Dealing with Self-Doubt as a Designer

Ian Paget: So, for people listening, myself and Arjun, we've known each other for around year now. We actually met in person. The other day, we was having a brief conversation online about mental health. It just happened to be something that Arjun shared on social media, and we figured this would be a good episode for the Logo Geek podcast. Mental health is one of those things that I think every designer struggles with.

I think there's two different types of mental health. There is the clinical side, but I think there's the day-to-day ongoing stuff that all of us struggle with. Say, "I'm not good enough," or, "I'm not as good as," or struggle with procrastination or perfectionism, or impostor syndrome. All this sort of stuff. I thought it would be great to bring you on, to properly chat about this, because I know you've got lots of thoughts on this. I'm going to give you an opening question, and we'll take it from there, we'll see where this takes us.

I was reading an interview that you did, I think it was with Dot Lung. I don't know when you did that, but you mentioned in there that there was a lull in your career, because you believed that you wasn't good enough.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Right, yeah.

Ian Paget: I know that there's a lot of people that probably experience similar things. Can you talk through what happened, and what that was like, and we'll see where this takes us?

Arjun Ahluwalia: Well, the lull in my career came from a number of things, of course. I'll be quite frank and open, I struggle with depression and anxiety and loads of other things. All the things that you just mentioned. Self doubt, and impostor syndrome.

I didn't really have clear identifiers, like impostor syndrome. I didn't have a title for all those things that I was feeling. I didn't have that many people to talk to about that. I just had that feeling that we now are much more comfortable calling impostor syndrome.

I was doing my Master's, and all of a sudden somebody told me, "What you're feeling is probably impostor syndrome," and had me look it up.

This lull kind of came about from a cocktail of all of these things. During this time I was doing my Master's, it was kind of increasing. The stress levels were increasing, the pressure that was on my shoulders, I felt, was increasing. I did not feel like I was being understood with what I was doing with my designs, or my thesis, or dissertation.

At some point, I got to the point where I was supposed to be asking my professors for recommendations and advice going forward with my career. One of the professors that I really looked up to during my Master's told me that I was not a designer. That really started the self-doubt thing to go to its pinnacle point.

Ian Paget: That's hard. Can I just clarify, was you studying graphic design?

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah. I was.

Ian Paget: Wow. That's harsh.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah. And this professor's known to be off-the-cuff and very direct, and I appreciated him for it. But given the circumstances and all the things that we were doing and talking about in my work, and how I was feeling very unsure about the work that I was creating, it was not the kind of thing I was ready to hear. It was not the kind of thing that really filled me with confidence, graduating from the university and then going on to start my career.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah, definitely.

Arjun Ahluwalia: I'm not going to lay all of the blame on this person, but it was just the wrong thing at the wrong time, when things were at its worst. That sentence that was said to me completely made me lose all faith in my ability, and my confidence and my skillset that ... "Well, I'm just one of those people who realise way too late that they're not good at this, and I shouldn't have been doing this, and I've wasted a lot of time, etc, etc."

That led to this supreme lull in my career, where my lack of confidence dictated that kind of work I was taking on. My lack of confidence really misinformed me about the kind of work I was producing.

I would take two, three, four times as long doing simple design work, just because there was so much self-doubt. I had zero belief in what I was doing. Or even worse than that, I had zero belief that I could progress or get any better. It's one thing to think that you start at zero, but it's another thing to think or believe that that's where you're going to stay for the rest of your life. That's where that lull really, really was at its worst for me.

Ian Paget: Firstly I want to say thank you for being so open and honest about that, because I know, and we've spoken about this ... Things like this, not everyone speaks about it. Not everyone realises that it's something that you can work through, you can get ... It's why I wanted to get you on, to really dig into this. I know that this doubt, this self-doubt, I have that. Just this past week, I've sent over two proposals to two different clients. Every single time I send over a presentation, I have this doubt in my gut that the client's not going to like what I've done.

I don't know if that's just me, or if it's everybody, but I think it's important that everyone listening to this understands that to some degree, this is all fairly normal. Once you're able to acknowledge that, you can get help for it.

That's what I want to kind of move onto next. I know you acknowledged that situation, you was in this place where you wasn't doing fulfilling work because you didn't feel that you was good enough. How did you get out of that situation?

