Creative identity Crisis
Designer, Artist, Content Creator?
How's it going, everybody? Hope you are doing well.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about all these nuances and grey areas I live in.
Specifically this balance between being an artist graphic designer and content creator.
It was running around my brain so much that I even made an entire video about it.
But for now, I wanted to chat a little about it here in the newsletter.
The problem with creative labels
First things first, I love being someone who gets to “make stuff” for a living.
An Artist.
Creator.
Designer.
Whatever you wanna call it.]
That is where the tricky part comes in though, I think these days creatives are so preoccupied with labeling who they are and the identity that follows that.
I’m afraid that the trap of identity as an artist can take away from the beauty of actually creating…
In my own personal experience, I juggle many different creative pursuits but the big 3 are being a graphic designer, an artist, and a content creator.
If you want to get super heady with it too, you can zoom out even more and have a big circle around that that is labeled “creative” and fill in all the other stuff you may pursue that is more “right-brained”
Having these creative labels or artist identities can be a blessing and a curse.
When I look at it from a negative perspective, it makes sense to think that since im juggling between those 3 pursuits, they are only all getting a divided portion of my time and energy.
It’s impossible for me to put 100% of my attention into 3 different crafts.
So with that math I am only a ⅓ as good of a designer, content creator and an artist that i could ever be.
Looking at it from this perspective can really cause the imposter syndrome to set in.
But like anything, you can almost always choose to frame through a positive lens.
For example, Instead of being 1/3 as good at these things, I can say, “I am a multidisciplinary creative, and all three of those things inform each other and allow me to be multifaceted, improving on all of my creative pursuits in some kind of symbiotic relationship.”
It’s strange too cuz i’ve tried going all in on any one of these pursuits but I my mind always strays to wanting to try new things.
I think I will always do design in some way or another, but i’ve learned to allow myself to try new creative pursuits and sometimes they actually make me better at design as a byproduct.
So at the end of the day i guess that is just how my brain works and I have to be content with being just okay at all 3 of these pursuits that way i can afford myself the privilege of doing all 3 of them at all.
This exact reason of just being okay at all 3 of my passions is why i never feel like i fully fit into the communities of each of these.
I don’t feel artistic enough to be with the fine art people
I don’t feel accomplished enough in my client work to be seen as a true professional designer
And I don’t only focus on content so it can be hard to resonate with creators sometimes.
This grey area is i think a microcosm of something i have honestly felt my entire life.
Being half white and half Mexican I always felt to white for the Mexicans and too Mexican for the whites.
Being into hardcore, punk and the DIY scene but also being kind of a nerd who is into computers, video games, business and tech I have often felt too corporate for the punks and too punk for the corporate people.
And maybe these are just some corny analogies that my current situation has given me way to much freedom to sit around and think about but I just wanted to give you a little but of context of the headspace im in when i talk through these types of things.
I have obviously not come up with any kind of cure or remedy to this existential creative crisis,s but I would love to know what you think.
How do you feel about the Artist identity crisis and what different hats are you wearing in the world you created?
Oh yeah, check out the full video on YT if ya wanna see a deeper dive on thi
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I completely agree that you can be multiple things at once. The key, IMO, is identifying a common thread—without one, it’s easy to feel scattered or in crisis.
For example, an interior designer who takes on freelance clients, writes articles about modern design, and builds their own modern furniture has a clear throughline. Each pursuit complements the others rather than pulling them in different directions.
I struggle with this too. For me, it’s been this need to be “legible” so that other people could easily understand the potential value I provide. In other words, simpler, cleaner labels got me to my bag faster. But now, as I reinvent, idk how important the bag is and therefore idk how important legibility is either.