jammie's jarful

The Never-ending Story

Msn-ing with hussy all the way in the Phillipines about love, work and loving work, she said something that got me thinking about what work, to us, actually means. When do we, as designers, take on projects and when, as weary designers, do we lose heart in it? The thing about our work is that it has no boundaries. Where do you stop calling something design? When the page layout is done? Or when the idea has taken seed? Or when the plant is providing shade? Does the design of something ever really end? Or not? On some very clear level, it imbues its spirit into the management and suddenly you aren't only designing design, but designing lives instead.

Exhausting innit?

So many times after having agreed to "paper" terms in a project, where I draw up figures and deadlines and do's and dont's for myself and my client, suddenly I find myself working way way overtime. Not in actual minutes and seconds of time alone, but in my head and my soul. It's no longer a project but a part of who I one day plan to be. It's a designers curse called "Inextricabli-tis", in which the main symptoms are that you and your work are intrinsic in nature. One cannot be separated from the other because where you end and the work begins is vague. Very, very vague.
Design for people like us was never meant to be just a profession. It was meant to be a full fledged life and as we graduated those millions of 6 years ago, I don't think I knew that I was afflicted because it didn’t show back then. But now, now it's stark raving obvious.

posted by jammie @ 12:08 PM