We all remember that don’t we? You’re in third grade, wearing the sweater that your Aunt Margaret sent for Christmas and here it comes, that all too familiar yodel from the mean girl in school: “Hey kid, nice sweater, did your blind granny make that for you?” Shocked and dismayed, you run from the playground to the girls’ room and have a good cry. Why did your Mom make you wear that sweater, and why didn’t you think to hide a different one in your backpack? Why, why, why?

There is always going to be a bully or meanie out there and to be Jane (you know vs. frank) about it, the graphic design industry is filled with them. There are the designers who stare at you when you come in for an interview as if to size you up by what you have on and not what is in your portfolio. Then there are the Soho, ultra hip, superior brains of design with their turtleneck sweaters and dark rimmed glasses, who look down on you slightly over the frame, as if trying to look through you and anywhere but at your portfolio. “I’m better than you are!” is echoing through their head and you have no chance in hell of getting the job.

Whatever!

I don’t get it; designers are some of the most competitive, self-worshiping, self loathing, insecure people I have ever met. Now it may be that I came into design backwards—I did first go to medical school where I learned to look at things through a rose colored Petri dish. But it seems to me that designers look at other designers and play the “superior” card all too often. I feel that Whitney Young (pre pc/mac war, Civil Rights Leader) said it best with:

“The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self.” Whitney Young (1921-1971), Civil Rights Leader.

Don’t give up! I know you’re reading this, you young designer, and you’re afraid you can’t get a job, or maybe you ran into a scary Soho hipster in the hall. Keep your chin up. Everyone started in the exact same place you are. We have all been there, sat right there, right where you’re at right now. Do not do unto others what has been done unto you. Change the future, change the way you do business, and create a culture, not a company.

-- Jordan Dossett

Posted by Jordan Dossett on August 27, 2004 at 07:39 pm EST

Tags: Ego
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