Being a Designer Online

Jul 13, 2025

How's it going?
Hope you're doing well.

I haven't been making much content lately because I've been so busy with “actual work”.

I put that in quotation marks because I feel like even though I've established myself (to some extent) as a content creator online, the real work still always feels like the design work or doing something of the actual craft.

What’s even strange about that is sometimes the video stuff sometimes takes longer than the proper design work.

The main reason I have been thinking about the split of content/design is due to this amazing article I read by Elizabeth Goodspeed

READ IT HERE

If you arent familar with Elizabeth, she writes amazing articles for It’s Nice That, and I’m also so excited when a new one pops up in my feed.

She has a lot to say about the creative industry, and it is always
super niche
super nuanced
and always super thoughtful.

Basically the whole article is about the history of designers also being performers(or in the public spotlight) and how that's evolved over the years

All the way from Stefan Sagmeister doing a poster carved into his body up to someone pretending to design a logo and record it with quick jump cuts on their phone as a TikTok.

I really resonated with this because I sometimes feel very strange about this whole thing of designers becoming more public-facing.

Being hired not just for their work
But for the person behind the work, or even the “performance” of the work that is being done.

It's kind of like those people on TikTok who mow really overgrown lawns
The content is more valuable and pays more than the cutting of the grass

I don't think it's quite that proper of a comparison because I still think design is an important craft and occupation for people to have in our world.
Messages will always need to be communicated and look good.

But these days there are so many people who can make a living by
- just talking about design
- Performing design
- Or just being in the design community
And the work doesn't even have to be stellar.

I say this not as a piece of criticism, but as a reflection of myself too.

I don't think I'm the best designer in the world, and I know I owe a lot of my success to showing up online, creating content and recording myself doing design or design adjacent stuff.

So I have huge admiration for the people who have built greatdesign careers without having to do that. But I also admire the people who do.

At the end of the day, it's just about expressing yourself.
Trying to make something work in a way that works for you, and using your unfair advantages to help propel yourself in the world in whatever creative thing you're doing.

It is crazy though…
How graphic design or just being a creative person online is almost a job in itself now.

Honestly, I could probably get by in life by just creating content the entire year and not doing any actual projects.
But I can't see myself ever wanting to do that.

Not only do I feel like I owe it to myself to keep being a practitioner of the thing I first fell in love with, But it feels weird cosplaying as something that I don't actually want to do or be a part of.

I always joke around with my friends sometimes when I take on a lower budget project, after I just did some big sponsored post because It feels like I'm doing it for “the love of the game”.

But the fact that I still feel that way gives me hope that I'll keep feeling that way as my career goes on.

Creative jobs are becoming more than just what you create, but showing the process of how you create things, Or even documenting your life as a member of that profession.

I didn't sum this up as beautifully as Elizabeth Goodspeed did, so definitely check out her article.

I even messaged her about it after she posted it because it felt so on the nose for the type of stuff that I'm doing. It was cool to see such a hyper-specific conversation about something I think about often.

I've just been thinking about that a little too much because my workload fluctuates so much.
Sometimes I have a heavier content creation week.
Sometimes it's big client work.

This past month, I've been locked down working on album art projects and a couple of other big client things behind the scenes.
It reminded me why I do this thing in the first place and what I truly love to do.

I even allowed myself a little bit of time to play recently. I used this cool old kids’ camera that I got online to take pictures of some of my favorite past typographic poster designs.

And scanned them in to see how they would look.

Sometimes you just have to mess around a little bit.
Even if the outcome isn't the best
or nothing important comes from it
It’s important just to experiment and scratch that itch of curiosity when you start to think “I wonder what would happen if I did this?”

Anyway that's all I have for you this time.

Curious what you think about this whole content creation and design overlap these days?
Also what kind of cool stuff are you doing to “play” and scratch that creative itch in your brain.