It’s been about three months since my last post so I figure I’m due to post an update. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from designing during this time because I think I kinda burnt myself out trying to do so much in such a short amount of time last year. Lately, I’ve been coasting through my days and saturating my free time with video games, although I’m starting to get antsy to be designing full time again. I’ve decided that I need a personal passion project that I can also use in my portfolio, so I’ve started back on Skillshare to get some direction and structure.
When I think about my career so far, I realize that I haven’t really had any passion projects that I’ve contributed to, besides my volunteer work for AIGA KC. At my past full-time jobs, I never really cared about the product I was designing for–no one ever took the time to give me a reason to and I didn’t bother to ask–I was just excited to be designing. I’ve always thought of these jobs as “stepping stones” to the next big thing; they were roles where I could gain some new knowledge, but sadly never had the opportunity for me to climb the “career ladder”. But now that I’m in my thirties, I’ve realized that I don’t totally know what I want to do next, only that I want it to be something that I actually care about for once. So my focus right now is to try to figure out what I really want out of my next role: what kind of industry focus, what kind of job title, what I want with my daily workload, etc. My method of research will be a passion project. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take me too long to figure out what that is!
Design Diaries 