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I’ve spent a bit of time recently talking about finding a focus for my work, a direction to grow in if you will. A big part of the reason for that new focus on, well, focus is so that I could measure my trajectory a bit better, and to feel like I’m developing. But I’m still not quite sure of the best way to measure my success as a creative.

Success is different for everyone, and so the best way to measure it is different too. But here are some of my initial thoughts around how to measure success in a creative context.

The method of measuring our success we commonly seem to turn to first is comparison – how are we doing compared to our peers? But unless you’re doing exactly the same thing as someone else, and starting in the same place, it’s very hard to find a group of peers who we can actually measure against. This is made even harder by the internet. With a whole world of other creatives out there, there’s no shortage of people you could choose as your peers, but that means the choice can be overwhelming, and even harder to make well.

More often than not, we (or at least) I pick a peer group who I see as better than me, or are more established, which is great for pushing you forward but not for accurately measuring how well you’re doing, because you might never overtake them. I’ve also ended up comparing myself to people making different work, for different reasons, with different circumstances meaning any comparisons I make are just assumptions, which, again, rarely go in my own favour.

So, comparison with others doesn’t really work.

In fact, the only person you can fairly compare yourself to is yourself. You are the only person who’s working with your specific circumstances. So why not just periodically look back at what you’ve made and see how far you’ve come. I mentioned in my recent post about sketchbooks about the importance of revisiting old work and even of revising old pieces. You could even rework the same piece every year or 6 months, and see what you can add to it that’s new. This allows you to see your progress, but it’s less about pushing you forward.

But what if you want to look forward rather than back all of the time?

That’s where goals come into play. Setting goals allows you to give yourself a challenge to work towards, which you can clearly mark as achieved. The best goals are based on something you can control and lie just out of your reach.

These goals could be quantitative or qualitative. So, they might be that you want to produce a certain number of pieces or make a set amount of money. Or, you might want to be doing a certain kind of work or have a certain skill. This gives you something to work forwards to, and something you can easily measure. But perhaps it doesn’t take into account the process of accumulated growth that happens as your progress, or the power of the process of making in the way that self-comparison does.

In the end, I think it’s clear there’s no one way of measuring creative success that works all of the time. So, perhaps, the answer is to employ a mixture. To set yourself a range of goals, whilst remembering how far you’ve come.

After all isn’t the process just as important as the outcome when you’re making things? The only way to measure that is how you feel at the end of the day.

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It’s the middle of February. It’s still cold and dark outside. If you’re in London it feels like you haven’t seen any sunlight in years. The new year (and your resolutions) has just about lost its shine.

It’s time for a pep talk.

It’s time for you to remember you to just trust yourself.

You are an expert in what it is you want and need, and you can trust in that.

Take a moment to evaluate where you’re at, what you want, and then just go for it. That might mean taking some time off, or it might mean prioritising work. That might mean trying something new, or focusing in on creating depth. That might mean lying low. That might just mean you want spaghetti Bolognese for dinner.

There are so many, wonderful, people offering advice on how to progress your business, your mindfulness, your lifestyle journey, your creative work…But you have the choice whether or not you listen to them. If you’re not ready to hear it, or you have your own thing that’s working for you, have a little faith in it.

That means you don’t have to buy the latest ecourse or workshop. You don’t have to read that book that’s been recommended to you. There’s a whole army of people out there who are going to try and sell you something by making you feel like you desperately need it, like you’re not whole without it. You don’t have to play into the version of yourself they’ve created. By all means reach out and get help when you want to, expand your horizons, learn, but just make sure it’s because you want to.

The only thing you do have to do is more of whatever it is that feels right*.

It’s the middle of February and now’s the perfect time to double down on yourself.

 

* Or in my case eat more of what you like, that spaghetti Bolognese thing was totally about me.

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Something I’ve really struggled with in the past, and still do to an extent, is maintaining my voice when doing client work. So, I thought I’d share the things that have really been working for me, because it’s a lot trickier than it sounds.

 

The first step is to find your voice and use it to shout about your work. It’s hard for potential clients to know about the kind of work you want to make, and are great at making, unless they’ve seen it. That means you need to find your style, or at least the style you want to be making work in right now and use it. Use it to make the work you want to make, whether or not you have a client who’s commissioning the piece or not. So, if you want to make illustrated album covers, just make a few for your favourite albums, share them, and use them as examples of your work when you reach out to potential clients.

 

If you’re really intent on maintaining your voice in client work, you’re going to have to be discerning about the clients and projects you work on. That might mean saying no to work that won’t allow you to produce work that’s either of a style or quality that you want to be making. This isn’t something you have to do all at once, or at least I’m certainly not. I’m still taking on projects that don’t quite align with the work I want to be making in the future but I’m aware of that, and am actively looking to move away from those projects.

 

Once you’ve found those clients, work out how to translate their brief into your design language. If you’ve gotten into the habit of using lots of different styles when you’re working with different clients, which I have, this might take a little bit of work. But whenever you receive a brief, take a moment (or several) to work out how you can answer in a way that stays true to your style and artistic desires whilst being what your client needs. Remember that if you’ve worked hard at the first step, the person you’re working with has probably decided to work with you because they like the work and style you’ve shown them.