Arjun Ahluwalia: It took a really long time, I'll be honest. I got a job, a full time job, at the university in my city. I started doing design work there. It took a while for me to slowly build up the confidence over there to start doing more ... To push myself to do a little bit more adventurous design work for the university.

It's not always the most exciting stuff that you get at the university to do, but sometimes we got projects that were quite interesting, and quite, you know ... "We have free-reign, we can do whatever we want here."

It took those little projects that dripped in every now and then to force me to push myself and show myself that I actually was capable of doing more than the low-level stuff I was doing earlier. That helped, it really did help.

The fact that it dripped in, it was my job to do those things. I didn't just turn them down. I would just tell myself, as a freelancer, "No, I shouldn't do that, because I'm not capable." That really boosted my ego, slightly.

The other thing that happened was, there was a point in time I was talking to a friend of mine who I now work with at my freelance studio called Uting. He was also kind of feeling the same way. He's a 3D and web designer. We were actually sharing and talking a lot. Through that sharing and conversation, we were able to relate to each other in a way that I hadn't been able to do with let's say a therapist or a friend, because I didn't have that many friends in the industry. I didn't have that many ... I didn't have any therapist that was from the industry, not that that's expected. But it really did help, because we could really relate to each other.

One time I got this opportunity through the university to go to this talk with Chris Do.

Ian Paget: And that's where we met.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah, that's where we met.

You know that session or workshop that we were a part of. It was basically called Design Therapy. We were there talking about impostor syndrome and this self-confidence thing that happens in the industry. A lot of the things that he was saying were just, I was ticking off a checkbox. "Yep, that's me. Yep, that's me. Okay, there's more of us. There's a room filled with these people who are saying the same thing. What's going on? Why haven't we talked about this earlier? Why haven't all of has had a little powwow where we sit in a circle and just share these things more often?" Because I'd felt so alone since then.

Then you and I also spoke, and you and I also kind of shared at that moment a little bit of personal stuff about how it has been a little bit hard with mental health, and trying to figure things out on your own. Especially-

Ian Paget: I'm sorry to interrupt. I know with that particular conversation when we spoke then, and I said it just before I hit the record button, but ... You come across as very confident and very comfortable in those situations. I didn't consider at all, or saw anything that gave across any kind of insecurities or doubt, or anything like that. I think that's something that's worth bringing up.

I speak on this podcast quite a lot, but I know there are people that see me doing all these podcasts and all these things online, and they think I'm confident. But I've really had to work through that, and I know you have too.

It's very surprising how common and how actually quite normal a lot of these feelings and doubts are. Like I've mentioned already, if you can acknowledge it, then that's what's really important.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Absolutely. It's also important to ... It's as you say, people are surprised when somebody finally admits that they struggle with certain things ...

Ian Paget: It's a good surprise though.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yes, it's a good surprise.

Ian Paget: It's like, "Oh, it's not just me." That's why I wanted to do this podcast. That's why I want to keep talking about this topic. Because it is something ... I have been seeing more and more conversations about the topic, but actually what I would like to see is, if you go to a therapist, it's normal. It's cool. It's just what you do, like going to a dentist when your teeth hurt. I still think there is a kind of a stigma attached to it a little bit.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah, there is.

Ian Paget: But it's becoming more and more comfortable to talk about. I find it comfortable to talk about anyway, but I think that's because I've come through the other end of it. I think it's when you're going through it, that's when you feel this doubt and so on.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. It should be like just going to the dentist. It really, really should. It is your brain, your feelings, your emotions, all of these things that are in your head. They make up so much of your daily function, and you rely so much on your thoughts and your experiences to do the work that you do, that you can't not treat it. You can't not take care of it.

Whether that's through going to a therapist or a group that you talk to, hanging out with friends, whatever your form of therapy is. Painting, music, whatever. It's really important to take that time for yourself and really have that honest conversation. "Okay, what do I need in order to help me help my brain, help my thoughts, to get out of this negative spiral that I'm in?"

Design has been, before the lovely age of the internet and social media finally becoming its final form, as we say ... Design, I felt, at least most computer jobs, were kind of isolated jobs. I didn't experience myself that a lot of people were talking to each other in the industry. I didn't feel like there were these open forums where people were discussing these things. Now, like you said, it is happening more, but that stigma is still there. And it really, really shouldn't be.

