The observation

I came across Jack Chitty's video recently where he talked about how his taste often outpaces his ability to create at that level. I had to pause with that for a second because it described something I've felt for a long time, and I think this is especially true for us designers.

The problem

We spend so much of our time consuming and studying great work, following people who are better than us, surrounding ourselves with the highest possible standard of how things should look and feel and behave. After a while, your eye gets so trained that mediocre work becomes painful to look at, even your own.

But this same sensitivity that makes me a good designer is the thing that sometimes stop me from making anything at all. I held my work up against the standard in my head, 'nah, it’s not quite there yet’, and so I waited for it. Nothing got done, and I stayed the same.

I've had to learn, and kept on reminding myself, that this kind of perfectionism isn't really about quality. It's about fear in disguised as standards. And the only way out of it is to make stuff anyway, put them out there, and trust that doing the work is what closes the gap over time.

And that's okay

Your taste will always be ahead of you. That's not a flaw in you as a designer, that’s okay. You will never fully become your taste, but you will always be a little more sophisticated than you were yesterday. I'll take that deal.

Which is why today I'm putting my new website out into the world. It's not perfect. But it's better than the last one, and that's enough for now. Link in bio.