I Stopped Working for a Minute and Started Thinking
Like many middle-class Americans, I grew up with the American Dream. In my family, we were taught that if we worked hard and were honest and frugal, the world would reward us. So I worked hard in school, and I worked hard to support myself when I graduated. I worked nights and weekends. I worked when my friends were playing. I kept waiting for the reward part to kick in. But where was it? Maybe I wasn't working hard enough, so I worked harder and I worried. I hired business consultants to help me. They looked at my business and suggested that I pack it in and get a real job. So I worked even harder. I was like a rat in a wheel, running after a reward that was always out of reach.
Finally it began to dawn on me that my basic concept must somehow be flawed. The idea that my hard work and patience would eventually be rewarded with success by a world that was fair and had my best interests in mind must be a fantasy. The thought that I'd eventually arrive at a place where I'd never have to work hard again was just a huge, energy-sucking LIE. The whole idea was a set-up for entitlement and dissatisfaction. There's a famous saying in the entertainment business, “You're only as good as the last thing you've done.” I had always thought of it as a cattle prod, something to keep me from slowing down for a moment or risk being forgotten. But I realized that it really means that the world has an extremely short memory and that's a good thing. It doesn't mean that all effort is a waste of time. It simply means success isn't about working hard, it's about working smart. It's not the effort that counts it's the process. There's no scorecard out there except the one in my head.
So I stopped working for a minute and started thinking: What do I want? What do I enjoy doing? If I've got to work, I might as well enjoy it since there's no guarantee that suffering will pay off any better than pleasure. How can I create a business that allows me to spend my time doing something I enjoy and doesn't take over the rest of my life? I redirected my efforts and started having fun again. I traveled. I took weekends off. I slept in. I only took work I really wanted to do. Suddenly the world seemed better and easier. It was fun to go to work and everyone around me started to relax. Even my clients seemed like better people. And oddly, gradually my definition of success changed. Now my idea of success is getting to do what I love with people I enjoy everyday. There will always be new challenges. I know I'll never be through “paying” but I'll also never be through learning. And I hope to get to do both for the rest of my life. I don't believe in paying dues anymore.
Margo Chase
Finally it began to dawn on me that my basic concept must somehow be flawed. The idea that my hard work and patience would eventually be rewarded with success by a world that was fair and had my best interests in mind must be a fantasy. The thought that I'd eventually arrive at a place where I'd never have to work hard again was just a huge, energy-sucking LIE. The whole idea was a set-up for entitlement and dissatisfaction. There's a famous saying in the entertainment business, “You're only as good as the last thing you've done.” I had always thought of it as a cattle prod, something to keep me from slowing down for a moment or risk being forgotten. But I realized that it really means that the world has an extremely short memory and that's a good thing. It doesn't mean that all effort is a waste of time. It simply means success isn't about working hard, it's about working smart. It's not the effort that counts it's the process. There's no scorecard out there except the one in my head.
So I stopped working for a minute and started thinking: What do I want? What do I enjoy doing? If I've got to work, I might as well enjoy it since there's no guarantee that suffering will pay off any better than pleasure. How can I create a business that allows me to spend my time doing something I enjoy and doesn't take over the rest of my life? I redirected my efforts and started having fun again. I traveled. I took weekends off. I slept in. I only took work I really wanted to do. Suddenly the world seemed better and easier. It was fun to go to work and everyone around me started to relax. Even my clients seemed like better people. And oddly, gradually my definition of success changed. Now my idea of success is getting to do what I love with people I enjoy everyday. There will always be new challenges. I know I'll never be through “paying” but I'll also never be through learning. And I hope to get to do both for the rest of my life. I don't believe in paying dues anymore.
Margo Chase
Principal Chase Design Group Los Angeles, CA
Working Smarter, Not Harder
When I look back on periods in my life where I struggled to prove myself, and reach the next rung on the ladder of my career, it's amazing to me to discover how much of what I went through then, I am still going through today. Time isn't as frivolous as it used to be-sleep is more important, as are family and friends. I now know the value of time, and strive to spend it wisely.
I have spent the bulk of my life paying my dues by doing what other people asked of me, and whatever I thought was needed to get the job done. My parents encouraged me to be true to my word. This became my trademark and identifying characteristic-if I said I was going to do something, I would do it, no matter what the consequences. I started hand-lettering in the seventh grade, and won my first client through a family referral. It was my first experience with hard deadlines and all-nighters, and in the process I learned how to estimate my time, and to deliver consistently with quality and few errors.
