Relinquishing your creative freedom

[opticalparadox]

When I was in art college, one of my graphic design tutors shocked me after we had a 'show and tell' session of our work. "You are all masturbating,' he said, "Pleasing yourselves instead of your client." This statement was offensive yet highly thought-provoking.

When I worked in the web department for a large company, I found that I'd work on an assignment all day and then when I'd finished and had found satisfaction in what I had created, it was often changed at the last minute. This left me filling empty. I had worked hard through the design process to find a solution and had become attached to my artwork. You seem to have to adopt an attitude of detachment in order to complete some projects which often leaves you feeling dissatisfied as you are allowed less creative freedom.

Anyway, I left that job to concentrate on running my own business. You still have to make changes according to the clients wishes but you have more control over the design process than if working for a large corporation. And you can also influence the clients somewhat by inspiring them and giving them a fresh perspective.

But sometimes you just have to knuckle down and produce something that does not move you whatsoever as it is what is required. Does it make you loose your passion for art 'n' design in your spare time or more inclined to devote energy to your own projects? How do you manage to resolve the creativity versus making a living issue? Can you seperate the two? Is this one of the reasons why artists are often impoverished because they cannot relinquish their creative freedom? Your thoughts please.... - Jen
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[Thermidor]

Ive found tutors at college and university can be vastly different in there methods.
The best tutors arnt always the nicest for sure , afew i have got on with really well , but they havnt really been good at criting my work ... when i went to college at canterbury , i did months on end of life drawing. one of the tutors would not really guide us at all , but let us just draw , the other would make us do exercises, drawing with your left hand and without looking at the paper. stuff like that .... sometimes we would do long sessions , 2 - 4 hour poses, we could be having 2 breaks in the middle of this pose , and in the end feel quite happy , after the pose was finnished , we would have a hour crit where we would talk about our work , after that , we would be told to rip our drawings up!... this sounds crazy , but it really works, apart from stopping us from getting complacent about our work , it makes us detatched, and enables us to look at our next peice with fresh eyes, i think this works in all areas of design , maybe dont rip up all your work but if somthings not going right , just start again. you will learn more , and probly find the error you made before dosnt reoccur.

[paranoidandroid]

[Thermidor]

[paranoidandroid]

[VLAHAKISA]

I believe a level of detachment is required yes, if one wishes to be sucessful in actually making money from design you need to be happy with the basic fact that this isn't 'your art' it's 'their art'.

Of course you can influence them, but at the end of the day the choice is theres and you may not like it, you need to be ok with that.

Those that are not ok with that, will not be able to work with clients to achieve their goals as are too busy work towards their own artistic goals with working a project. The end result will be unhappy clients, and a faltering business.

I find on the whole that most clients allow artistic freedom with only a small amount of tweaking from them.

Those that try to heavily oppress it are less fun to work with yes, but luckily are few and far between.

I have some work that I have completed for clients that they love, but I absolutely despise and which are not in my portfolio.

I feel my best work is where I am allowed a lot of creative freedom, and when clients try to control the creativity too much a lot of artistic direction I am unable to produce as well as I would when left to it with little in the way of boundaries or direction.

I once heard an illustrator (non professional - ie not getting paid to work) say that they would not change an illustration if asked to by a client - they were unable to be detached from their art, and were very precious about it. I knew they would be a starving artist for ever!


Regards


Amanda
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http://www.trulyace.com
Digital Creative Services

[Ian Moore]

Yeah, Jen - I suspected this subject had probably already been covered. It's perrenial, isn't it?

But I've got a feeling there's more that could be said about ... having the courage to be unihibited, even if only in the early development stages of a project, stages not necessarily shared with anybody else.

I think it's awfully easy to let oneself be lead by leaders of the field. That sentence sounds a bit silly but I'm talking about having the strength of will not to automatically submit to a collective consensus before you've checked in with yourself first.

Not sure if I'm expressing myself accurately. This late hour is catching up with me.