There are dream jobs and then there’s the dream job. I’m talking about the one that would light my eyes up every time I describe my profession to someone who asks what do you do for a living? It will have me jumping out of bed each morning (even on a Sunday), finding a cosy cafe with Wi-Fi and a quiet place to sit next to a socket. Today, at work I met a girl who is a content creator (believe it or not, we didn’t meet through Instagram). To myself, I thought wow that’s my dream 9 to 5 job. Of course, I couldn’t and didn’t say this out loud. Instead, I said that’s really cool. Interested in what she does, I asked her about the project she was currently working on. She told me a little about the brief and mentioned she was in the middle of the planning stage. We talked about the drafts already on her drawing board. The designer in me asked if I could give a couple of suggestions to which she happily said yes too, who wouldn’t. Once I’d started, I kept on throwing in more “you could also try this” comments followed by a bucket load of ideas. By the end of the invisible brainstorm, she thanked me. And, after we said our goodbyes, I replayed the whole scene in my mind. I too was grateful for the mini-exchange and how I had come up with ideas on the spot.
One thought that occurred to me was, how did I do that? When it comes to drafting ideas for my own projects I struggle at times to put anything from words to drawings on paper. However, it’s a completely different story when someone else talks about their brief, I’m all of a sudden a designer who’s ready to jot down 10 ideas per minute. Feeling inspired I wanted in on my own ideas, no more of that I’m not motivated enough excuses, I call shotgun. So I ripped a few sheets of paper out of an old 2019 diary. I dislike throwing away unused paper when I can use it for scrap thoughts (save the glamorous Waterstones notebooks for gratitude journaling). I wrote down the heading to-do list and that’s as far as I got (the shortest, saddest and funniest story). Cue the radio silence.
Not being hard on myself, I noted and was grateful for the dedication and motivation that showed up when I reached for a pen and paper. Not wanting to leave the page wistfully blank, I added subheadings without the extra detail. That was a start and I took it.
Blame It On Art 