In the first years of my life in the design and advertising world, I was “smart as a whip,” but not the best designer in the house. As a junior designer at Toyota, I paid my dues by learning how to use a stat camera, (one that spanned an entire conference room), and create mechanical boards using a wax machine, an Xacto knife, a precise eye and a lot of patience. I helped to hand draw a custom Lexus typeface, and discovered layout, balance and structure. I witnessed the unveiling of the new Toyota logo that I thought looked like a cow brand. While the Japanese saw intersecting ellipses of unity and a subtle “T,” I thought it looked like it had come straight out of Texas. It was my first experience with the nuances of cross-cultural design, and how perception might vary from one culture to the next.
In the years following I delved into the advertising and entertainment industry, eventually working as a full-time consultant. “Kelly puts 'free' in the word 'freelance,” my friends would say, as each project was more challenging than the last. My normal mode was to say, “sure no problem,” and my clients would only see the deliverables-high quality and on time. They weren't privy to the pain and all-nighters it took to get the final results. I believe I made about $5/hr during that time, but learned a lot in the process. Working in the entertainment world meant a certain pressure was applied at all times to pull off the impossible, whether getting a promotional CD-ROM designed and published in less than two weeks or to launch a new television network in two months. I learned how to manage difficult clients and work with teams in a collaborative (albeit frantic) manner.
Paying my dues has meant setting my vision and intent towards what I truly love, and learning to work smarter, not harder. Through the years, I have had the chance to explore several fields within the world of design and have determined not only what I enjoy, but also what I am good at. Now, at gotomedia, our mantra is “exceed expectations and take vacations.” I am lucky to work with a group of people who actually love the work they do and look forward to Monday mornings. After more than half of my life in the field, I find that the journey has been more important than the destination and that dues are paid along the way, as one continues to learn and grow. Does one ever stop paying their dues? In the design world, especially within the field of innovation and technology, it seems there would never be a time when the dues were paid in full. But the rewards don't stop either. And that is the seductive draw of being in a field where change is imminent and inspiration comes from constant exposure, learning and experience.
Kelly Goto
I have spent the bulk of my life paying my dues by doing what other people asked of me, and whatever I thought was needed to get the job done. My parents encouraged me to be true to my word. This became my trademark and identifying characteristic-if I said I was going to do something, I would do it, no matter what the consequences. I started hand-lettering in the seventh grade, and won my first client through a family referral. It was my first experience with hard deadlines and all-nighters, and in the process I learned how to estimate my time, and to deliver consistently with quality and few errors.
In the first years of my life in the design and advertising world, I was “smart as a whip,” but not the best designer in the house. As a junior designer at Toyota, I paid my dues by learning how to use a stat camera, (one that spanned an entire conference room), and create mechanical boards using a wax machine, an Xacto knife, a precise eye and a lot of patience. I helped to hand draw a custom Lexus typeface, and discovered layout, balance and structure. I witnessed the unveiling of the new Toyota logo that I thought looked like a cow brand. While the Japanese saw intersecting ellipses of unity and a subtle “T,” I thought it looked like it had come straight out of Texas. It was my first experience with the nuances of cross-cultural design, and how perception might vary from one culture to the next.
In the years following I delved into the advertising and entertainment industry, eventually working as a full-time consultant. “Kelly puts 'free' in the word 'freelance,” my friends would say, as each project was more challenging than the last. My normal mode was to say, “sure no problem,” and my clients would only see the deliverables-high quality and on time. They weren't privy to the pain and all-nighters it took to get the final results. I believe I made about $5/hr during that time, but learned a lot in the process. Working in the entertainment world meant a certain pressure was applied at all times to pull off the impossible, whether getting a promotional CD-ROM designed and published in less than two weeks or to launch a new television network in two months. I learned how to manage difficult clients and work with teams in a collaborative (albeit frantic) manner.
Paying my dues has meant setting my vision and intent towards what I truly love, and learning to work smarter, not harder. Through the years, I have had the chance to explore several fields within the world of design and have determined not only what I enjoy, but also what I am good at. Now, at gotomedia, our mantra is “exceed expectations and take vacations.” I am lucky to work with a group of people who actually love the work they do and look forward to Monday mornings. After more than half of my life in the field, I find that the journey has been more important than the destination and that dues are paid along the way, as one continues to learn and grow. Does one ever stop paying their dues? In the design world, especially within the field of innovation and technology, it seems there would never be a time when the dues were paid in full. But the rewards don't stop either. And that is the seductive draw of being in a field where change is imminent and inspiration comes from constant exposure, learning and experience.
