Misconceptions of productivity

There are days when I think I enjoy web design. So, I suspect on those days, I do actually enjoy it.

And there are days, like when the words won't come, that I can't drag anything from inside of me.

There are days when I don't think it ever will come.

I have spent the day trying to coax any strand of creativity from wherever it may be hiding, crouched beneath some overwhelming emotion in my head. I wonder sometimes if it ever stands a chance, when it attempts to grow. There is always something overshadowing it, some pre-emtive criticism, a lack of time, and misunderstanding in communication.

I wonder where I would be at work without the restrictions of assets, the limitations of brand guidelines and the adaptation of print material. I wonder what I could produce.

Today: nothing.

I am attempting to redesign my portfolio. This happens once every few weeks or so, as my current portfolio is painfully out of date. This is for me, this is to express my abilities and skills, my experience, my knowledge.

I can create: Anything.

I have tried in vain to regurgitate a hint of a concept that germinates in my head. I try to get it out, out and I start and there are the beginnings of shapes and objects and movement and then oh oh its gone and I stare at it and wonder where things broke down. It is way back before there is any physical presence, way back where I've put heavy, loaded restrictions in place.

There are days when I wonder whether I hate web design with such intense passion because I just can't really design. I've seen them and worked with them, those people who grasp onto creativity and embrace it and exploit it, those who know the difference between good and bad design, those who care. I care, but I'm not sure I ever cared enough. I'm not sure what caring enough is, because I never get there, not quite.

I cannot design without limitation. I cannot design without leaching the essence of a feeling or emotion from someone else's conception. I cannot design alone, with my thoughts. I can see them, there, bits and pieces, scattered throughout but there's always something lost in translation, a keystone that can't be grasped, something that's misinterpreted.

That's the point usually that just give up and make everything bloody blue.

I suffer with a misconception of productivity. I am forever against the clock, and shroud my design shortcomings with time limitations. The continual excuse of the best I could do 'considering'. When they aren't there, I have no benchmark for the best I can do, the possibility stretches endlessly out in front of me.

But there is an end despite the possibility, there is an end to what I can achieve, and I hit up against it, never quite knowing where it will appear, an invisible barrier that I can see beyond, I can see what I could be, but I don't understand how to get there, or whether I should even try.

I know the theory of extracting ideas, the expression of everything in order to facilitate the extraction of that tiny valuable particle. I know that time must be wasted in monetary terms in order to explore, something inconceivable in the world of design agencies where I have learnt to embrace and hide behind restriction. I don't have time to create bad designs, I don't have time to make mistakes. So I don't grow. I know this. I know editing an idea before it is realised produces safety through average designs. They get signed off, the client is happy (or at least reasonably satisfied, but that is as good as it often gets and I've learnt to knowledgeably misinterpret one for the other in order to achieve a deadline), I get to leave work on time.

I think perhaps I have forgotten how to be creative. That or I'm just not drinking enough tea.

I wonder whether my self-imposed limitations, and the averageness that accompanies them, will seep their way into wherever I choose to turn to next.

I'm really beginning to wonder whether I should just go back into care work. There's very little creativity required in cleaning old people. In fact, its actively discouraged. And you get tea and biscuits (never particularly exciting ones mind, but I'm fine with a rich tea or two).