Trouble with sharing creative work
User experience designer, illustrator and sculptor walk into a bar
Few weeks ago in Montreal district of Villeray I stumbled upon a unusual art exhibition — a mysterious artist used electricity poles to hang paintings in the area. It was impressive— maybe not the art itself, but the mere act of boldly putting it out there for all to see. Was this guerrilla display a work of local artist sharing art with neighbours? Or a modern art project that would later be explained in a fancy gallery folder? It did not matter. It was out there for all to see.
I kept remembering that story last night when I sat down with my friends to discuss what stops us and what encourages us to share our work. So there we were: a user experience designer, an illustrator and a sculptor talking imposter syndrome. And yes, there were drinks involved ;) Here is a brief summary of our discussion.
Sculptor “the seasoned artist”
When I share my work, context of that interaction matters. Sharing
only a photo is too fragmented and does not show the whole story.
My friend has been “in the art business” for over 12 years and is preparing her PhD in sculpture. A lot has change in the art world during that period with growing pressure on artists to be active on social media. Creating a large following on Instagram has become a legit way to break into the business, especially for photographers and graphic designers. But this may not be the case for sculptors.
My whole process — how I think about architecture, sculpture and art — is important part of my work and I want people to understand it. I find it hard to achieve with few hashtags. When I want to share my story, gallery setting seems to work better.
The context of gallery exhibition allows the artist to design that interaction, which often becomes a pivotal part of the piece. It is sort of like the “making of” video becoming an important part of the movie, but not its promotional tool. But how this helps fight the imposter syndrome? Well, being part of a renowned gallery “artists stable” is not considered an accident and is a definitely a self-esteem boost.
Does it mean she does not suffer from imposter syndrome? She shakes her head and admits that some doubts still remain — will people understand her work’s story? Did she communicate the process in a clear way so they can relate?
Illustrator “the new comer”
What differs a professional from an amateur? They separate their identity from their work. I can do it with all the other creative fields I worked in, but my drawings are still too fresh, too personal and I take criticism personally.
While my artist friend has pursued a career in her field for years, my illustrator friend is a newcomer in hers. She had a successful career as a copywriter, a product designer and now a consumer experience expert - fields she feels confident in. But not in illustration. Sharing her works on Instagram brought a child-like feeling of shyness — an imposter syndrome.
The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
She knows how it works — there are always better singing birds. Artist way is never only a personal journey, but important part of a bigger conversation in the field. What also matters is all the conversation around art: talking to other illustrators via social media, feeling inspired by others and also being able to inspire those, who are just starting to draw. She believes that if only the best work is shared, it would be overwhelming for anybody starting up in the field. That is the cure for her imposter syndrome.
User experience designer “hiding behind numbers ”
I often feel like the backend person on the design team. I can design the user flow, structure, interactions, but everybody will still focus on whether this a good cover photo or is this green cool or not.
While both of my friends creators produce visually appealing work I often find myself doing exactly the opposite. This may sound counterintuitive, but once I strip my work of the nice fonts and colourful photos, I shift the audience attention to part of the design I am responsible for.
In the end a final showcase is the ready product and its performance. It makes the user experience design much more a numbers driven profession than the designer title implies.
I am proud of my work and the process behind it: walls filled with post its, whiteboards and black and white sketches. But I realise it would be difficult to share such work-in-progress UX work on social media and expect praise. There are some attempts from the UX community to share their work with Instagram accounts like UX_UI_wireframes leading the way, but it is still long way to go.
Maybe there is a possibility to create a different way to share UX work than just using the same channels as graphic designers? Sort of a GitHub but for UX and product people so we can finally showcase our work in a context that matters the most — the results.
For now to fight my own imposter syndrome I start to finally work on my personal website — so the shoemaker’s son will stop going barefoot.
