I’m going to make my apologies up-front here, and say that this post is not informative, nor is it thought-provoking. Whilst you’re welcome to read my ramblings, if you’re a designer, I’d especially appreciate if you continued reading!
With that out of the way, I’ll say that there are a number of things that frustrate me in this life, and one of those things is me being indecisive. (Or is it? [Sorry for the terrible pun])
I’m worst when it comes to designing – I’ll desperately want to design (or redesign) something, and I’ll come up with something elaborate, and then flip-flop back and forth between using the new design and not using the new design. Eventually, I end up deleting the design (one of the most dumb things I do, I know) and I’m back to square one again: still wanting to design, still not able to decide if I like my work enough to thrust it upon peoples’ retinas… Today, alone, I’ve abandoned three separate designs – which, bar reaching for data-recovery tools, are gone forever. Not that I mind of course… as I shall explain.
The theme you see on this blog at the moment is an example of me resigning myself to just using something simple, and sticking with it – there’s very little to complain about, there’s very little that could get in the way of reading, or viewing, and that’s about it. However, as a designer, I like showing off a bit of artistic flair. Designs such as those that graced my old portfolio page get me excited, but I quickly lose the enjoyment of viewing them myself (one such example can be seen here – hidden from public view these days).
I know there are at least a couple of other designers who read my blog and so I ask, “what are your views on the problem?”
Design becomes infinitely less enjoyable for me as I find myself less and less satisfied with my own work – even though other people do enjoy and appreciate it. How do you, or would you, overcome the perpetuating cycle of ‘redesign, evaluate, delete, redesign…’?
I definitely share your problem, bar the deleting part. My design folder is filled with revisions that are practically just rotting away.
It seems that whenever I am satisfied with a design, that the feeling only lasts for so long before I begin to irritate myself on the little things.
You’ve seen my blog as well, I don’t even write that much at the moment. However it has had three maybe four redesigns by now.
I don’t think it’s something you can overcome, but rather just attempt to not let it affect you in such ways. Stop caring once a job is done, otherwise it’ll never end. Personally, I try to forget every design I’ve done purely because it kills creativity as you fall back into a pattern which ultimately takes you back to redesigns over and over again.
True enough, I suppose. Something always bugs me about the “design and forget” philosophy… but it seems to be the only thing that can keep me from going somewhat insane!