Intuitive Designs - Custom Web Design & Illustration Services

I bet that a lot of designers who run their own businesses, like me, don’t actually spend a lot of time designing. Most of my day gets divided up into tasks that are decidedly not very “creative”, like administrative tasks, communication, planning, marketing, small touch ups, coding, etc. etc.

When we spend the majority of our time doing such tasks, sometimes we start to forget why we decided to do this job in the first place. And that’s just sad.

Before I started designing, I didn’t know what I wanted to do career-wise. Like many young people, I spent a lot of time in high school and in the university dedicated to trying to find a career, learning lots of new things in different subjects, but not really finding anything that I felt totally passionate about.

When I discovered design, it was like I had finally found something that made me want to jump out of bed every morning. For someone like me who is both creative and analytical by nature, design is the perfect fit. So, this post is dedicated to my main passion and what makes this job worth doing for me.

Why I love design:

1. Problem Solving: This has to be the number 1 reason I love design. Being presented with a problem and finding a solution to that problem is really what this is all about. That’s why we always say to clients “Give us problems, not solutions”. It’s our job to solve problems!
2. Organizing: I never thought I was an organizational freak, but taking a bunch of information and placing it a way that’s it’s both usable and easy to understand is just so satisfying. It’s like when you spend a week reorganizing your whole house and then feel so great afterward. Totally awesome.
3. Fixing Stuff: Who doesn’t like to fix stuff that’s broken? Is your shop not selling products, are potential customers not contacting you, is your form not working? Come to me and I’ll help you fix it! I’m like a handy (wo)man.
4. Helping Clients: I love being able to help a client from start to finish on their website project and then see their business take off. Business and new product launches are so exciting and I really love to be a part of that.
5. Trends: The fast moving trends and staying on top of things make a design career an exiting place to be. There’s pretty much a guarantee you will never get bored because you ran out of new things to try and learn.
6. The Challenge: This is pretty much a culmination of all of the above things. This work is more complex and challenging than it appears on the surface. Between problem solving, researching, keeping up with new trends, constantly improving your skills, etc., there’s not much time to sit around and get comfortable. People in this industry who are slow to react, adopt new technologies, and adapt their businesses fall behind. A one year break would most likely place you out of the game. I like it that way.
7. Planning: Sometimes I think the planning and research phase is funner than the actual design stage. It’s just fun to start laying things out, organizing, and thinking of all the possibilities. The design itself is just a visual culmination of all these things to me. If you do your research and lay the groundwork properly, the design will reflect that and there’s a good chance of success.
8. New Technology: Web 3.0, HTML 5, trying new apps, working “in the cloud”? Bring it on!
9. Making Pretty Stuff: There seems to be a general misconception that this is only what designers do. To be honest, it’s not the highest on the list of priorities for me. I believe the main objective of a web site shouldn’t be to be the most beautiful, because that means nothing if it isn’t easy to use, straightforward, and effective. But, if you have all of the above and then a catchy and eye-pleasing design, you have it made. That said, there’s isn’t a good excuse for an ugly website that hurts your image and branding, ever.
10. Inspiration: Inspiration is all around us. Seriously, just go outside in nature and tell me that’s not inspiring. I also love looking for inspiration at magazines, television ads, art, furniture, packaging…the possibilities are limitless!
11. Giving Back: Ok, I know I said 10, but this one had to be included. Every once in awhile, we get to work on something that inspires people or maybe we can even hope to inspire people directly. It may be for our own side projects, may be for a pro-bono project, or may be just helping out for a cause we believe in. It just feels good to be able to contribute to something meaningful.

How about you? Why do you love your job?