The hard truth of being a creative professional
How creative success is more about perception than competence.
Maybe it’s the talent for generating beautiful art or a natural ability to solve problems with original thinking. There are many reasons to admire creative professionals. But for all the benefits of this incredible skill and talent, there are considerable drawbacks.
As a Creative Director, people tend to think my job sounds fantastic. I get to build compositions using my imagination, along with the use of beautiful images, colors, and fonts. And while this sounds like a pretty sweet job, the truth is far more complicated.
A Lack Of Objectivity
The biggest problem in the creative world is the absence of objective truth. What gets produced by creative professionals is an interpretation of a solution based on relevant knowledge, intuition, and personal preferences. The results of which are subjective and easily malleable by outside opinions and perceptions.
Training and experience are virtually worthless when a client or manager expresses disdain for a composition solely based on their personal preferences.
There’s a common saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If that’s true, how can a creative professional ever hope to produce something that doesn’t exist?
An experienced creative professional can rationalize and justify decisions by explaining their use of design principles such as hierarchy, balance, color theory, and so on.
However, all it takes is one individual in an authoritative position to say, “I don’t like red” or “can you use a script font” to ruin a well-thought-out design and undermine any credibility on the part of strategic creative thinking.
The Absence of Acknowledgment
The fundamental structures for effective creative solutions are typically invisible to the naked eye. From an outside perspective, it’s not easy to recognize the knowledge and wisdom that goes into becoming a successful creative professional.
Maybe it’s because a 5-year-old with crayons can be considered creative. Or perhaps some people feel creative skills are trivial. Either way, it can be argued highly creative jobs are not as valued when compared to other careers, which may use skills such as extroversion or information retention.
In my article, The Value of Practical Creativity, I explain the benefit of particular types of creativity and its significance on human progression.
Admiring Math and Logic
There are moments when I envy the careers of programmers and accountants. I’m jealous of their ability to generate solutions without bias or individual interpretations.
It’s easy to recognize the value of these technical skills. If someone without similar abilities tried to do their job, they would fail miserably, and it would be evident in the outcomes.
Accepting Success in the Face of Failure
Creative individuals see the world and information very differently than most people. That’s what makes us special and unique. It’s also what tears at our very existence, always imagining what is and what could be. And knowing that for any of our ideas to be true, they must first be recognized through ignorant eyes.
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