Is it worth writing a song if only a few people listen to it? Should you write a book even if only your friends and family read it? Why make and share photos if you only have a hundred followers on Instagram?

Many times the concern for recognition and success make us question the value of whether to do creative projects or ignore them. Projects that you have thought many times about doing, but have not launched for lack of time, shortage of money or, as I want to talk about in these lines, out of concern about whether it will be successful or a failure.

Success allows us to create more

It is a reality that if what you are trying to do is to make a living from your work: be it writing, composing, drawing or taking pictures; you are going to do everything possible to reach that minimum success by which you can live from your art. Ideally, achieving this situation, where your economic resources are produced thanks to your works, will make you more prolific, since you won’t have to diversify your time with jobs that are not related to your creative field.

But for the vast majority of people, this will not be the case. Not everyone is going to be able to leave their profession to start a career in a hobby they are passionate about. Not everyone will see the fruits of their labor equal to the effort they have put in. Not everyone will be on the highest pedestal of success.

And I’m not discouraging anyone who wants that kind of success. Nor am I discouraging the one who doesn’t know if he or she is going to get it. In fact, it’s important to understand that there will always be the potential to get closer to making a living at what you love.

But what I want to point out is that starting a creative project from the prism of success, and all the pressure that comes with it, can mean that you never give it the chance it deserves.

Create for the love of art?

And here comes what I consider the most beautiful part of art or creative projects: the artist creates because he wants to, often with no other need than the very existence of his creation. As opposed to the one who starts because he is tempted by a successful path, the true artist starts because he needs to see his work finished.

Some may call it passion, others talent, others something like «the spark». The important thing is to realize that in the creative process there will be projects that we want to do for no other reason than the mere fact of wanting to create them. It happens to me that I accumulate many ideas, and often, the most personal ones have that aura of wanting to do them even if they are not going to have a great impact. For example, I would like to finish a book of poetry and photography that I started as a gift for dear people, because I was attracted by the idea of publishing something that would show me vulnerable to others.

This way of embarking on something is extremely valuable, because externally it may seem like a «bad idea», or a «project with no potential for success». But it is precisely in contrast to these arguments that we find the purest reason to create something.

The voices of «no”

We sometimes characterize what others tell us as the voices of reason. That others question the potential of our works, seems to justify some common sense: «why design clothes in this style if no one is going to buy them,» or «why play that instrument, if no one listens to it.»

Sometimes it is easier to ignore other people’s reasoning than your own. That’s why the voice you have to take care of the most is the one that comes from yourself. And it’s not so much a voice, but a dialogue. Part of you will see the reasons to start a project; part of you will find all the reasons not to start. You decide who you give the floor to the most.

I’m not saying that the creative process is just a matter of getting started. Even if the process is full of roadblocks, doubt, and uncertainty, it is comforting to think that at the core of our motivation we can find the inherent desire to want to see our ideas come to life.

To create is to grow

Within this framework of pure motivation, the artist’s job is to go from the intangible idea to the tangible and real work: the painting, the photo, the novel, the podcast…. Any process that takes us from the invisible to the visible will have a real impact on us.

No matter what art or hobby you are building, the person you were when you started that work is going to be different from the one who finishes it. And that’s amazing.

But why would I be a different person?

If we take life as a learning journey, we will always be in a process of discovery, which feeds back into what we learn as we move forward. In the paradigm of art, there are infinite lessons about the creative process, and that’s what this blog is about: lessons of all kinds that we learn in the making of our work. The one that concerns us now is the idea of challenge.

Every creative process has its challenges. Broadly speaking, overcoming a challenge is overcoming a problem that prevented you from finishing your work, either due to external factors (no free time, your family is against you…) or internal ones (lack of inspiration, confidence, mastery…). And it is in that specific necessary lesson in your process to overcome the challenge where the growth lies. 

For example someone who has to limit their leisure time to play the drums better may learn about sacrifice and perseverance, or about how to prioritize something important over what others usually expect of you, or they may also learn about the balance they need in life so they don’t succumb to their obsessions. Each person will have the potential to learn a valuable lesson when they need it most.

Get to creating, whatever it is

I encourage you to start, continue or finish your creative projects. It doesn’t matter what field it is in. Because someone who has had to go through the journey of creating something entirely their own is going to move forward in life’s journey. It doesn’t matter if you are commercially successful or just read by your friends. What you create, if you do it with sincerity, will always be important.

For some it will simply be about improving the understanding and capabilities of their art; for others, about getting closer to the success they’ve always wanted; for me personally, each creative project hid a lesson I needed at that moment in my life. The challenges I encountered in the process were nothing more than an extension of my limitations, and therefore an opportunity to learn to overcome them.

Embark on that which needs no other reason than your deep desire to see the idea realized. We must trust that if we do this, we will see how our work will gain a value that no success or recognition can replace.

La entrada Creating is Akin to Growing se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #51&52

13th to 24th of November

And that’s that…

It was feeling a bit anticlimatic to finish a whole year of graphic design practice. But I must be clear: it was a great year of learning.

