As has been mentioned before, I am the director of a design company. The main reason I wanted to work for a company I owned or part owned, was to avoid the inevitable soul crushing which occurs working in a corporate office or other such place.
In the last few weeks I have slowly begun to feel my soul being crushed…
Now, this is my fault and my fault alone. Too many projects. Poor boundaries with clients. Extraneous art magazine projects which don’t bring in any income (of course I’m joking. This is part of my soul re-building plan: see below). The list goes on.
However I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t the nature of the business. Design is art… or it can be if it is done well. Of course, design is also a business… or it can be if it needs to pay your rent and bills. In my humble opinion as both a business man (cripes) and an artist (hooray) art + business often equals a significant loss of soul. See U2… (awesome).
The soul crushing can stop and doesn’t always have to take hold. This is evident by the number of super cool, interesting design companies that are out there, doing great corporate work, having fun and making a seemingly endless supply of money. Is there a correlation between soul and success in the design business and art business as a whole? Yes and no.
I’ll start with “no” because it is easy and scary. Business success can often come to people with mediocre ideas but lots of aggressive sales and marketing. See any crappy pop group or a number of artists I’ve seen recently… (awesome). I’m sure this happens more often than any other type of business success.
Now, “yes”. My belief is that when you are passionate about what you do and you strive to do it well, you will almost make it. If your passion helps you grow and create a better product/design/idea/art than you will make it for sure! My definition of “make it” would probably help here. “Making it” to me is creating something you are very proud of, which garners enough financial success that you are less burdened with the corporate world we live in and can enjoy some of it’s perks. In other words, you’re making enough money from your passion that you can pay your bills with out stress and can enjoy a night out on the town every once in a while.
Of course, as I can attest to, business has a way of crushing your soul regardless. It sneaks in and when you least expect it, you don’t want to create anymore… you’re spent. So how can you rebuild this soul? Here is what I’m trying to do:
1) find a project with in your crushing field that will let you be creative (Silent Talkie is working for me). This project doesn’t have to make any money, but it also shouldn’t burden your time… too much!
2) work your ass off to finish the projects which are crushing you. get them out of the way and out of your mind. This may take a few late nights and stress, but the release will be worth it.
3) relax. even in the midst of step 2, find some time when you aren’t at your computer… I’m working really hard on this one, although with the nicer weather, this is going to be much easier.
4) etc. This list is growing day-by-day so it isn’t definitive or static. So far, if I can do the three above things, my soul will be as good as new in a little bit.
Rants and nights at the bar help as well. I can feel my soul stretching as I type!
