Designer Dysmorphia
In short, I blame social media. In more ways than, all of our swipes, pinches, flicks and whatever the hell else kind of trouble our thumbs or fingertips carry out for us can severely mess with our minds. I’ll elaborate, but first let me quickly (and hopefully not too inaccurately) explain dysmorphia.
Most often we hear that word preceded by “body”. Body dysmorphia is a very unfortunate, and I imagine rather torturous mental condition involving an obsessive focus on ones self perceived flaws in appearance. That’s a loose definition I got from everyone’s favorite doctor, Dr. G. Oogle PhD. Those affected might be perfectly fine in all aspects of appearance to you and I. Hell, more than perfectly fine. However, to themselves, they obsess over these slight or imagined imperfections. They constantly compare themselves to others appearances and deride themselves further for not being as _________. Ever done that in any facet of your life? Be honest. It’s a thing, and you can see how we as designers can relate in regards to the things we create and the paths we follow.
As someone who’s suffered from crippling anxiety in the past, I know all too well that our minds can be our own worst enemy. I’ve luckily never suffered from body dysmorphia (I’ve made peace and accepted my “Dad Bod”), but I am a pretty kickass over thinker and a world class worrier. I have, however, experienced what I like to call “designer dysmorphia”.
10+ years in, a couple of awards, mild accolades, followers, likes — all of that good shit — and I still feel inadequate quite often. Here’s where it comes back to social media. As designers, through Dribbble, Instagram, Behance, Pinterest, etcetera — we have this instant and infinite access to inspiration, ideas, and whatever it is that our peers are doing via these outlets. Instagram, for instance, is a MASSIVE black hole for me in which I easily and often get trapped. It’s embarrassing. It accounts for the majority of my phone usage. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but I feel better putting it out there. Anyway, for better or worse, Instagram’s ever loathed algorithm has figured me out and checks a lot of boxes that I like from a design perspective. The feeds it shows me are the ones I routinely interact with, save posts from, and get jazzed about the most. I get to keep up with my friends and contemporaries from across the world. It does keep me constantly inspired. Over inspired even. Seeing someone else’s solution to a design problem I might’ve solved completely differently will never get old. Examining how others approached a certain logo or type treatment helps keep me sharp, motivated, and driven. That’s the positive side of things… That’s where we should stop, right? Sure, but then there’s the flip side which I’d imagine is tantamount to dysmorphia sufferers in seeing someone that checks all of their ideals for body image, clothing, style, whatever, and then looking at themselves in the mirror and being overly (and unnecessarily) critical. For instance, I can design something that might make a fair amount of people double tap, save, feature, repost, and what not, but then I get stopped in my tracks by something someone else designed and just get floored. They killed/crushed/murdered it (has anyone ever wondered why our design praise is so violent?!?!). The likes are in the 4 digits. There’s comment after comment after comment. This is fire. They’re great. I suck. The end. You see a conference they’ve spoken at or podcast they’ve been on and wondered “maybe I’m just not good enough to get to do these things”. An award they’ve won, a hip workspace, a “big things in the works” post are also familiar culprits of those feelings. I don’t know about you, but this used to happen (and occasionally still does) to me all of the time. Your mind can get the best of you and the comparison can be crippling, incite jealousy, form resentment, begin the questioning of your worth as a creative person... the list goes on. To clarify, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the above references of people’s various successes. What is wrong is when we start to measure ourselves against it. We see a new branding system unveiled, speaking gigs, merch launches, big client meeting recaps (or my personal pet peeve, the “huge meeting with a BIG client, but can’t say who yet…” suspense building routine) and feel inadequate or conflicted as to what our path should be. “I’m not getting those gigs. I’m not on stage. Are my thoughts & experiences not worthy of being shared? This thing I’m working on isn’t nearly as rad as doing something for _______.” That’s not healthy. Nor is it a necessary or accurate measurement of “worth”. Those folks that we unwisely measure up against aren’t up in an ivory tower. The biggest of the big still struggle. Still have droughts (I wanted to put doubts after droughts, but it rhymed too well, so I needed to break it up). If anything, and from what I’ve learned from my personal experiences with a lot of these larger than life, rockstars in our field characters, is that they’re all just like everyone else. Yes, even you.
While I started out by blaming social media, it’s only a vessel. We’re still also responsible by either buying into or believing the hype. The worst part (to me) of social media is that it breeds the #bestlife bullshit. It’s an epidemic. An ever densifying veil of what life, work, travel, relationships, and success should look like. It happens on the design front as well and we end up setting ourselves up for comparison and a skewed definition of what success in our field is. Social media has given us this unique ability to curate, control, and shape how people view us, our lives, our work. I can self admittedly say that I don’t show a lot of projects I’ve done that have been strictly to “pay the bills”. Guilty (there are a lot of em… I’ve got a lot of bills). We want our feeds to show all of the rad things we’re doing or have done, and that’s fine. I’m probably not gonna change how I post. I share the things that I’ve done that I think are cool because I want more of that type of work and it’s where most of my jobs, and a lot of incredible friendships have come from. Just as long as we remember that that shaping, curating, and cultivating is most likely what everyone else is doing as well and that they too probably have some Random_HalfPage_FinalVersion68.indd file somewhere deep within their Dropbox. So, maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves.
Just because we haven’t worked with (insert your most coveted brand here) doesn’t mean the things we are doing don’t have value for ourselves and for other people too. It’s damn near impossible to see our own work from another perspective. Who knows, some kid in Sri Lanka might think your hemp dog collar company logo is the greatest thing ever and that’s what has set his or her standards for what makes a good logo. Take pride in that. I’m not trying to get all pep rally on you, but don’t beat yourself up over non things. Don’t let follower counts, likes, number of appearances at conferences or on podcasts be a measurement from which to hold yourself. It’s an inaccurate metric and likely isn’t worth the mental anguish you’ll put yourself through by letting it define you because, trust me, that shit does not define you. Whether you know it or not, you’re likely already inspiring people yourself. You’re probably making that kid in Sri Lanka jealous or to want to work harder. Social media puts us out to a lot of people. Don’t underestimate what it is you’re doing versus what others are doing.
If you’ve stuck around this long, I thank you. I’m just trying to share something that I’ve struggled with in the past (and still do occasionally), and the thought process & realizations I implemented to get over it. Humans are weird, man. We’re all still just a bunch of big, old works in progress. Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.
