Over the past four years in the York-Sheridan design program, I’ve come to realize something. When it comes to design (and anything else, really), I’m my own worst enemy. The struggles I’ve faced since day one in this program almost always stem from a decision I’ve made, an attitude I’ve had, etc. Who I am and what I believe shapes me as a student and as a designer. How I work and what I work on does not hinge on the typeface I’ve chosen, the colours I use, or the layout I employ. It all comes down to character, to the interest I take in the world around me.
I think it’s also fair to point out that ‘designer’ is not something I often refer to myself as, and if I do, I do only for clarity or convenience. In the past, this has caused problems. By dissociating myself with the design profession, I created a huge apathy for my studies and even for the world around me. Over the course of the past year, I’ve learned that apathy cannot be an option, even if I don’t necessarily want to be categorized and placed in the ‘designer’ box. It’s been a process of identity, and a process of widening my view of the world. Being honest, I struggled a great deal to get where I am today, even if I am not that far from where I started. Thanks to apathy, I failed courses in my first year. Working harder in my second year, I did well at first, but quickly ran out of steam. Just doing the work wasn’t working. I wasn’t satisfied. And yet, I resisted engaging the program I was now committed to. It took me another two years to realize that even if I wasn’t a designer, I’m still part of this global community, and I still have an active role to play. If being a designer meant being constricted, how could my role be rethought?
My faith journey has had a large part in rediscovering purpose and vision for school and beyond. It may sound cliché or simple-minded, but looking back, the process was actually the most mind-expanding experience I’d had in my university career (no thanks to any course or instructor of mine, or the university as an institution). This past summer, I had the opportunity to spend three months in Halifax, working a job (as a cook), working in ministry, and building relationships. It’s probably the most un-design endeavour I’ve taken part in since I started the program, which was, at the time, part of the point. After three years of fighting my way, I was exhausted and a bit disillusioned, and was more than happy to escape from York, YSDN, and anyone who wanted to talk about either. Imagine my dismay, then, when I was appointed the team’s designer and asked to produce advertisements, brochures and a yearbook-like production for my team mates. I struggled with this for a while, dreading the possibility of not finishing, and dreading even more what people might think of the work if I did. Now, there is a difference, I realize, between working for your friends, and working for a large company. As I was encouraged to persevere, however, I began to enjoy myself.
I began to enjoy design.
The assignments I had been given were the same as any I had received from YSDN. The time frame to complete them was much shorter than what I am used to. I even pulled an all-nighter or two. What changed?
The answer might be overly simplistic. At the height of my doubt over completing the large yearbook, one of my team mates consistently assured me, “Fear not, Daniel.” It was a line she got from a children’s video. Brushing aside the question of age-appropriateness, I considered her statement. My concerns with style, with minute details, etc. suddenly took a back seat to why I was working on this book, who I was making it for. In all my time working on projects and striving to meet the standards set before me, I had shut out the larger body of design theory and practice, and the world that my work would be sent into. As I had learned with ministry, design doesn’t occur in a vacuum. I started to care about design because I started to care about the world around me. I stopped worrying about style and form and focused more on who I was trying to reach. Design stopped being an end and started to become a means. And then, to my horror, I started to enjoy myself.
I felt the shift more acutely when I read Michael Bierut’s Warning: May Contain Non-Design Content. Upon reading it, I felt like making myself a t-shirt that read, “Warning: Non-Designer”. Of course, thanks to the thousand and one assignments I needed to complete before the next day, it never came to fruition, but I appreciated Bierut’s honesty all the same, and almost sighed with relief as he explained, “My stupid layouts…were simply no more and no less than a whole lot of empty-headed graphic design. And graphic design wasn’t enough. It never is.”
As a designer (I get a funny tingle every time I think of myself as one of ‘them’ now), it’s so easy to get worked up over the look of whatever we’re working on, and forget why we do what we do. Late nights and early mornings spent glaring at computer screens with bloodshot eyes wondering hopelessly if any of this would ever be worth it, and feeling as though I already knew the answer was ‘no.’ I was never going to be a graphic designer. I wouldn’t let myself, and I wouldn’t let them make me. Bierut’s words could have been my own as I realized over the summer that I had very nearly thrown away an opportunity to impact the community around me: “Not everything is design. But design is about everything. So do yourself a favour: be ready for anything.” Design, funnily enough, isn’t about design. It’s about clarifying, expressing, evoking, inciting, explaining, directing. If you can’t reach the people you’re trying to reach, if you’re designing for the sake of design, I’d say you’ve already failed. I should know, I spent three years perfecting the artform.
