All of my life I’ve been involved in the eternal struggle between due process and due personal logic. That to mean my way of doing things VS the way prescribed by given “expert”, text, or authority. I’m finding more and more as I get older that the adage about cat skinning wasn’t too far off. As a designer I am charged with the task of coming up with a solution to a given problem in the best manner that exists and when one doesn’t exist, to create one that does, then if after much trial and error no suitable one rears it’s head (ugly or other wise) then resort to the next best compromise. The creative process for me, much like many other things that I get myself into is not an easy or clean one. I used to like to describe it like this:

There are all these chunks of idea floating around and then some of the meet (bang!). Then the zygotal idea begins to grow and grow until it forms a concept. Finally when the concept is fully developed it comes out. Out of the loins of my mind.

It seems like the the biggest misconception of what I do is that I spend forty to sixty percent of my time everyday just goofing of online and the sixty to forty making a few pixel and opacity adjustments on an idea that I took way too long to come up with. I know it may be hard to believe, but the moment when you walk into my office an I’m browsing good.is, I’m not just reading up on how the U.S. lags in environmental performance (which is a bit concerning) but I am studying the way the site’s designers chose to display related articles and recent comments. Just like when I was a kid and my Dad and I would get into arguments over the best practices for mowing the lawn (front of the yard first or the back of the yard first), my idea of what methods make sense are is a good use of time often differs from what those in my senior feel. It would be very easy to declare victory on a given design challenge after thirty minutes of fumbling around on a Fireworks document but what’s the fun in that? I’m quite certain that I’m not alone on this.

I remember a few years ago hearing a What-A-Burger commercial that flaunted the fact that they made all of their burgers by hand and as a result were a “model of inefficiency”, but also totally worth waiting for. I was sold. On the flip side, I could site times when I’ve been known in times of extreme time shortage to produce works of greatness, but there more to that than meets the eye. There were many hours of research and exploration before that made it possible. I have a bag of tricks that I’ve collected on deck should I need them at a moments notice. Despite what it might seem like, nothing good is every created quickly.