Time for a change

Sometimes it takes awhile to realize what it is that nags at your core. For a creative, its the yearning to do something revolutionary, to express oneself and go beyond the ordinary.

For the last couple of years, I've woken up feeling a strange sense of loss and emptiness that I couldn't trace. Was it that I wasn't growing as an interactive designer? It certainly seemed plausible and I focused my goals on creating something new, to come up with something that the digital world would take notice of, to create a new form of interaction and usability. Now I realize that those are all catch-phrases instilled within me by working in the world of corporate media -trying to push boundaries and ideas through, only to have them pulled back to the familiar, risk-reduced form of the ordinary.

I've gotten compliments on my design style, but to me that's all it is -style; nothing new, nothing pushing me past the familiar use of shapes, colors, grids, fonts, drop shadows, gradients, and all the other things that, while effective, are restrictive in their options.

I've tried focusing in on the strategy and conceptualization of projects thinking that it would strengthen my final designs as well as my growth as a designer. However, I quickly realized that, while this is a effective path to take, it isn't MY path. While it has made my designs 'smarter', the emptiness hasn't dissipated.

At some point in life, the soul forces the conscious mind to take a journey to find it. It can be frustrating and painful, and you quickly realize that it would be so easy to ignore its voice until it becomes but a whisper. As cliche as it is, it truly is a fork in the road -a choice to either take the climb or descent, and unlike other decisions there are no grays.

For the last couple of years, I've picked up hints, analyzed them, came up with hypotheses, and have followed different routes. Each exploration has taught me more about myself, spawned more hints, and brought me closer, but as of yet, the puzzle hasn't been solved.

Now it's time to make another hypothesis and this time it requires me to make a big change in my career and to somewhat abandon the field that I've worked in for over 10 years.