I don't know if I can say I've come out on the other end, or the other side of things yet. But I used to go to a therapist, and a group therapist, and I'm looking forward to going to therapy again at some point, because I feel like it's very healthy for me to do that. It would be detrimental if I didn't.

I think we need to start making it quite normal, so that not only we take care of ourselves, but if we are able to remove that stigma, there's no telling how many friends of yours, whether they are in the industry or not, that can come up to you and say, "Hey, I'm actually struggling a bit, I need help." That's huge. That's one of the biggest things I would love to change.

Ian Paget: That's exactly the reason why we're talking about it now. You mentioned therapy then. I've had therapy as well. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. I was genuinely expecting to be laid down on a bed with feet up and asked to talk about my mother and so on. The usual stuff that you see in films.

What I did was a form of talking therapies, and being taught about how the brain works, and how I can work through these changes. Problems that I had were solved very quickly, and I think if I didn't go and get help and acknowledge that I needed it, I would be in this constant spiral of it just getting worse, and never working through those problems.

Just a conversation with someone, it changed my life. I probably wouldn't be doing this podcast now, if I hadn't ... Any of my podcasts at all. I didn't think I would have done any of it if I didn't have therapy to help with that.

It's worth pointing out that I did expect an instant cure. I expected them to give me some nice tablets that would magically make me feel good. But there wasn't any of that. It is more working on it in your own way, with their advice, and it takes time. I think if you continuously work on it, and you really want to work through it, all of this stuff is life-changing.

It's good to know. I just want to say, hats off to you. You had that professor that shouldn't be one tell you that you're not good enough at the thing you just studied for, tell you that you're not good enough, but you still didn't give up. You still went out and got a job, and you still continued to work through it.

I don't know if you've finished your whole story, but I know we started talking about how you entered that event in Manchester where we both originally met. You went for that session. What happened after that? Obviously you was in this lull, you entered that event. What did it actually do for you? How did that actually change your career and mindset, and so on?

Arjun Ahluwalia: I think I left off the story with the part where you and I were having a conversation, I think?

Ian Paget: Correct.

Arjun Ahluwalia: I think Chris Green was there was well.

Ian Paget: Yes, he was, yeah.

Arjun Ahluwalia: All great people you are. We were just hanging out and talking, and then you and I started sharing our nervousness about starting things. I started asking you about, "Your podcasts, your Facebook group, how are you doing this? If I did it, I would be having a breakdown every five minutes. I would be panicking. I wouldn't understand ..." I just stuttered, I didn't even know how to put words together, I was explaining it to you.

And then you admitted to me, like you did just now, you said, "Actually, I'm quite nervous. I was quite nervous- "

Ian Paget: I still am sometimes. Just, after doing over 100 episodes now and being on as many other podcasts as I can ... Because I continuously work through the thing that's absolutely terrified me, I feel comfortable doing it. I speak in the same place in my room, I have the same setup. I've just gotten used to it, and I feel comfortable doing it. I've got comfortable with the format.

You know what, I think one of the big things with anything like this ... You can talk about it as much as you want, you can think about it as much as you want. But I think thinking about things is the worst thing.

Any time I need to do a public presentation, not that I've done many, but that's the one thing that still absolutely terrifies me.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Oh, that's the worst.

Ian Paget: If I know about it ... Say if I've got two weeks leading up to it. I will actually be thinking about it so much that I would have sleepless nights, and feel sick. It's the thought of doing it that is so much more damaging than the actual thing.

So with the podcast, honestly I just get on with it. I just book someone in. I plan questions out, I plan the content, I record it, edit it. I just get on with it. There is no thinking. Obviously there is some thinking, but there's no six month plan or six month strategy or anything like that. It is just, "Sit down and get on with it." I think that's one of the big differences.

In your job, you mentioned that you had no choice but to take on those projects, and to work through those things. It makes a big difference if you just get on with it. You actually make progress with everything.

Sorry, I've interrupted your story once again. We will get there in the end.

Arjun Ahluwalia: That's perfectly fine. This is you being all confident, and very good at your job, and being a very good interviewer. That's where my opinion of you comes in, where I thought, "Man, this guy's so confident. He's so good at this. How is he saying that he's been nervous?"

Ian Paget: I think it's worth saying as well, with podcasts it's audio-only. You know what the wonderful thing you can do with audio? You can re-record it when you go wrong. And that's what I do. Everything that you listen to now, if you're listening to this now, it's not an exact recording of what happened at that moment. It would have been tidied up and cleaned.

