Finishing Well
After 25 years of design, 20 years as AIGA member, and retirement at least three decades away, I find myself at a point of looking forward and looking back. It’s not from a mountaintop, but from a point in the journey where the past recedes to a point on the horizon, and the future is mine to plan with the Lord directing my steps. (Before you freak, see Proverbs 16:9)
A colleague asked me “Are you thinking about your exit strategy?” It’s a strange question to think about, because I don’t think that way. For me, there aren’t enough hours in the day or days in a year to accomplish what I want to do (or it’s just that I have some sort of attention disorder and am interested in too many things). The goals I have set are often achieved after years of effort — my exit strategy will be death or the Lord’s return.
Over that time, I’ve moved from employee to employer, follower to leader. Think about yourself: Are you excited to get up and go to the office? Do you meet each challenge with enthusiasm or a groan? Do you seek the solution to many problems each day, or is it about meeting payroll, paying taxes, keeping up with paperwork?
After 20 years I recall vividly the events that led to my decision to pursue a career as a graphic designer. In faith language, it was a definite “calling.” (Odd how one has to discuss it depending on the audience on is addressing — but that’s what communication is, isn’t it). Asking myself the same questions, I find that my calling hasn’t changed, but my role in it has.
A couple of years ago I read Loving Mondays by John Beckett. One of the key points is that I do not own what I call “my business.” The Lord does, and I am the steward of it. The best use of my time isn’t doing the same thing I did 20 years ago, but responding to opportunities that allow me to influence the most people with my faith through my profession and calling.
So what is the Heart and Soul of design? After 20 years, this is my perspective: we should approach design with heart, soul and passion, but at the end of the day, it’s a business. A designer isn't in business to indulge their need for creative expression (a hot button there!), but to solve problems on behalf of someone else. It sounds dispassionate, but design is a force, an agent of change, both for our clients (whose problems we are hired to solve), and for influencing the world with our faith whenever and wherever we can.
My pastor is leaving Ohio for a ministry opportunity in Texas. His time here has clearly been in preparation for this new ministry, but he couldn’t see that until this opportunity came along. As he winds down his ministry here, he is being sensitive to the encouragement and complaints of those he has been pastor of for 9 years, and his desire is through it all “to finish well.”
So twenty years of designing type, graphic design and business experience have simply prepared me for today. Today will prepare me for tomorrow. And so on it will go, until it’s time to exit gracefully, no pun intended.
However long the journey, whatever the path, I want to finish well.
Briain Sooy is a B L A N K contributor and a veteran graphic designer living in Ohio. Not too long ago he finished an 18-month project to craft a new typeface, Lucerna, for the New Living Translation of the Bible by Tyndale House Publishers.
A colleague asked me “Are you thinking about your exit strategy?” It’s a strange question to think about, because I don’t think that way. For me, there aren’t enough hours in the day or days in a year to accomplish what I want to do (or it’s just that I have some sort of attention disorder and am interested in too many things). The goals I have set are often achieved after years of effort — my exit strategy will be death or the Lord’s return.
Over that time, I’ve moved from employee to employer, follower to leader. Think about yourself: Are you excited to get up and go to the office? Do you meet each challenge with enthusiasm or a groan? Do you seek the solution to many problems each day, or is it about meeting payroll, paying taxes, keeping up with paperwork?
After 20 years I recall vividly the events that led to my decision to pursue a career as a graphic designer. In faith language, it was a definite “calling.” (Odd how one has to discuss it depending on the audience on is addressing — but that’s what communication is, isn’t it). Asking myself the same questions, I find that my calling hasn’t changed, but my role in it has.
A couple of years ago I read Loving Mondays by John Beckett. One of the key points is that I do not own what I call “my business.” The Lord does, and I am the steward of it. The best use of my time isn’t doing the same thing I did 20 years ago, but responding to opportunities that allow me to influence the most people with my faith through my profession and calling.
So what is the Heart and Soul of design? After 20 years, this is my perspective: we should approach design with heart, soul and passion, but at the end of the day, it’s a business. A designer isn't in business to indulge their need for creative expression (a hot button there!), but to solve problems on behalf of someone else. It sounds dispassionate, but design is a force, an agent of change, both for our clients (whose problems we are hired to solve), and for influencing the world with our faith whenever and wherever we can.
My pastor is leaving Ohio for a ministry opportunity in Texas. His time here has clearly been in preparation for this new ministry, but he couldn’t see that until this opportunity came along. As he winds down his ministry here, he is being sensitive to the encouragement and complaints of those he has been pastor of for 9 years, and his desire is through it all “to finish well.”
So twenty years of designing type, graphic design and business experience have simply prepared me for today. Today will prepare me for tomorrow. And so on it will go, until it’s time to exit gracefully, no pun intended.
However long the journey, whatever the path, I want to finish well.
Briain Sooy is a B L A N K contributor and a veteran graphic designer living in Ohio. Not too long ago he finished an 18-month project to craft a new typeface, Lucerna, for the New Living Translation of the Bible by Tyndale House Publishers.
posted by fivemcclungs at 6:55 AM
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