when I was maybe 10. One summer day when I noticed my uncle (a brilliant architect, I might add) doodling something on a scrap of paper. It was the logo for my mum's business.
She was sewing dresses and other garments for pregnant women. In the 90s, nothing like that was readily available in the region I was living in, and competition was practically nonexistent unless you were able to travel to a major city or abroad. Anyhow, she needed a logo – something that would incorporate a pregnant woman and her initials.
He was drawing very simple shapes and typography akin to technical hand lettering. But it was so mesmerising to me to see this concept being synthesised into two shapes and two letters. It was enough even for a child to understand what it was about. I think that was the moment I started to notice logos and design in a very different way.
This was the first step in finding the love of my professional life – design.
I am telling you all this because this whole design thing started for me very early, and I went through a lot to get where I am now. It is so much more than just colours, shapes and neat typography blocks. It is a multilayered discipline that is a creative outlet for those who want to create work that is useful and beautiful at the same time. That is why recently I have been spending ungodly amounts of time thinking of ways to find a new path to do more of what I love to do the most. In other words, yes, I could be doing different things, but this is what I have chosen and love to do.
In a world obsessed with dopamine, instant gratification, and having more, a methodical, craft-based approach becomes a quiet act of counterculture. Consumerism, with its immediacy and convenience, has silenced the need for thoughtful and robust outcomes of craft work and allowed the fallacy of a quick fix to take root. AI is doing the same thing to the creative industry that mass factory production has done to the fashion and food industries. Hard, diligent work has been deemed foolish and a thing of the past. A slight inconvenience becomes a trigger to search for a quick fix, without considering the consequences or deeper issues. It is like putting a plaster on a broken leg.
When you study branding and the engine behind it, you learn very quickly that the only way to move the needle is to connect with people on an emotional level. The only way to achieve that is to work with an emotional being.
When I look at the current state of the industry, shaped by the algorithms of social platforms, budget cuts caused by market stagnation, and the rise of AI, I do worry that those blessed moments of glorious creativity might become a rare occurrence. But then comes another notion: maybe this is a correction event that, if we play it right, will make us creatives with expertise and a deep understanding of the game shine even brighter.
Seeking a solution and my resolve, I have been having conversations about this conundrum with a few contemporaries from different industries, and we came to the conclusion that design created by humans will become a premium service, or even a luxury one. The flood of mediocre slop created by AI operators will remind people of the value of the actual work we are doing. That also suggests that excellence is not an option anymore, and we will have to work harder to keep our positions on the market.
Right now, any future seems deeply uncertain, as if the pendulum is in the centre and we’re waiting for it to swing one way or the other and finally reveal what the future holds. The truth is, we can’t control it. If you’ve been feeling stuck, as if suspended in effort, not moving forward, just keeping afloat – believe me when I say you are not alone. The only thing we can do right now is to focus on what we can control: honing the craft, finding new ways to supplement the income, building resilience and deepening the expertise.