Kelly Goto
Principal gotomedia, inc. San Francisco, CA
An Investment That Continues to Pay Me Back Every Day
One muggy August day in 1964, I found myself standing in the middle of Pine Street in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I had just arrived to begin my freshman year at the University of Southern Mississippi, and I needed a job. In fact, if I didn't get a job I would be on the next Trailways bus back to Jackson.
I quickly noticed a little man well beyond his prime in the window of Belk's department store wrestling a mannequin into a dress. With all the trouble he was having, I thought that surely he needed an assistant. So I knocked on the window. He looked up, rather startled, and motioned for me to come into the store. Out from behind the window came the spry 4'10” man, the one who would give me that first critical job that led to my career in retail design. He convinced the owner of Belk's to hire me as an intern for 75 cents an hour for one school quarter so that he could teach me the skills of a “master window dresser.” For the next three months, I came in every day to learn the art of hand-lettering signs, building and painting sets for the windows and creating visual stories that eventually caught the eye of the owner of Waldorf on Pine, a competitor located directly across the street.
One day while waiting at the bus stop to go back to campus, Milton Waldorf approached me and asked me if I would come work for him. The timing was perfect, as the quarter was ending along with my job at Belk's. For the next four years, while attending the university, I had a parallel education in business, design and life working for Milton Waldorf. But this was no ordinary education. Milton expected the best from me and always pushed me beyond my limits. It turned out that Milton's mentor was Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus in Dallas. Neiman Marcus was the benchmark for excellence and Stanley was an inspiration to Milton, and me, as we noted every detail of his innovative approach to retailing. In those four years I gained a practical understanding of business and how design can be used in hundreds of ways to delight customers, improve their shopping experience and create lasting bonds.
Milton also gave me the opportunity to fail and finally succeed over time in fashion illustration, store design and product development, using a range of communication skills that complemented the graphic design and fine arts degree I was earning in college. Upon graduation my husband and I moved to Kansas City, and thanks to Milton Waldorf and the little man in the window, I was offered well-paying design positions at several top-tier department stores and corporations. So my dues were, in fact, an investment that continues to pay me back every day. Sure, I missed a lot of parties and college activities, but the learning experience and long hours were deeply satisfying and taught me to strive for excellence in business, design and life.
Ann Willoughby
I quickly noticed a little man well beyond his prime in the window of Belk's department store wrestling a mannequin into a dress. With all the trouble he was having, I thought that surely he needed an assistant. So I knocked on the window. He looked up, rather startled, and motioned for me to come into the store. Out from behind the window came the spry 4'10” man, the one who would give me that first critical job that led to my career in retail design. He convinced the owner of Belk's to hire me as an intern for 75 cents an hour for one school quarter so that he could teach me the skills of a “master window dresser.” For the next three months, I came in every day to learn the art of hand-lettering signs, building and painting sets for the windows and creating visual stories that eventually caught the eye of the owner of Waldorf on Pine, a competitor located directly across the street.
One day while waiting at the bus stop to go back to campus, Milton Waldorf approached me and asked me if I would come work for him. The timing was perfect, as the quarter was ending along with my job at Belk's. For the next four years, while attending the university, I had a parallel education in business, design and life working for Milton Waldorf. But this was no ordinary education. Milton expected the best from me and always pushed me beyond my limits. It turned out that Milton's mentor was Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus in Dallas. Neiman Marcus was the benchmark for excellence and Stanley was an inspiration to Milton, and me, as we noted every detail of his innovative approach to retailing. In those four years I gained a practical understanding of business and how design can be used in hundreds of ways to delight customers, improve their shopping experience and create lasting bonds.
Milton also gave me the opportunity to fail and finally succeed over time in fashion illustration, store design and product development, using a range of communication skills that complemented the graphic design and fine arts degree I was earning in college. Upon graduation my husband and I moved to Kansas City, and thanks to Milton Waldorf and the little man in the window, I was offered well-paying design positions at several top-tier department stores and corporations. So my dues were, in fact, an investment that continues to pay me back every day. Sure, I missed a lot of parties and college activities, but the learning experience and long hours were deeply satisfying and taught me to strive for excellence in business, design and life.