I don't do it so much now. They're tweaked, just to make it more pleasant to listen to, but early episodes ... And to be fair, I can hear it when I listen back ... Early episodes, if I completely screwed up what I was saying, like stumbled through a sentence or a question, or babbled my way through something ... If it sounded really bad, I just re-recorded it in my own time. If I needed to say it 20 times, I would.

And that's the good thing with audio. It's the good thing with video. It's the good thing with graphic design. The end thing is just the end thing that you're happy to share. What happened from the beginning to the end, does it really matter?

Arjun Ahluwalia: In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't. I think the other thing to take away is that, once you're done with it, you've uploaded the file. A podcast is different because you can always put it down and edit it and re-upload it, whatever.

When you do your work and you hand it off, you're done with it. You've handed it off. You can't do anything else with it, unless they come to you directly and say, "We need to make these changes here, and we need another feature, etc etc."

It's a good way of learning to let go of certain things, too. The process of design, the process of doing work that you hand off to a client, also should be seen as kind of this therapeutic thing where you've created something, and once you're done with it, you're done with it, and you pass it off.

Letting go should also be letting go of all the negative thoughts that you had while making the, let's say logo or design. "I've handed it off, I'm done with the negative thoughts as well."

To go back to that story ...

Ian Paget: We will get there in the end. It'll take 45 minutes to talk through.

Arjun Ahluwalia: It'll take 45 minutes.

So, we both thought we were equally as confident and superficially amazing. It turns out we weren't. It felt really good to meet somebody else. Because all the things that you were doing were things that I also wanted to do, to some extent. I wanted to start a podcast. I hadn't started any podcast.

I was really nervous because I had some stuff to say, and wanted to talk about, and I didn't know how to. I didn't know the format and all that. You just told me, "Well I just did it. I just went out and did it."

Later on in that conversation ... Well, later on that evening, at that event, I got to speak to Chris Do ... not Chris Green, Chris Do, personally. And I told him these things. After having spoken to you, it gave me the opportunity to think, "Maybe I should be a little bit more open and honest, and then ask for proper feedback." Like, what should I do?

I went up to him and I asked him, "Look, I want to do what you're doing. I want to do education. I want to help people, and I want to talk about these things that are important to me. I'm just scared, and I don't know how to do it. I don't know whether I'm going to be capable of doing these things. What if I'm not good enough, and I just sound like some idiot on the radio, or a podcast?"

He said, "Listen, there's always a voice inside of you that's wanting to come out, that wants to say something, and that's important. It's important that you cultivate it, because whatever your story is, it's unique to you. But I want you to try to do something."

He asked me to start journaling. In that journal, before going to bed, I had to write one thing I was grateful for, and five things that I'd done really well that I was happy with. And in the morning, I had to write five people I was grateful for, and the things that I was going to do that day that I'm going to be happy to do, excited about. He said, "Do that for a year."

The first thing I did, in the very same notebook that I took with me to the workshop to work in ... Before going to bed, for a year, I started writing. "I really am grateful and thankful for this person, and here's why. I did these things today and I'm really happy about that."

I didn't write any of the things that I didn't accomplish that day. I didn't write any of the things that I kind of failed at that day. I know those things enough in my own head, and I'm going to beat myself up about it, but I never journaled those things down.

Then I did the thing that I was supposed to do in the morning. And in a way, that resulted in me realising that it's not what keeps you from doing these things that matters. It's the fact that you did it, and that you try, and that you realise that you have these people around you that you can tap the shoulders of and ask for help, or a conversation, to get you to where you need to be.

That was really a catalyst to start doing stuff. I came back from ... were we in Manchester, I think?

Ian Paget: Yeah, it was Manchester.

Arjun Ahluwalia: I came back from Manchester and I was like, "All right, cool. We're doing this. This is how we're going to do it, we're just going to do it. We're going to find a name, we're going to start a company."

I spoke to, I mentioned earlier, Kenneth. I said, "We're going to start this. This is how we're going to do it, we're going to start a website, we're going to do podcasts, we're going to do the whole shebang, it's going to be amazing."

All of a sudden, this huge bravado that came from out of nowhere. Still nervous as ... I don't want to cuss. I don't know what the audience of this podcast is, but I was-

Ian Paget: Oh, you're welcome to say whatever you want. We know what you mean, anyway.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah, yeah. "AF," I think the kids say now.

