Passion In Your Work?

Seriously, I am really going to hit you with the cliché to beat all designer clichés. Consider yourself warned.

Every time I engage with a new client, particularly of the mom and pop ilk, I am asked if I think their paper napkin concept is THE next killer device the drooling consumer market has been awaiting. I’ll admit that sometimes, it’s hard to equal the enthusiasm posited by my new charter.

More often than not, I see the potential, albeit occasionally hidden under the dust of over thought, blind ambition and piles of ethereal currency that my new charge has layered upon the base concept. Yet, as an enthusiastic personality myself, it usually does not take much for me to jump on board. That is if the proposal is not rife with LSD induced features. Yet, more often than not, I am presented with a concept that has been well thought out and at least minimally researched. After all, if they have found me then, at the base of it, they understand that they need a designer and an entity that can bring their product to fruition. If not all the way to market.

These client projects tend to lead to some of my most enjoyable works. To glean enthusiasm from those you work with and to bolster your own creative passions is, well, very satisfying. Something that goes beyond the mechanics of pure execution. Which is where I begin with yet another challenge to my fellow designers.

I have had the misfortune to work alongside automatons that possess the title of ‘Designer’, yet bring little to the table in the way of enthusiastic problem solver, personally invested thinker or even mildly enticed CAD jockey. Think incorporeal cubicle inhabitants.

I have also had the great fortune to partner with designers, vendors, etc. who are ready to roll up their sleeves and dump their full worth into a project. THESE engagements are the ones we designers should exist for. To immerse fully into the project and truly invest our definition of self into the design. How else can we stand back from a completed design, arms folded with a slight smirk of self satisfaction and say to ourselves, “Yup, I did that. Ain’t it cool?”

Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not suggesting that we should supplant reason, perspective, and sound council for the saturation of sightless self aggrandizing. It’s just that too many of us have donned the cape of ‘Designer’ only to be more adept at process engineering or PLM management.

To those who find it hard to muster the energy in your work I suggest searching for that passion. Why are you a designer? What brought you to this place in your life/career? Do you really love what you do regardless of all its warts and maladies?

I once again draw your eye toward the watch industry.

Side note: Why do I cringe each time I dumb down the descriptive of what is one of the most elaborate engineering, design, artistry and marketing fields on the planet? These miracles of human thought and execution are not ‘watches’. They are artistic machines. Sorry for the tangent.

If you read my earlier post on horological and chronological machines, then maybe you have already begun to delve into this amazing industry. Maybe you have been inspired to raise your level of education and personal investment. I hope you have.

Only a modicum of time need to be spent researching brands like Maitres du Temps, MB&F, Urwerk, and many others to see that these designers have harnessed their intense passion into a life-long pursuit of excellence.

I offer these two videos from Maitres du Temps for their horological machines: Chapter One and Chapter Two. Pay particular attention to the interviews with Roger Dubois, Daniel Roth and Peter Speak-Marin. Their summary of the life-long immersion and investment in watch design is impressive to say the very least. Also note the Winding Rotor design on Chapter Two and how each of the three principals that make up Maitres du Temps contributed to its design both conceptually and physically. This is the level of personal investment of which I speak.

So, are you leaving a bit of yourself in your designs? A little bit of sweat? A little bit of blood? Do you take immense pride in your works? If not, then I challenge you to do so. You must immerse your being in order to do full justice to yourself and your life’s work as well as your clients. If you are just going through the motions for a paycheck, then, well, step out of the way so we impassioned designers may sink our teeth into product development. We’ll have need for you to check our math, review our detail drawings and conduct FEA analysis.

A little bit insulted by that last bit? Well then take up the charge. Come join us. The water is fine and the rewards great.