Ann Willoughby
Principal, Willoughby Design Group Kansas City, MO
The First Career Stages of a Young Designer
Either I never paid my dues or I've been paying all along, every week, every year-just one continuous balance due in the design business. Lessons learned are not a brief period for me, but a continuum. Sure, these are the few formative “I'll never do that again” goofs and difficult situations, but I still say that to myself at least once a month. But the real dues I've paid, and I'm sure this is not uncommon, were in my first two jobs out of school.
Yes, early design-jobs-from-hell are dues paid big time-and I'll devote this short essay to that challenging and painful period in the first career stages of a young designer. Diffuse the blame
As a senior in college, I got a job in a small Illinois ad agency-I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The art director directed me to spec Murray Hill decorative caps for all of the letters in a bunch of headlines. This was when you ordered type from a vendor overnight, and it cost money. When the proofs came back looking like a wrecked birthday cake, we tried to rush reset and still missed the ad close. The art director told the account guy and the client it was my fault. When you know its wrong, don't do it.
Keep 'em sharp
Their creative director and partner was a writer who had a big, spotless desk with only a chrome cup full of No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga's, sharpened to a faretheewell, making a golden bouquet on the otherwise empty desk. Dozens of perfect yellow pencils ready for “great” copywriting onto yellow pads-pre-computer, remember. The guy went through a pencil about every five minutes and he hated to be out of pencils (less than fifty?) and couldn't write with short ones (less than six inches?). Yes, it was my job to keep that cup full, and twice a day, like a waiter topping off a water glass, I'd knock on his door and refill the cup.
California dreamin'
Arriving in California, I hooked up with a fairly well known designer. What was well known to many but not to me was that he went through employees like rubber cement (a adhesive commodity used back then), and he was cheap. Not just cheap, but bare bones, iron grip on a dime cheap. For typesetting he had the two junior designers actually hand cutting letters together from magazine pages and then photo-stating than to make headline art. The worst thing he did was interview lots of young illustrators and actually buy outright original pieces from their portfolios for 50 or 100 bucks cash and use them in future magazine layouts. Exploitation with a capital “E.”
A penny for your Pentel
When I started there, he gave me one new Pentel pen and told me I could not have another until I could show him the first one was dry. “And don't lose it.” I didn't. Value your tools and supplies. And realize that other people may not value your time.
Where credit is due
I showed the same boss some collage stuff I was fooling around with then (and still am today) and he used one for the major part of an illustration in a magazine we worked on. In the paste up, I listed both his name and mine under the illustration, but when the issue hit the newsstands, surprise, my name was gone. That's the day I started to look for a new job. Don't expect credit for anything until you call the shots.
Note that working for that S.O.B. was-ironically-the best design boot camp I could have had. Dues were paid every day in that small graphics sweat shop. Nearly everything he did is the opposite of how things should be done, technically, ethically, you name it. But, the experience taught me in great detail what kind of boss not to be, lessons that have served me well in over twenty-five years of boss-hood.
From darkness into light
After eleven months of design office hell (I think I set the longevity record there), I fell into the opposite environment-one of the top multi-discipline design practices in LA, and it was a respectful, humane place where people liked each other and the projects were cool. I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning. And, my luck even got better; after a year, the senior guy who hired me “up-and-quit” and I kind of ended up with his responsibilities. So two years out of school I was more or less in charge of the graphics part of the studio. Here I learned how a real design office should be run.
Wayne Hunt
Yes, early design-jobs-from-hell are dues paid big time-and I'll devote this short essay to that challenging and painful period in the first career stages of a young designer. Diffuse the blame
As a senior in college, I got a job in a small Illinois ad agency-I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The art director directed me to spec Murray Hill decorative caps for all of the letters in a bunch of headlines. This was when you ordered type from a vendor overnight, and it cost money. When the proofs came back looking like a wrecked birthday cake, we tried to rush reset and still missed the ad close. The art director told the account guy and the client it was my fault. When you know its wrong, don't do it.
Keep 'em sharp
Their creative director and partner was a writer who had a big, spotless desk with only a chrome cup full of No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga's, sharpened to a faretheewell, making a golden bouquet on the otherwise empty desk. Dozens of perfect yellow pencils ready for “great” copywriting onto yellow pads-pre-computer, remember. The guy went through a pencil about every five minutes and he hated to be out of pencils (less than fifty?) and couldn't write with short ones (less than six inches?). Yes, it was my job to keep that cup full, and twice a day, like a waiter topping off a water glass, I'd knock on his door and refill the cup.
