#WinningWednesday: Destined to Love Graphic Design

Oriental background music playing

In a land far, far away there lived a wise guru. He gave people inspiration, motivated them to go beyond their abilities and predicted their destinies. Mine was also predicted; as the wise Master Oogway said, “There are no accidents.”

Music stops!

Okay, we all know that’s a line from the movie Kung Fu Panda but in all honesty I believe I was destined to be a designer, not accidentally.

Even as I was growing up, the stars were collaborating, designing my fate, and creating pathways to get me on the graphic design track. As a child I was fascinated by animated cartoons (the only ones that we were allowed to watch). There were no opportunities for this fascination to grow but it remained within me, rose on occasions only, till I grew up. Then I was forced to step out of my comfort zone to get a job to support a financially stricken family. “Why not become a graphic designer? It has lots of potential,” someone advised.

Light bulb moment!

To finally have the chance to explore my creative side and get paid for it too?! Absolutely fabulous idea, and I thanked that “someone” a thousand times over, and the great lord a million more.

What I did next changed the course of my life forever. Back in 2010, with great enthusiasm, a few friends and I signed up to work on a crowdsourcing platform to try our luck at graphic design. For my first project, Red Rover, I submitted 2 design drafts. However, soon after deleted my account because I wasn’t satisfied with my concepts. And what do you know, a week later, I received an email alert about my winning logo design! To say I was dumbstruck was an understatement. I kept reading and rereading the email to make sure it was really true. As soon as I came back to my senses, I immediately emailed Support, explained the situation and requested them to reinstate my account. They were very helpful and prompt in their response; my account was restored immediately, and the journey began for me. I will never get over that proud moment of designing for Red Rover. Here, my first creation: what do you think?

Source: ZillionDesigns

That’s how I became associated with ZillionDesigns.

Just like my creative self, I watched the both of us grow from infancy to maturity. My designs became more sophisticated as you will see some of them here. Some of them I feel are too commercial while others are the results of pure love. Yet I don’t mind; in fact enjoy it. After all a designer’s got to live, pay the bills and support herself. ZillionDesigns at the same time started with hiccups of a brand new crowdsourcing website, eventually smoothened its process flow, attracted new designers from across the globe and has become a winning platform for all.

Commercialized design concepts are admittedly quick bucks, easy to create, and requires less conceptual work and skills. You just have to know how to pick a project. A project which has a descriptive name, a detailed creative brief, an industry which I have more experience in, and the keywords provided to play around with in the design are easy to identify and work with. As long as the money rolls in, I am satisfied with winning commercial projects.

$$$ moment

But there’s a dark side of mine that always struggles against commercialism – my true creative and perfectionist self. It yearns to come out. However, with so many talented designers from different parts of the world participating in contests on ZillionDesigns, it’s difficult to compete against their skill level. Heck, it’s difficult to even compete with myself. I am constantly vigilant when submitting design concepts in case someone reports for copyrights issue. I struggle to maintain a decent success rate, not to impress contest holders to pick my designs, but to set a benchmark for myself. Coupled with restrictions, limitations and boundaries set by the project setup, my creativity seems to diminish.

Suddenly fanatically excited!

Then I have this crazy idea that I want to be like David Airey. His design style, theory, logic, concepts and ideas on brand designs are drool stuff…um I mean fabulous and out of the box. Every day he inspires me when I turn on my PC to start work on a project. And even though I end up doing commercial work, it doesn’t stop me from dreaming of becoming one of the most renowned graphic artists in the brand design community.

Moreover, there’s so much inspirations from my surrounding which I would love to translate into graphic art. It’s like a subconscious inspiration that permeates into consciousness and transfers onto my canvases.

The sky is like a canvas. Nature is beyond any word can describe. You see Allah’s creation from dawn till dusk; in mysterious skies, dancing clouds, raining rainbows, whistling winds, and starry nights.

Land and water as a canvas. Intricate designs on leaves, glittering fireflies, latticework in spider webs, gnarl patterns on tree trunks, clever corals shapes, wavy surfs and fish scales are all the Lord’s glorious designs which we subconsciously adopt in our lives yet are unaware of them. I dream of transferring them onto my canvas.

The list is endless, so are my dreams. Since time is money, I got to complete that project first then indulge in them.

Sigh dreamily.

But I never lose hope. Hopelessness is a sin. I will continue to choose projects which I can work on diligently, churn drafts upon drafts, and aim to win project holders over. Even if at times they don’t respond, give them time; who knows I might get lucky. That’s what I would advise existing and new designers.

Moreover, I am honest with myself and with project holders. Money is hard earned for both myself and the client so why not make things right for the community, and earn a good reputation rather than piss them off, and leave a bad taste in their mouth whenever they think about crowdsourcing. The aim is help, learn and prosper.  I’d advise this to all my peers and colleagues.

And one more last thing, I would like to thank ZillionDesigns’ Support team for supporting, helping and keeping their calm despite the hullabaloo that frequent the platform due to unresponsive clients, designers who copy others’ designs, and technical issues.

And one one more last thing …  no I think that’s about it. 🙂