I was so confident. Energy, I had this energy that I wanted to get out, I wanted to do something with. Today, I'm sitting here, we have about 13, 14 episodes of our podcast up.

Ian Paget: You haven't said the name of the podcast. You need to say the name of the podcast.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah, sorry. I's called Design Revision.

Ian Paget: And I'll link to that in the show notes, for anyone that wants to find it, as well.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Currently the format is still being worked on. We're three people who sit around a table, and we discuss the things that happen in design industry. How social media affects people, in terms of their confidence in design. How students are affected by it. Whether competitions are a good thing for design students, etc, etc. Is a formal education necessary or important for students who are coming into the industry? All those kinds of topics.

We kind of make it this three-person roundtable discussion. Eventually, we hope to have guests. But the main idea is that we're just doing it. We're just getting the work done, and we'll figure it out as we go along. And then we'll do whatever edits we need to edit. We don't do a lot of edits, but every now and then we do.

It's about just trying to figure it out as we go along. We run into technical issues all the time. We don't know exactly how to script the topics or make an outline for the discussion, but we figure it out and we get there, and we're learning by doing.

It's been much more rewarding than sitting in my chair and freaking out that I haven't done the podcast, but at the same time I'm freaking out, "I shouldn't be doing the podcast, because I'm not good enough to do the podcast." Or, "Why would my voice by important at all?"

It was a long roundabout way of saying, just do it.

Ian Paget: I think it's important to talk through it. I think part of what you said at the end there is another thing that we can tick off on the average graphic designer's mental health issue, is trying to make everything perfect.

My podcast, you go back to episode one, it's not great. The audio quality is rusty, I'm using the mic wrong, I'm kind of nervously blubbering my way through the interview. In fact, some of those early ones, I had to re-record my questions, because they really were, like, blah. But you learn.

I think what's important with ... I know we're talking about podcasting now, but it's the same with everything, is that you take on that project, you do it to the best of your ability, and you learn from it. And that lesson that you learn, you apply to the next thing. And then you just continuously do this.

That's how I did mine. I think it took me about 20 episodes to get it to a point where it was reasonably good, like the quality of the audio was okay. But it took a lot of just getting on with it, just doing it. Making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes, and improving.

I think how we can bring that into things like logo design ... When I look back at my old logos, I look at them and I think they're not very good now. But it's more the fact that I did it and I learned from it. Then I did another project, I learned from that. By doing, it kind of drives you to keep learning and keep finding out things.

I'd like to think that the work I'm doing now, I'll look back in like five years' time and think, "Oh, I've come long way since then."

I think, as graphic designers, we continually learn, we continually improve, we hone our skills. That doesn't necessarily just need to be in graphic design. That can be things like answering the telephone.

The first time I did that, I used to feel sick, and I would get really nervous on the phone, and be very shy. But now, because I've had to do it so many times ... What really forced me to do it is being in a job, and when my phone rang, I had to pick it up. Otherwise, I probably would have lost my job. I was kind of forced to do it. Now, if I don't speak to clients on the phone, I will not get projects.

Even though ... And I'm going to be honest again, I don't like answering the phone when anyone else is in this room. I literally need to close the door, tell my partner to go downstairs, and then I take my phone out. I feel uncomfortable with anyone else in the room.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Oh, I hate it. I hate it!

Ian Paget: It just allows me to do it. It's one of my coping mechanisms, but I'm building up confidence. So a time will come when I'll probably be okay with someone else being in the room.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Man, that's so weird, because I'm exactly the same. I feel like somebody's listening in on the conversation, and then just thinking, "Why do you talk that way?"

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I don't know why I do mine. I think it's because, you know how you are with your family and friends. It's a different kind of personality to how you are when you're on the phone.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Absolutely. It's the worst.

Ian Paget: I think I put on a little bit of a voice, like, "Hello, Ian speaking, how can I help you?" I put on a different professional personality. I don't know.

I can just imagine, I'll be speaking with my client. I'll look up, I just imagine my partner giving me a funny look like, "Why are you speaking like that for?"

Arjun Ahluwalia: Oh, that's my nightmare.

You know what, actually. You were just mentioning, just something funny. I have had this recurring nightmare at some point. It was a period where I did the same thing, where I looked at logos I'd created earlier, and then gone back to it and gone, "Oh man, I'm so much better than that now. These logos are not that great."

