You are good enough,that’s the problem.

I hope you like graphs, it is a genuine question :-). This is a simple graph representing the career trajectory for most designers, you have the period on the x-axis and career path on the y-axis, to be honest, I prefer the word career progression, for the sake of brevity, we will stick with career path. To capture a larger portion of designers while keeping the article relevant, I have decided not to put specific labels on the period. Leaving it open-ended also helps avoid a sense of guilt or learned helplessness on the reader's part. Since there are observable patterns to growth but no general rule, we will stick with the graph as our reference point throughout this article.

The graph shows an undulating wave that stretches upward, the refined line is perceived to hold the promise of a smooth sail, but an unsuspecting designer will fail to see how it hides the very object of growth. Let us for the sake of simplicity break down this graph into three portions.

At the start, there is a steady rising climb in the good portion, the blue region, here people rarely start from zero. I believe once you take an interest in design(ing), you already have an advantage, interest is part of the journey, hence the graph doesn't start from zero. This region is where you learn the fundamentals and foundations of design. It is your formative period for becoming a designer and reproducing and replicating good designs as closely as possible. Just like a child learning to write and tracing the alphabet to develop the psychomotor for writing, from letters to words, paragraphs and essays.

This portion requires sustained dedication and practice, you have to religiously keep the 10,000-hour practice mantra. That devotion forces you to keep practising, reading and looking for good designs to study and reproduce while documenting what makes them stand out. This section is critical and demanding simply because if your effort to learn is not consolidated and sustained, it is very likely you will roll back and start afresh. It is where you find people attending as many design conferences and workshops as possible to meet and connect with recognised designers. This region is populated with a lot of interns and Junior designers. Sadly, people with genuine intentions never get past here, more often than not their effort doesn’t match their desires. That defining threshold has to be surpassed through streak-like learning and it takes incredible effort to exceed it. This is your hustle region and volume is the secret-you will have to produce a lot of designs, with every practice making you significantly better and your growth apparent.

You are at a new level in your design career. At first, you may not quickly notice you are acknowledged, your hand-to-eye coordination is now fully formed, and you have developed a good eye for design and for (objectively, I hope) critiquing your designs before they go out. Memory muscles are developed and you have a repository of design patterns in your head or a folder :). Everyone regards your design and method especially the beginners with everyone in the good portion now looking up to you. All at once, you get invited to conferences and workshops and everyone is a megaphone for your opinions. If you are introverted, you appear mysterious, which adds to your social appeal. It is a stark contrast from your early days of steep devoted learning. What you have here are primarily plug-and-play designs with a lot of system-one thinking. It affords you stability in both earning and work, but it is this stability that leads to stagnancy.

The growth here is arithmetic, usually with marginal benefit, incremental, neither radical nor consequential. You find yourself in a state of rest or frankly speaking, desiring rest. This is where you find lots of mid-level and senior designers. There is hardly any meaningful differentiation here and you have no (financial) incentive to be better, simply because any growth effort here is not immediately apparent or necessary for an upward career swing. You are recognised and well-paid and probably will suffer no career or reputation damage if you fail to practice because muscle memory is developed. It is a flat-surfaced region, you have no fear of rolling over, compared to the steep good region. Appearance and perception matter here, you gradually and most times unknowingly trade your curiosity and drive for being sophisticated, mysterious and cool. You all at once find yourself in a sea of sameness, nothing uniquely makes you stand out, entrapped in groupthink, the mimetic pull here is crazy with a hive-mind approach to design, parroting the same standards and heuristics, we are the cool kids now and no one wants to be left out of the club. This is the destination for most designers and this is where the problem begins. It is the cluster region, the largest of three portions because everyone driven enough eventually gets there.

Perpetuated curiosity is the delineator, or like on Jony Ive Lovefrom’s website, “Insatiably curious”, that child-like interest that makes you query everything with an active system-two thinking. Raw passion is engaged here, you would have to hit escape velocity to enter this region, and very few do because it takes irrational obsession, to be completely absorbed by a vision of what can be and not what is, a rebel on the status quo and a campaign against the norm. You are immersed in the conviction that beauty and delight are not just design vectors but fundamental to our shared experience as humans. It is like being awakened to wonder and wander with a fiery internal drive to explore life through design.

There are no rules here, no groupthink, and no consensus on standards because it is a path rarely taken. There are no financial incentives here, if there is any fortune or fame, it will be a by-product of value created, people here rarely spectate, they are like athletes on the track, and the cheers and boos only urge them on. It is like starting all over again, seeking new knowledge, attending conferences and workshops that are at the frontier of technology or a new category of human endeavour. They allow themselves to be amateurs and you know the root word for amateur is from French, going back to MiddleFrench, "one who loves" borrowed from Latin amātor "lover, enthusiastic admirer, devotee,". They are driven by pure love for the craft. This region comes with a steeper curve and no upside in view, steeper than the initial curve of just starting in design. This is why it takes irrational obsession and is reserved for the intransigent minority.

The designer's journey is a complex and multifaceted one, marked by both challenges and opportunities. While the early stages of the career may involve significant effort and dedication, the rewards can be substantial. However, it's important to recognize that the journey is not always linear. Many designers find themselves trapped in the "cluster region," a state of stagnation characterized by conformity and a lack of innovation.

To break free from this region and achieve true fulfillment, designers must cultivate a perpetual curiosity and a relentless pursuit of excellence. By embracing new technologies, challenging the status quo, and staying true to their passions, designers can unlock their full potential and make a lasting impact on the world. Ultimately, the designer's journey is not just about reaching a specific destination, but about the continuous exploration and growth that occurs along the way.