I can't begin to imagine how many hours of my life I've spent waiting for a creative spark to happen. After hours and hours of tinkering, editing, and creating layouts the world will never see, I'll go to bed convinced that I'll never be as good a designer as I want to be. Or, if I'm feeling especially masochistic, I'll go through my bookmarks and end up hating myself because I'm not as good as they are.
You know who they are. They can get a design to look exactly the same in every version of Internet Explorer ever released. They work on a Mac but have a Windows laptop just to check their designs. Their sites load in about 2 seconds on dial up. Their style is sleek, sophisticated, and elegant. Their portfolio is full of high profile sites that get a bazillion hits a day.
They, of course, are real web designers.
I do not, have not, and probably never will consider myself to be a real web designer. Technically, I suppose I am. I create web pages that are online and I've gotten paid to do it. I can create a web site from the bottom up, using only my bare hands and Notepad. Technically, I'm a web designer.
The problem is that I have a style, a way of doing things, a "look" I've been creating and recreating for a long time. Whenever a musician is asked what s/he listens to, rarely do they reply "I listen to me! All day!" That is to say, the style that one admires is rarely the style that one possesses. Even though I love sleek, sophisticated, elegant designs that doesn't mean I can emulate the look.
That's probably what keeps me going. I never even considered that someone might actually pay me to design their weblog until I started using TypePad. I brought with me two things: years of blogging and a need to customize everything I touch. I can't have a generic template. If I can edit, tweak, and personalize something, I will do so until it bares no resemblance to the original. So, when I had the chance to start a TypePad blog and have free reign over the design, I was all over it. And the thing about having a blog on TypePad is that other TP users will see it. And they'll say "HEY! Her blog is all tweaked out! I want mine tweaked out! GET ME THAT GIRL!"
And so it began. I thought it would be a short lived thing. Create a few templates, make enough money to get my mother off my back for a week, life goes on. But oh no. Now I can ask for more money and the people say "Wow what a good deal!" and I'm like "Seriously?"
Now there's pressure. Now I want all the D list comediennes to let me design their sites. Now I want people to weep when they gaze upon a blog I've designed. I've set the bar for myself so high that I feel like shit because I can't reach it. I know you're going to email me and say "Oh Colleen, that's how people get better at something. You have to be good before you can be great!" And I'll say "I know :) I was just in a mood."
I am in a mood!
I'm supposed to make a portfolio and approach this like a business. But how do you do that when you don't think you're good enough? How am I supposed to make a full time career out of web design when I don't even considered myself to be a web designer? At what point does the patron saint of web design descend from the clouds and place the halo on my head?
I guess I have two options here.
1. Stop worrying about what I think I can't do, get over it, and move on. This would mean embracing my special set of talents and moving forward. No more self loathing because my site doesn't look right on Macs, no more going to bed 100% convinced that I suck and I'll always suck and there's no point in even trying not to suck, no more freaking out.
2. OR I can continue to hate everything I design. This will get me nowhere. This will take away every shred of crediability I have and when you have no crediability, you have no clients. I need clients because I NEED MONEY.
I guess I should go with the first one. And I shouldn't post when I'm tired and moody. I really am just in a mood here. I'm not going to stop designing anytime soon. I just need to get these thoughts out of my head once in awhile or I'll go insane. The problem with being good at something is that you can't just be good at it. Maybe I'm too hard on myself?
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