To Designers and Artists.
Let’s be blunt: lock the fuck in. You have no choice if you actually want to be a designer who creates something real. Why? Because we’ve somehow collectively decided that before we even trust our own opinion on what looks right, we run to social media to figure it out for us. We go on Pinterest or Instagram and recreate what’s already been validated, what’s already got the applause. And honestly, it’s embarrassing. We’re acting like human versions of generative AI—taking the aesthetics that already exist, stripping away any real nuance or soul, and calling it creativity.
If you can’t sit with your own ideas, if you’re constantly jumping from one borrowed trend to the next, then you’re not designing. You’re just remixing someone else’s work and slapping your name on it. Even AI can do that, and you know it. This should alarm you. If you’re dressing up as a designer because it seems cool but you’re not doing the real work—if you’re not willing to let ideas simmer, to give them meaning and intent—then what are you really creating? Nothing that’s truly yours. And that’s the wake-up call. Because the world doesn’t need more empty-ass designs with no story. It needs your real voice.
So let yourself fall flat on your face. Why are we so scared of that? What’s going to happen if you fail? Maybe ten seconds of embarrassment, max. And if you’re that terrified of those ten seconds, what real thing are you ever going to achieve? Are you not more afraid of living your life hiding behind stripped-down aesthetics that mean nothing?
Fall flat on your face. Fail miserably. At least then it’s your own voice leading you, and that’s not failure—it’s growth. It might feel weird, but in the grand scheme of things, it dissolves into pride.
And hey, once you know this, you can’t just go back to scrolling and pretending you don’t. If you read this and still run back to social media to let it decide things for you, shame on you.
Peace.
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