 

Then make sure you present any work in the style you want to be using, and sometimes only in that style. When you’re presenting options make sure you show the approach you prefer in the best light you can – this is just good practice generally but is particularly appropriate here. If you want to reduce the risk of working outside of your style, only present works in that style. People anchor onto what they can see and what they know, so if the only work you’ve shown looks a certain way that will inform your client’s frame of reference. With this, you do have to work out when it’s appropriate and also be prepared for the occasional potential push back or requests for further variety.

 

But even with the perfect client, and those processes in place you might need to push back, so work out which battles you’re prepared to fight.

 

Maintaining your voice in client work is a constant and active process, that requires you to really know your style and be committed to using it. You might decide to pick and choose those moments or make it a central part of your practice. Personally, it’s something I’m working on making more and more present in the work I take on.

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I was recently gifted Adventures of a Young Naturalist: The Zoo Quest Expeditions by Sir David Attenborough because despite having spent many years watching, and loving, his documentaries, I’d never actually read any of his books. Despite initially being daunted by getting to grips with such a big hard back, I was just as delighted by reading about Attenborough’s adventures as I would have been watching them.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Sir David Attenborough is an English veteran broadcaster and naturalist.

Essentially, he’s something of a British broadcasting legend. Adventures of a Young Naturalist combines three books he wrote in the 1950s to accompany three series of the BBC program Zoo Quest, which were the first nature shows of their kind and were the beginning of Attenborough’s illustrious career. The three logbooks have been updated and abridged in places but retain their original spirit and include a number of photos from the time.

As Adventures of a Young Naturalist is a collection of other books, it follows that the three key sections are discrete and each cover a single trip. Within each section, every chapter also contains a discrete story, as if each one is a mini-episode, which means the books lend themselves well to comparison with Attenborough’s small screen programming.

 

It’s easy to get swept up in Attenborough’s storytelling. Each story has just the right mix of excitement and gentle humour that it keeps you engaged but always feeling safely along for the ride. I think the fact that you can genuinely hear his voice in your head as you read is both the greatest asset of the book and a real testament to his power in broadcasting. There are few voices I know so well in audible and stylistic tone.

It’s not just how the stories are told, that keeps you reading. It’s fascinating to learn more about the way nature was approached what is now half a century ago. I’ve grown up with nature documentaries and google image search at my fingertips, so I can clearly picture the majority of the animals the team set out to find in the books. But to imagine seeing many of these creatures for the first time, through the eyes of someone so passionate is thrilling. Plus, there are some real characters in the book both animal (the armadillos are some of my favourites) and human, who really make these stories feel like adventures rather than just a catalogue of exotic creatures.

I do think that if I were to read this again, or if I could go back in time and have a chat to my January self, I would recommend reading Adventures of a Young Naturalist in sections. I would even, perhaps, read something else between the different Zoo Quests. I say this, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because I think each story loses its impact when read hurriedly – like if you try and walk around the entire Louvre in an afternoon, by the third hour all of the master pieces you’re seeing blur into one. So perhaps this would be a perfect commute companion.

If you already know and love programs like Blue Planet, or if you just have an interest in adventure, I would highly recommend picking this one up. It’s easy to pick up if a little tricky to put down.

 

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER AS YOU READ

  • Do you think that a similar expedition could be done now? Why? Would anything have changed?
  • Did you enjoy the episodic nature of the chapters and sections of the book?
  • Who did you think stood out more within the narrative the animals or the people encountered?
  • If you’ve seen any of David Attenborough’s documentaries, how did reading about his adventures compare to seeing them on the screen? What were the similarities/differences?

 

 IF YOU WANT SOME FURTHER READING TRY…

IF YOU WANT MORE BOOKS LIKE THIS HAVE A LOOK AT…

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You have undoubtedly heard the Picasso quote: “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” It’s a quote that’s famous because it’s so true. There’s a certain freedom to making art and creativity when you’re a child, that you seem to lose somewhere along the way to becoming a ‘grown-up’.

But the simple way to protect your creative child is to keep playing. But it’s harder than it sounds, so it’s something we all leave at aside.

It’s so easy to get in a space of only putting energy into creative projects that have some kind of cause, especially if it becomes part of your job. You start to associate creative time with making money, or trying to make something that will do well on Instagram. Or, you simply just prioritise the work that pays the bills rather than the stuff that feeds your inner child. It makes sense. That’s the world we live in. I know, I for one, do it all of the time. Playtime quickly becomes the least important time to ring-fence.

But making time to play is so important. It’s good for your wellbeing. It reduces stress. It’s great for helping you get through a creative block or just coming up with ideas. It’s a big part of what helps you “remain an artist once [you grow] up”.

So how do you play creatively as a grown up? Quite simply you’ve just got to make time and do it. 

Playtime has to be something that isn’t attached to a need for a certain outcome so it needs to happen outside of your working time. In order to differentiate play and work there are a few things, you can do if you make things for a living.

First, do something outside of your creative bubble as your play time. For me, my creative playtime is cooking, which is about as far from illustration as you can get. But it could also be something as simple as using a different medium or style.

Second, go back to school. By that, I don’t mean go back in time but to try a new class. While that might sound like the kind of structure that’s the opposite of play but learning something new often unshackles you from the expectation that you have to make something good.

This year, I’m going to do my very best to make more time for play, even though it feels so unnatural to me now. Do you do anything to keep your inner child playing?