I've had this nightmare that the same clients will contact me later on and be like, "We saw the logo that you recently did, and that's 10 times better than what you gave us! We want our money back!"

I think that's a very good way of looking at it, the way you just described that process with getting better and better, and treating everything as kind of a learning moment.

The other thing I think that would be really important for people to realise, and it took me a very long time to realise this, is that ... One, you don't need to work alone. You can ask people for their educated opinion. You can ask for constructive feedback. I've worked with people in my team and asked them, "Look, what do you guys think of this? How do I push it further or is something missing? I don't feel like this works, exactly." You don't have to work in a bubble.

That's one of the things that's so great about your Logo Geek community, is that people from all walks of life and levels of experience can come in and share their opinion, and present their work and ask for honest feedback. It's really, really good and healthy. I know you curate the comments quite a bit.

Ian Paget: Yes, yes, I do need to stop people being rude, or anything like that. It needs to be a safe place. If someone's going to be an asshole, I don't want them to be like that, and if they continue to be like that, they're not welcome in the group. But that's the way it should be. It should be a safe place where you feel comfortable enough to share your work, in the same way you would in a small office, just to ask people what they think.

Just to expand on something that you said then ... One real big mental health issue, again, is that it's easy to scroll through Instagram, to scroll through Facebook or whatever social media ... Behance and Dribble ... And just think, "I can never be good enough. I can never be like them. I can't do work of that capability."

I think if you go through this process of doing, learning, doing, learning, and continuously take on projects, you improve, you learn, you develop. And you'll probably get to a point where people will look at your work and think they can never be as good as that. It's because you've gone through that process of learning, improving, developing, getting support from other people. And then you become better at what you do.

There's no point in looking at Dribble and thinking, "I can't do work of that." Instead, you should look at it as benchmark work. "I would like to do work of that standard at some point, and I'm going to continually work towards reaching that standard." You shouldn't compare yourself with them, you should just compare yourself with who you was yesterday.

It's why I love podcasting. I know this is about logo design, but with podcasting, I can look back, I can listen to what I was saying three years ago. Now, I don't really recognize myself. I sound different. It's like a different version of me. It's just that I've improved, and I've developed better interview skills.

I can see it with my logo design work as well. I've recently been adding some new case studies. The new case studies on my website look way, way better than the case studies on there that I thought were actually quite good. It just goes to show that because we can kind of keep an archive of what we've done, you should be seeing that progress. You should be seeing that you're improving, and that's the key thing really. Just compare yourself with who you was in the past. Then you'll always hopefully get better than you was.

Arjun Ahluwalia: I'll be honest, I don't look at other designs online. Unless I'm actually working on a project, and I need to get some references, or look at something that's similar, or try to be inspired by something, I'll look it up. In my free time, I try not to look too much at other designers' polished work that's online.

Quite frankly, it's for my own mental health, because I'll just start dragging myself down. I'm not at that point where I can tell myself, "Oh, well that's good," and leave it at that. I'll start making it very ego-centric, and hammering at myself and saying, "You're not at that level yet."

At the same time, I think it's kind of healthy to not be that affected by the work that you do all the time, in your free time, looking at all these super-polished pieces. It's one of the things that we talked about on our podcast, is that we wish that more and more people were putting out the process of how they got there.

I love seeing people doing calligraphy online, because you can actually see them going through the process of how they get there. You can scroll back, and they're very good about taking video of their work, calligraphers in general. They show you how their work gets better and better over time. The proof is in the pudding, practice makes perfect. Using the word, "perfect," loosely.

I feel like designers need to get better at that, especially people who are well-seasoned designers, who are constantly putting out good work. I feel that Dribble and Behance gives you the opportunity to do that, by making case studies. But social media places like Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook, it's very shallow, the way they put stuff up there.

I feel like for a lot of young designers who are coming out, it's kind of nerve-wracking to go into those social platforms, follow a designer, and then see none of the process being done. None of the tossed-out sketchbook papers. None of the hair being pulled out, trying to figure out what the client actually wants, and how I'm supposed to make this work with these color combinations. Those things are important, because they humanise the process so much more.

