Passion Shows in Your Work
I never understood why some designers could work in the design industry and not have passion about their work. Why put the effort into something so important if you don’t care about how the end product will be. Within the past year, I’ve been around quite a few other designers who’s work I look at, and wonder why in the world they are choosing to design websites. It’s not that they don’t have the skill, because I’ve actually seen the good work they’ve done, but they just don’t put effort into anything.
Just recently, I had a good friend tell me that he is loosing his passion for design. I told him that it’s not worth his time and the company’s money to invest into someone who has no passion. It will easily show through his work, and that will not be beneficial at all to the users who visit the site.
I feel that it is a designers responsibility to not only care about the work that they produce, but to satisfy the client as well as make the user experience of that site worth the visit. Otherwise, what is the point? For a paycheck? Is that really worth a paycheck to produce mediocre work that don’t have a good influence on the people that see it? Unfortunately, some people just don’t care.
To me, passion about my work means everything, and I love explaining to people what I do. Most people can see that passion when I begin to ramble on about what I do. So, when I meet other designers who aren’t passionate, it boggles my mind to think designers just don’t care about being in one of the coolest, high-demand industries we have now.
And from a personal standpoint, I wouldn’t want to hire anyone who doesn’t have a passion for what they do. If that passion and commitment isn’t there, then how can I ensure that the service I’m paying for will be of quality?
10 Comments
On a personal level I agree entirely. It’s a blessing to find something to be passionate about.
On the other hand, does it matter to the client if the work turns out great, according to plan, and the designer isn’t passionate about it? I’m not a designer, but I’ve had to do things I wasn’t so hot about because that’s what the client wanted. Some stuff I even fundimentally disagree with, that bothered me because I couldn’t get the client to agree with reason, I’ve done the best I could to meet what my client wanted and they love it so much they come back every quarter for the same thing. I hate that project. They seem to love it.
Well, that’s a little different. I’ve also worked on projects that I wasn’t feeling too hot about, but that doesn’t make me any less passionate as a designer.
I still love the work that I do, and you can’t expect to love every single thing you work on, but you will still do good work.
I think passion in a job is, in no way, just for designers, so this can be related to many other professions.
I’d love to agree with you that with passion comes everything else — quality, for instance. Unfortunately, what is more important to people these days is putting food on the table. Passion comes next.
I can’t argue with that Pelf, however, you spend 1/3 of your life working and wouldn’t that make life that better better if you had a passion for it and put food on the table.
Of course this can’t be reality for everyone and every case, but in certain cases, ie design, it is unfortunate.
It’s interesting that you wrote about this right now. The company I work for is looking for an entry level graphic designer. We have seen some really good portfolios but we meet the person who did the work and they don’t seem to care, they are just doing the work. Today I interviewed a guy who’s work was only okay, but he was mostly self taught and was doing it cause he loved it. He’ll probably be the one we hire cause we need somebody who wants to jump into a project and solve problems. I hope that eventually his passion will show in the quality of his work.
Brad, I hope it works out where you hire the passionate one. I’ve noticed that working with passionate people, they are very willing to learn, even if their skills are just decent.
I entirely agree with this John – the moment you begin to care about your work is the moment it begins to show through. And it works both ways; I’ve built website before for people who keep chop and changing good ideas for their own poor ideas and refusing to listen to reason; as soon as you begin to loose heart and not care the project begins to roll down hill.
I think an awful lot of self teaching is necessary to keep producing good designs so you have to be passionate about it. It shows in your work because the people who aren’t interested don’t take that time out to keep learning.
I also think that there are certain types of people that are suited to design. There are people who are happy with a 9-5 and those that have self drive and motivation to learn new things outside of their roles. Good designers are definitely the latter.
Steve, I’ve had people approach me to do websites for them that don’t seem passionate about their work, which shows, and I’m thinking, why do I want to work with someone who won’t really care about the work that I give them and how it could help their business.
Jilly you raise a good point about self-teaching. Most of my skills are definitely self taught, and because I feel that I’m [still] behind, design-wise, it pushes me to want to learn more.
So I have to make that extra effort to learn and practice those design principles that I didn’t have the chance to learn in a classroom.
I agree, passion for your work really shows. I also spend a considerable amount of time improving my skills and trying to learn as much as possible. Not just because I want to offer my best to my clients, but also because I want to feel proud of my work.
I’m really amazed a the amount of people who don’t take any care with their design or haven’t improved at all for years because they just stopped caring at one point. It does make you wonder why they are still doing it.
I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to work in something I feel passionate about and put food on the table. If I ever stop feeling that way, it will be time to move on.