It may just have been a way too long and harsh winter. All of this. The pandemic, the buffoons elected here and there, this crazy habit of denying facts and making up alternative truths. As it turns out, the stronger the winter, the more beautiful the plants will grow in the spring. I am glad this may come to an end. It’s time to rise and shine, again. Let’s try to do everything we can to bring a bit of light to this healing world.
I also went through a bit of internal turmoil, feeling the conflicts and the cognitive dissonances. My vow, as a designer, is to bring beauty to the world. And how long since I did anything creative? I have been stuck by quite an imposter syndrome. I am a designer with no academic training in design. I came to design from the mechanical engineering. And I take pride in this. But I suck at drawing, so I kind of stop designing stuff for a while, even though I started teaching design.
And somehow, all the pieces came together quite recently.
So, I come from a technical background (engineering + MBA). I am a designer by trade. Believing designers should master the material with which they are working, I taught myself how to code, and later, join as a developer a startup with a very high level of expectation requiring all the technologies it uses. And I learned, and grew a lot by their side. But I knew that, how hard I will work, I will never become a real developer and have the same talent as my colleagues. And, this also, doesn’t help me bring beauty to the world.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine, and fellow designer, about a position that might have been interesting to consider. He told me that one of my assets for this position was that I am a non-visual designer. I am handling concepts and I am working to shrink the complexity of user experiences, at large. And this was invaluable for the position. There are too many visual-only designers that try to solve every problem with a new user interface.
Non visual designer. Coining the expression that way lit a spark. This is it. This is who am I.
I am reading philosophy, and mostly philosophy of technology. I used to make a living writing speeches. I am never happier then when I read books and write stories and stuff. I am a designer and, words and concepts and the material with which I am meant to work with. Suddenly, everything made sense.
If I never applied for this job, I owe him one for helping me figuring out how to carry on my journey. He brought beauty into my world.
So now, it’s time for me to rise and shine, and carry on.