California dreamin'
Arriving in California, I hooked up with a fairly well known designer. What was well known to many but not to me was that he went through employees like rubber cement (a adhesive commodity used back then), and he was cheap. Not just cheap, but bare bones, iron grip on a dime cheap. For typesetting he had the two junior designers actually hand cutting letters together from magazine pages and then photo-stating than to make headline art. The worst thing he did was interview lots of young illustrators and actually buy outright original pieces from their portfolios for 50 or 100 bucks cash and use them in future magazine layouts. Exploitation with a capital “E.”
A penny for your Pentel
When I started there, he gave me one new Pentel pen and told me I could not have another until I could show him the first one was dry. “And don't lose it.” I didn't. Value your tools and supplies. And realize that other people may not value your time.
Where credit is due
I showed the same boss some collage stuff I was fooling around with then (and still am today) and he used one for the major part of an illustration in a magazine we worked on. In the paste up, I listed both his name and mine under the illustration, but when the issue hit the newsstands, surprise, my name was gone. That's the day I started to look for a new job. Don't expect credit for anything until you call the shots.
Note that working for that S.O.B. was-ironically-the best design boot camp I could have had. Dues were paid every day in that small graphics sweat shop. Nearly everything he did is the opposite of how things should be done, technically, ethically, you name it. But, the experience taught me in great detail what kind of boss not to be, lessons that have served me well in over twenty-five years of boss-hood.
From darkness into light
After eleven months of design office hell (I think I set the longevity record there), I fell into the opposite environment-one of the top multi-discipline design practices in LA, and it was a respectful, humane place where people liked each other and the projects were cool. I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning. And, my luck even got better; after a year, the senior guy who hired me “up-and-quit” and I kind of ended up with his responsibilities. So two years out of school I was more or less in charge of the graphics part of the studio. Here I learned how a real design office should be run.
Wayne Hunt
Principal Hunt Design Associates Pasadena, CA
Good Design is Always About Paying Dues
Chapter One: You Gotta Love the Smell of Ink
Just after graduating from college as a printmaker and design student (age 21), I returned to Los Angeles (the last place on earth I wanted to live at the time) because of a love interest. Trying to get my bearings, I found a job at George Rice & Sons, at the time, the best commercial printer in Los Angeles. I was hired as the receptionist, but within a couple of months was promoted to the print production department because they thought I was knowledgeable about paper. Of course, all I really knew was fine art printmaking papers, so it was trial by fire.
I was often asked to do the most tedious tasks, but I also met the best designers in town and got to work on their projects. I stayed another year before going to work at a design studio, but I look back on the job as the perfect apprenticeship-in the classic medieval tradition. To this day I have a soft spot for press checks in the middle of the night and all those “blue collar” guys who are, in fact such fine craftsmen. One learns that as high tech as it gets, great printing happens in places that feel akin to a printmaking atelier.
Chapter Two: The Marlo Thomas Years
When I was about 26, I moved to New York City because I wanted to try on a completely different life. Not knowing anyone there, I pounded the pavement for six weeks, and had the good fortune of seeing the best firms in the city. (In retrospect, it was like a series of nerve-wracking studio tours.) I was hired by the firm that is now Addison, to design annual reports for several Fortune 500 companies. It was like an intense boot-camp graduate school. Just picture our team staying up until 2:00 a.m., hand-cutting in a new ampersand on each and every mention of “Black & Decker” in the 56-page Black & Decker annual report mechanical, because the night before we went to press the client decided he hated the ampersand in Univers (this was way before the first Mac).
All I can say is that I was tested for a brain tumor before the doctors realized that two months of non-stop dizziness was simply due to intense fatigue. However, I will also always remember Len Fury teaching me to determine when to invest in and when to let go of a job before it drove me crazy. And that Les Segal taught me the beauty of drawing ridiculously primitive, deliberately rough sketches as he talked with CEOs-so they could imagine the solution, as opposed to the details.
Chapter Three: What's Entrepreneurship, Anyway?
I returned to LA when I was 28 because I wanted a backyard and a dog. As I was again trying to get my bearings, I started being referred to clients to do projects. I finally figured out I'd better design some damn letterhead so I could do some invoicing. Thus I inadvertently started a design firm. But what did “a firm” mean? The studio was located in Old Town Pasadena at a time when our only neighbors were grungy thrift stores and seedy bars. For the first year, we didn't have enough money to buy tape dispensers so we just kept stacks of tape on our desks. For the first two years, we had to walk down the block to make each Xerox copy. We used my parents' old dining table as the conference table. (During our first meeting with a CEO, one of the legs fell off.) Twenty-two years, two dogs, four studio locations and many long hours later, you could make a case that good design is always about paying dues. I honestly wouldn't have done any of it any differently.
