It’s the Fourth of July weekend, when we in the States celebrate Independence Day, so it seems like a good time to discuss freedom and autonomy in web design.
When I tell people that I’m a self-employed designer, the response I often get is, “Oh! It must be so nice to set your own hours.” (Alright, maybe the “Oh!” is actually an “Oh.” It’s hard to get people excited about web design.)
Even though we self-employed web designers do get to choose when we work, our work still sets the hours for us. Being freelance doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly switched from working 9-to-5 to working 11-3. If anything, self-employed people work more hours, just at different times. Maybe I’m not occupied from nine to five every day, but I will make up those hours somehow, usually late at night.
Self-employment also carries with it the burden of administration. At a larger studio, web designers aren’t responsible for taking calls, keeping the books, or shepherding accounts. A freelance designer has to do all this on top of his or her design work. And, without a regular salary, they have to make sure there’s a steady stream of incoming clients, too.
The real benefit to being a self-employed web designer is autonomy. You aren’t at the beck-and-call of a boss, with the exception of your clients, who you’ll eventually get to pick and choose. You can choose to take only the jobs that interest you, or only the clients with whom you get along. Life is good, if you’re willing to handle the details related to your passion.
Much has been written about freelancing and self-employment (I prefer the latter term because it doesn’t carry the connotation of “amateur” that “freelance” unfairly does), so i won’t delve into it too much on this blog. But, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts — what are the advantages/disadvantages of your mode of employment?
I never know how to answer this question. Most people assume that design is a creative field, as evidenced by the fact that designers are called “creatives” in all sectors of the industry. But I really think the answer depends on how we define the term “creative.”
The primary definition (1a) of creative in the Oxford English Dictionary is: “Having the quality of creating, given to creating; of or pertaining to creation; originative.” The secondary definition (1b) is:
Spec. of literature and art, thus also of a writer or artist: inventive, imaginative; exhibiting imagination as well as intellect, and thus differentiated from the merely critical, ‘academic’, journalistic, professional, mechanical, etc., in literary or artistic production.
When talking about web designers, most people today mean the second definition. When they say we’re creative, or we’re in a creative field, what they really mean is that we’re imaginative or inventive.
While this may be true, it is not the foundation of our discipline! Design is not an art, it’s a science. It relies on measurable principles and sets of rules, defined in such things as typography, layout, and color theory. If we define creativity to mean shooting from the hip in an unexpected way, that’s simply incorrect. Design follows rules, and we know what we’re doing.
On the other hand, design is about solving problems, and knowing which rules to apply (or break!) requires a certain amount of ingenuity. Often, great web design solves problems in unexpected ways, either by applying design principles unconventionally or by breaking the rules deliberately. This is different than “shooting from the hip” in that it’s completely intentional — in real design, there is no such thing as an accident.
I’d say that design is a creative field because it involves the act of creating, and because it allows for some leeway in knowing which techniques to apply and infrequently break. This ability only comes through experience; only someone who is well-versed in design can know when to deviate from the usual laws.
Design is creative in the same way that surgery is creative — there’s a manual to follow, but in the end you sometimes have to trust your gut.
