Confidence in your skills?
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- doggydoggdog
Just wondering how confident you all are in your abilities? How often do you get nervous or second guess yourself when submitting work to a client?
If you're very confident, is it because you have tons of experience, good clients, or possibly dumb clients (kidding)?
- cannonball19780
I'm confident because I employ reason and rationality in my work.
- word... that's basically the definition of "design"monospaced
- set0
I'm confident that I know better about what I do than those that employ me to do it
- ohhhhhsnap0
With experience, confidence grows.
- Not alwaysset
- explain? maybe just my experience?... feel as though I have hair on my chest to talk a good game today, and follow through.ohhhhhsnap
- through.ohhhhhsnap
- Skill only grows for some.freedom
- Well for example the more you experience the more you might realise how shit you areset
- mg330
I'm actually still getting over a fear of submitting stuff without practically triple-checking it, brought on by a past job where our team managers would scrutinize things to the point of absurdity. We were constantly having to validate things we said, justify our stance, consider pros and cons, often of the stupidest things.
So I still get nervous about sending stuff off. I find that I have to re-read emails multiple times before sending to make sure the point is clear, that there are no mistakes, etc.
- this is good, actually. I wouldn't call it fear, it sounds pretty thoughtful to meGnash
- I wish everyone read their emails three times before they sent them.doggydoggdog
- I do this too, it's just part of being a professionalmonospaced
- It is part of being a professional, but mixed with too much "oh god what if I fuck up"mg33
- well, yeah hahamonospaced
- ArmandoEstrada0
I am a hack and I've been getting away with it for 15 years. So zero confidence.
- GeorgesIV0
I have none,
fuck you
- nocomply0
After 10 years in the industry I've learned that no matter how much experience I have, the moments of nervousness never go away. I will always second guess myself at some point during a project. To an extent, I like it because it keeps me on my toes and forces me to produce my best work.
However I've also learned that I'm better than most at this point, and I tell myself that during those fleeting moments of panic.
- mg330
The upside to confidence issues, I think, in the creative and UX world is that you have to admit to yourself (and people need to accept this of others) that you can't possibly know everything. If you have the confidence, though, to know you can figure stuff out and you're an intuitive thinker, hopefully people see that as a positive.
- fyoucher10
Confident b/c doing the same shit over and over everyday for 16 years. Now know how to do it without thinking about how to do it. Really challenging projects early in career and figuring out how to do things on my own, and exploring on my own w/o having to have a client project. Even exploring in areas that are not in your comfort zone, skill set, or even in your industry because a lot of things are related in how to go about producing it, even if it's a completely different medium.
I'd say experience, good clients, and bad clients...all adds up.
I do Flash though, which obviously has hit a wall (but still going strong for my niche). Kinda excited to start over again now that I think about it.
- autoflavour0
Its weird, when i look back at my portfolio i am confident, if not surprised i managed to pull it off.. but as soon as i sit down with a client i feel like a complete newb
- ohhhhhsnap0
Someone told me, last month, that they gave up on Graphic Design/Web Design very early because he could not take the constant criticism. He stuck with IT where he said, "either it's wrong or it's right"
- I can see his point, but it can be nice to be challengedWeyland
- bmacneill0
I've become more confident by presenting my work to a client in person. I almost always present my own work, never rely on an account person to do it the same way you would, and always talk through my process and how I arrived at the proposed idea.
Don't ever just send work to a client through email and ask "what do you think?" you'll get answers you won't like because 1. They're not in front of you, so they can say they hate it without fear of confrontation and 2. they can't buy in to something if they don't buy in to the rationale/process.
- If they don't buy the process over email, maybe it won't translate to others though.freedom
- agree with that a lil' bit freedom.ohhhhhsnap
- ohhhhhsnap0
^ yeah,
we're basically selling our work. we are in customer service whether or not we want to believe it.
i stopped "just sending" work when i began to trust my skill much more as a designer (and the route that i took to end up with the end products).
nicely stated bmacneill.
- So you present in person every time?freedom
- walk through over phone.
i send it when i call them, or show my screen to them while on conference.ohhhhhsnap