The other thing that I wanted to bring up when we were talking about learning by doing, step-by-step, what you were mentioning earlier ... I think it's really important that, when you're doing the work, perfectionism really holds you back. You might not necessarily be thinking like a perfectionist, but when you are in that space of self-doubt, and you're worried about your level of quality or ability or skillset, you might think that every project or work or logo or design that you do is the most crucial important design that you have to hand off. So your brain treats it like this super-important project. "It's gangbusters, this is make-it-or-break-it for my career." It really isn't. It never really is.

That's a hurdle that I needed to get over. That everything you do, yeah you should do it to the best of your ability like you said, Ian. But you need to learn that you will only continue growing and getting better by doing. But you can't sit there and stifle yourself for perfection, treating it as though this is going to be your career-ender if you don't get this right the first time. That can really hold you back. That can really push you down. That can really put you in a ditch.

That's also important to kind of get over.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah, definitely. I know it's kind of a buzzword, but I think strategy is important. When we talk about strategy and the goals of the project ... In order to solve that effectively, you can actually do it very objectively, and it doesn't need to be seen as a creative exercise.

If you know what you ultimately need to accomplish, that in itself isn't really a creative exercise, is it? It's trying to come up with something completely original that looks incredible, that's the thing that I think a lot of us struggle with.

While we're on that topic, I'm going to share a story. I had a project recently, and I allocated ... I think it was like three days to work on the project. It was just a logo design project.

I had my first day, and I sat down for an entire day with my sketchbook, just drawing out ideas, and ... Nothing. Nothing was right. There were things that were okay. I had no shortage of potential ideas, it's just, it was just a mass load of crappy ideas. None of them I thought were particularly original. None of them I felt represented what it was about.

This was for an actual location. It was for an area within the south of France. I watched all these videos of the area, and there was so much, so much that this thing could have contained. There was all this ... The nightlife, the beaches. You could go sunbathing, you could go partying. You could go out, you could see museums and stuff like this. It was just such an overwhelming amount of things I could have potentially put in this. Like I said, there was no shortage of ideas. It's just, I really felt that nothing worked.

Normally, when I sit down for an entire day, I should at least have one idea that is good enough to proceed with, but I actually felt like nothing was working. When you're self-employed, time is money in a way. If I don't get this project done within the three days, I'm going to be screwed, because the next project starts. I've got a queue system of projects.

I actually felt sick. I felt sick. When it came to about half-five, I tend to stop working then. I go down and make dinner for the family. And I couldn't let it go, I kind of carried on and just nothing came together.

Obviously, I went to bed, kind of slept on it, didn't think about it too much. I did have that doubt still. I just woke up, and I looked at some of the sketches on the page, and I'm like, "That could be something." It was more, I just woke up with a different mindset.

The first day, I was just kind of trying to come up with something clever and new and exciting. But the next day, I had this, "I have to get this done, I just need to sit down and get on with it. I'm just going to pick out a few things and develop them." I came in with a fresh pair of eyes, I had a rest, and some of the sketches it thought, "That could be cool if I did that. That could work."

Sometimes, when you get stuck in a rut, or stuck in this ditch where you just feel like nothing is working ... Sometimes, you just need to take a break from it. One thing that I learned with that particular project is, I aimed that morning to just pick out things that would work. They wasn't the best ideas, or I didn't think of them as the best thing ever. I just wanted to put together three good designs that could just do the job. That was my goal. By the end of the day, I needed to have just a number of things.

I think it was just having that mindset of getting on with it, that's when I started to develop one of them. I saw, once it was in Illustrator, I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if I did this?" And it just started to come together. The final thing was actually really great, really clever, and the client loved it.

But that first day, at the end of that day, I really felt like, "I don't think I can do this project."

I think the thing you need to accept is, a lot of this self-doubt, a lot of these struggles, a lot of these anxieties and insecurities ... I've come to the conclusion that it's just part of the process, and if you accept it's part of the process, then it's less stressful.

Arjun Ahluwalia: There's this writer in the US that I really, really like. His name is Ira Glass, have you heard of him?

Ian Paget: I haven't, but I'm going to look him up, and I'll link to him in the show notes, for anyone that wants to look into him.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Do that, do that. He has this thing where he talks about the creative process. He's speaking from a writer's perspective of course, but he's kind of speaking to all creatives. He's talking about this wall that you hit, or this lull that you get, or this level of frustration. This point that you reach, where you feel like, "Everything I make is shit right now, to be honest." Where you're looking at it and you just go like, "What the hell is this?"