I was still doing the html course so I felt I wasn’t investing enough in design. So I ended up doing some square format designs, and I think I did all of them in 1 or 2 hours. I’ve built quite a bit of design muscle, and I’m glad for that.

What comes next? I don’t know. Until the end of the year I think I will be learning html and css, and then at the beginning of the year I will see how I face this second year of design practise.

La entrada Week #51-52 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #50

6th of October to 10th of November

HTML COURSE AND AMAZON PRODUCT DESIGN

I’ve finally started learning html. I would like to have at least a basic knowledge of how front end works. I started a course with pixelpro and even if it’s more information centered and it needs more of memorizing skills, I’m glad I finally started.

Then I’m just uploading a few of the design I’ve been working for a client recently. I’ve been doing the images for Amazon listings, working with a square format. 

Then I’m just uploading 2 super quick designs I made when I was too exhausted from learning html content.

La entrada Week #50 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #49

30th of October to 5th of November

Square Format and yutori

This week was the most prolific in terms of producing final designs. Even if there was one day that I didn’t practise, I stillhad lots of ideas. I just started out with testing a new font, but then I jumped into square designs, as if album covers.

I got a bit experimental with colors, since I found two sources with very good content for inspiration Typographic Posters and Philippe Apeloig 

Then I just wanted to do something with some pictures. I would say this week represented two styles of designs that more and more define my strengths.

La entrada Week #49 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #47&48

16th to 27th of October

Shirts, shirts, and more shirts!

I was in the flow of designing t-shirts. Clearly my style is more focused on typography and images (which I came to accept) but the possibilities are infinite. There’s a few designs that I find quite good, but still there’s so much to expand in this niche of graphic design.

I was revisiting the logo course again. I want to give closure to that for now, I think I will focus my learning somewhere else.

La entrada Week #47-48 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #46

9th to 13th of October

branding, textures and posters

I’ve been working mostly in the rebranding of a logo, but I cannot share it yet. Once is published I will update it here.

Apart from that, I wanted to start testing a lay out for a project with all of my textures. I would like to make some type of book compiling all of them. Here is just an example of what could be, even if in my mind I want to make it very minimal and simple, with not much added text or forms.

Then the good old posters which I enjoy so much. I still need to get in the grove again.

La entrada Week #46 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #45

2nd to 6th of October

I’m back! Break, Pilgrimage and future

After many weeks without being able to continue my day to day practise, I’m bacl in the game. From all the experiences that I had in the past 3 months, I wanted to make a design from the spanish pilgrimage «Camino de Santiago». This is just a gift I made for my wife.

I was surprise at how challenging it was to make a composition that didn’t feel too chaotic while still having many pictures. I would say this is the first type of design that I do, and there’s lot to learn.

La entrada Week #45 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #43&44

31st of July to 11th of August

LOGOS, Re-designs and photo posters

Very slow two-weeks practise. I couldn’t manage to get into rythym because I was so busy with other projects. I think the course on logo design is powerful, and that I can learn a lot and finally grasp how to be good in the the process of creating logos, but at this stage I’m still too amateurish. It was a good challenge and practice to do a cloud of branstorming ideas (there was much more but I thought of just showing a theme).

Then I was surprised by how hard it was to re-design the advertisement that I’m showing. I saw it in a company’s magazine, and I just thought: let’s make it better. It became quite complicated, because I also had to get rid off information that I don’t know if the real client would be fine with. So it’s not just a visual job, but one of information. Still, good practise.

When it was hard to work on those two, I just did what I like so much: use my own pictures to create designs. It’s becoming a classic, but I like giving that outcome to many of my pictures, which otherwise I don’t think are powerful enough to be part of my photography portfolio.

La entrada Week #43 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #42

10th to 14th of July

Sagi Haviv

Domestika Course

I finally started a course on logo design. That’s why I haven’t «produced» much this week. I’ve been practising and soaking in the info.

LOGO PRACTISE AND VISIT TO BRUSSELS

I felt I needed to make some designs despite most of my time was dedicated for the course. The horizontal ones are okay, but the verticals are definetely unfinished. I just used some pictures I took from my trip to Brussels on the weekend. Anyway the point is that I’m investing into expanding my logo design skills, even if there’s quite some resistance because I feel I’m not a good illustrator, but I think with this course I’m realizing that the process of logo creation is much more than that, which gives me good sensations for a good learning curve.

La entrada Week #42 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.

Week #41

3rd to 7th of July

RE-generation branding

This was such a journey. Finally I could have some real case scenario where I could solve with graphic design the problems of my client. Basically I had to develop the aesthetics for a workshop from a religious group. This included: the logo, two shirts, banners, and a poster.

It took me a while to find the style, but finally I went for a typography based imaginery, also since I’m not a good illustrator (yet?). Once I could find the core idea, mixing two fonts for RE-generation, then everything started rolling. Of course those two fonts are the ones I’ve been using a lot lately: Roc Grotesk and Gazzetta.

La entrada Week #41 se publicó primero en JAVIER BADOSA.