Music is a really huge part of the creative process for most designers. Not only do I use the music to keep me motivated to design, but I often let the lyrics inspire me or encourage me. I even have specific playlists for each step in my Strategic Design Process. I believe there are a lot of different lyrics that can be applied to a creative mindset and this week I want to share my thoughts on the song “Iris” by one of my all time favorite bands, Goo Goo Dolls.

The lyrics “And I don’t want the world to see me, cause I don’t think that they’d understand. When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am”. As creatives we need have this attitude too often. We don’t want to let people see the real us or our real work because we are afraid that it won’t be understood or that it won’t be appreciated.

We don’t want people to see imperfection in our work because we have to keep up with our own expectation of ourselves.

While these lyrics are about a relationship, it’s easy to relate and see how they apply to creatives and our relationship to others and the things we create. We need to be confident and show ourselves and our work.

A few years ago I decided to start practicing hand lettering. I tend to be a perfectionist on many levels of design so showing “WIP” (work in progress) was not really a…