He says that the reason you think that way, the reason why you're reacting that way to the stuff that you do and the stuff that you see is because you have taste. You have a level of taste, whether it's informed through education of experience, or whatever it is you've done to get to the point where you are today. It's an informed feeling. It's not just feeling that's come out of nowhere. You have to just keep pushing forward.

The whole point is, you take your break. He even argues that some people can take a year if they need to, before they make something really good again, where they're comfortable and happy with the work that they're producing again. He's saying this as though, "Okay, yeah, sure. Take the time that you need, but keep making. Keep producing, keep pushing."

That's not to counter-argue what you said, in terms of taking a break from it all. He's a big proponent of taking ... If you listen to some of his podcasts and stuff, he's very big on taking breaks, and making sure you have ample breathing room between projects and creative work.

But he really, really hones in on this point that whatever you're feeling, it's because you have an informed feeling. It's coming from a well of experience that you have gathered over this time, and you shouldn't feel bad that you've made something poor, or not good. You should just take it as, "Okay, part of the process. I'm going to continue the process, and eventually I'll get there."

I feel like that's also been really important, for me. It's kind of like what you say. It's that this is all part of the process. All the negative up and downs, whatever you're feeling, you have to go through it. Sometimes you have to go through the fire, and at the end of it, you'll come out a lot happier with the work that you're putting together.

I had something very similar to what you went through. There was this logo project that I was doing, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do the design. The lock-up was wrong, everything was wrong. These elements that I was trying to pull together, they were just not adding up. Kind of like how you just described it.

In the end, I just needed to step away and go for a walk, for a long time, before I came back to the desk and was like, "Wait, I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what to do!"

So, sometimes too much screen time or sketchbooking time can actually be detrimental to your creative process as well.

Ian Paget: Absolutely. I think that's probably a good point to kind of wrap things up. Do you want to share with the audience how they can find more about you and connect with you online?

Arjun Ahluwalia: Yeah, absolutely. We have a website called uting.no. That's U-T-I-N-G dot N-O. The name actually means, "Abomination," in Norwegian. So, psychologically very memorable name.

We do a podcast called Design Revision. In it, we talk about topics like we just spoke about right now, and things that are happening in the industry, as well as education and how we can help up-and-coming young creatives, and how to express themselves, or do work more efficiently, or ... Trying to get more out of their education by finding other resources, and things that they can do.

Right now, the podcast is kind of on a hiatus, mainly because of COVID and how things have been difficult to plan. But we're hoping to get back together again by the end of this year, and next year.

Just so it's very clear to people who are going into the podcast for the first time, if anyone feels so inclined, it really is three people who work together, who are friends, and we talk about the serious stuff, but we also are just friends, and we're meeting after a long day, and we do joke around a bit. If that's something that you're interested in, please give us a listen. We're on all the major platforms.

Ian Paget: Definitely. Go find it, subscribe, and I'll link to it in the show notes as well so that people can find it.

Arjun, thank you so much for coming on. It's been good to catch up again. I know that we sometimes speak online, but we haven't actually spoken verbally like this since we first met up in Manchester. It's been good to catch up.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Really good, yeah.

Ian Paget: And thank you for sharing some honest stories about mental health. I think it's worth saying for listeners, anyone that's kind of stuck in a place like what we've spoken about, you're welcome to come and chat to myself. And Arjun, I don't want to put you on the spot, but I assume that you'll be in the same place, that you'll be happy to speak to anyone.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Absolutely.

Ian Paget: If you do need more help, like if you do need more support and so on, it's cool to go and see a therapist. I have, Arjun has, it's normal. It's like going to see a dentist.

Arjun Ahluwalia: I still do.

Ian Paget: It's good, yeah. It's normal.

Arjun Ahluwalia: It's good to just talk to someone. Even though you might not be suffering from any of the mental health issues, I think that it's nice to have someone to talk to, and doesn't necessarily have to be a therapist, but just find somebody you trust who can be objective and give you cognitive reasoning to think about. It's very healthy it's extremely healthy, I feel. Especially in times like these, I think it's very, very important to.

Ian Paget: Definitely. I think, find a friend and speak to them. But you know you're welcome to reach out to me, I'm always happy to speak to my fellow creative graphic designers.

This has been awesome, Arjun. Thank you so much for coming on, it's been amazing.

Arjun Ahluwalia: Thank you for having me, and it's been awesome.