Every Designer Needs a “Personal Board of Directors”
We are creative designers; most everything we do is subjective and easily critiqued or criticized. Most of us know where we look to for inspiration, but do we know who we look to – do we even have someone, anyone, we can talk to or share ideas with? Some may say our co-workers; others may laugh when co-workers are mentioned, some work alone as freelancers and others independently in-house as the sole designer. So, when you’re not in an agency environment spawning with creativity; what are you to do? No matter who you are or where you work – every creative designer can benefit from a personal board of directors.
Just as a good business depends on the experience, knowledge and advice of a solid board of directors – a creative designer needs the same. A personal board of directors is simply a group of industry colleagues that are at your disposal to share ideas, concepts and draw inspiration from (reasonably at your disposal). Find and develop a friendly and sincere relationship with individuals to whom you respect, admire, trust and whose opinions you value. It is these people that will truly help your creativity blossom – they will most likely provide objective, helpful, honest and targeted input and advice on your ideas.
How do you do this? Buy them a beer! Once of month, take one of these close friends/colleagues out for a beer – your treat. Your personal board of directors should be people you consider friends; nothing awkward and nothing forced; just catch-up over a couple of beers. In exchange for a free meal or a round or two – you get the opportunity to occasionally ping them for feedback, opinions and advice.
It is more than a friendship and greater than a network – your personal board of directors is your living inspiration. You can’t always pick your company, your boss, your co-workers or your working environment – but you can and should pick your personal board of directors.
- December 18th, 2006
- 7comments
- I am a proud member of the 9rules network
Thanks, I’ve been thinking about doing this all year, and your article is encouraging me to be more deliberate about this.
Two things I was thinking about for myself with having a “Board of Directors.”
1) As freelance designers, it’s easy to get isolated and miss out on networking and social ties. So this also serves as a great way to stay in touch with friends, former colleagues, etc.
2) I’ve thought of having more of a mixed group, not just designers, because I find some of my good friends in other industries have connections, ideas, resources, etc. outside my world that help me see things in a different light.
Great!! I started doing this almost a year ago, when I left my previous company and wanted to stay highly connected with my team.
I’ve had so much success with this … I really value my close connections — some of them don’t even know I consider them my “personal board of directors” (they thought I just like buying them beer).
Totally.
I came from from architecture design - and the never-ending crits seemed rough initially, but I miss it tremendously. I’m getting soft without people ripping apart my work. A fresh eye, a little inspiration to keep you going. Ask a non-designer and you get “that’s very nice” or “have you ever thought about making it blue?”
Everyone shovels out some shit sometimes and we talk ourselves into it - B.S. work backed up by B.S. reasons. Just today I made the reasoning to myself, “above the x-height characters get the upper left corners curved.” No one’s going to notice, no gold star to be had, no one will tell me it just plain needed a bit more work and my reasoning was just plain dumb.
The only thing I might hear is “is it done yet?”
A competent board would never let that happen! Everyone knows “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”, we all need some sense slapped into us now and again.
To have twelve reasons to make something more than adequate would be nice too.
Very good advice. I went to a trade school for Digital Media and Web Design and they preached us to always follow this method. Every month we would have a new class or new focus with what we were doing, and after we got done with a concentration or project we’d all gather in the room to present our projects.
This made for very good projects in the future because as you were presenting people would crtique your stuff. Not in an awful way, but a constructive way. “I’m not sure about that text right there” or “I think your stuff is great, the theme is great, but I don’t know if that should go there.”
Your dead on with this. It helps projects soo much, its invaluable.
Good post as always.
- Scott
Couldn’t agree with your more Scott. Thanks for the comment.
Well said, Martin. Any suggestions on how to cultivate board members who aren’t local?
Absolutely! Go to them. Attend events such as @media or SXSW — I’ve heard of so many friendships and relationships that have developed. These seem more like parties than conferences.
Also, I’ve developed some good relationships on forums, such as CSS Beauty’s SkillShare.