Satisfaction through design

What part of ‘design’ do we get the most satisfaction from?

I am a trained and educated graphic designer. Print and branding, that lead to a junior packaging design. Then I delved into the world of marketing and advertising still through print design but for education companies. I now have been in a role for 2.5 years where on-the-job training has seen me do more ‘digital’ design using online learning platforms and a little bit more code based design solutions.

While I still do not consider myself a digital designer, the job title and some skills make it easier to talk around. I am more aware of what is possible from a digital perspective yet am still restrained in the knowledge of how to execute it. But when you work with others around you and you start to figure things out for yourself, you start to get this sense of real satisfaction.

That got me thinking. As a designer, what part of the job gives you the most satisfaction? Is it designing something that is aesthetically gorgeous that you would easily hang your hat on? Is it creating something from nothing, knowing that it works functionally? Is it learning a new skill and applying it to solve a problem that was the ‘hard nut to crack’?

I think that designers can easily be satisfied with any of these options. And there is no problem with that as these can all be fuel to the creative fire.

I recently had an opportunity put in front of me to step out of a graphic/digital design role, and go into the academia side of creating tertiary education courses for online students. My whole professional career, I have been a graphic designer, so my initial reaction was, but what if I can’t get my hands dirty and actually design ‘things’? Where will I get that design satisfaction?

I thought long and hard about it and I started to realize that being a graphic designer has been my career and my passion, but the creative thinking and problem solving has actually been the foundation of any design output that I thought was giving me that satisfaction. But I’m starting to realize that the output is just the result of the process, and if the process is done well… that’s where the satisfaction lies.

So I put it to the designers out there. If you did not go through the motions and processes to create your most prized designs and if they just ‘appeared’ without any real work, thinking, stressing, testing, collaborating, sleeping, drinking, presenting… would you feel as satisfied?

If you were to apply the same process and thinking to anything… in my case learning design, or the design of an education course as opposed to just graphics… would you still get a sense of creative satisfaction.

I think you would. Now only time will tell how satisfying it will be, but boy am I ready to find out.