Kim Baer
Just after graduating from college as a printmaker and design student (age 21), I returned to Los Angeles (the last place on earth I wanted to live at the time) because of a love interest. Trying to get my bearings, I found a job at George Rice & Sons, at the time, the best commercial printer in Los Angeles. I was hired as the receptionist, but within a couple of months was promoted to the print production department because they thought I was knowledgeable about paper. Of course, all I really knew was fine art printmaking papers, so it was trial by fire.
I was often asked to do the most tedious tasks, but I also met the best designers in town and got to work on their projects. I stayed another year before going to work at a design studio, but I look back on the job as the perfect apprenticeship-in the classic medieval tradition. To this day I have a soft spot for press checks in the middle of the night and all those “blue collar” guys who are, in fact such fine craftsmen. One learns that as high tech as it gets, great printing happens in places that feel akin to a printmaking atelier.
Chapter Two: The Marlo Thomas Years
When I was about 26, I moved to New York City because I wanted to try on a completely different life. Not knowing anyone there, I pounded the pavement for six weeks, and had the good fortune of seeing the best firms in the city. (In retrospect, it was like a series of nerve-wracking studio tours.) I was hired by the firm that is now Addison, to design annual reports for several Fortune 500 companies. It was like an intense boot-camp graduate school. Just picture our team staying up until 2:00 a.m., hand-cutting in a new ampersand on each and every mention of “Black & Decker” in the 56-page Black & Decker annual report mechanical, because the night before we went to press the client decided he hated the ampersand in Univers (this was way before the first Mac).
All I can say is that I was tested for a brain tumor before the doctors realized that two months of non-stop dizziness was simply due to intense fatigue. However, I will also always remember Len Fury teaching me to determine when to invest in and when to let go of a job before it drove me crazy. And that Les Segal taught me the beauty of drawing ridiculously primitive, deliberately rough sketches as he talked with CEOs-so they could imagine the solution, as opposed to the details.
Chapter Three: What's Entrepreneurship, Anyway?
I returned to LA when I was 28 because I wanted a backyard and a dog. As I was again trying to get my bearings, I started being referred to clients to do projects. I finally figured out I'd better design some damn letterhead so I could do some invoicing. Thus I inadvertently started a design firm. But what did “a firm” mean? The studio was located in Old Town Pasadena at a time when our only neighbors were grungy thrift stores and seedy bars. For the first year, we didn't have enough money to buy tape dispensers so we just kept stacks of tape on our desks. For the first two years, we had to walk down the block to make each Xerox copy. We used my parents' old dining table as the conference table. (During our first meeting with a CEO, one of the legs fell off.) Twenty-two years, two dogs, four studio locations and many long hours later, you could make a case that good design is always about paying dues. I honestly wouldn't have done any of it any differently.
Kim Baer
Principal KBDA Los Angeles, CA
Square-One All Over Again
One of the funniest things in life—well, I’m sure there are funnier things, but I am simple man-is watching a cat get ready for a nap. He will choose a spot in the couch, bed or belly and start kneading, turning and fussing, relentlessly, furiously and determinedly readying the surface for as long as it takes—five, ten, twenty minutes! it doesn't matter—in search for the ultimate prize of a tranquil rest. Finally, peacefully, the cat sleeps, only to be awakened and start the ritual again. And again.
Paying your dues is no different. It takes a lot of hard, consistent and persistent work-kneading if you will (trampling or pitty-patting in kitty terms) to reach a point where you feel comfortable: the napping, rewarding part of this somewhat odd metaphor. Whether it is mounting dozens of blackboards for a presentation as an intern or cold-calling dozens of prospective clients as a novice principal of a recently incorporated one-man operation, dues may very well be the third sure thing in life besides taxes and death.
No matter what state of your career you are in, there is always a better place to be—that is, if you are even somewhat ambitious—and it is not uncommon for that next place to require some sacrifices and hardships and that sense of square-one all over again, or as we have come to know it: paying your dues. I should emphasize that I think dues are not solely a burden of young designers or that they are limited to the first two, three or even five years of a designer’s career. At every stage, there are new things to learn (from preparing files for print to preparing RFPs), new people to respond to (from creative directors to clients) and new challenges to face (from running out of adhesive spray before a presentation to having to lay off an employee). Perhaps, even, if at some point you feel you have paid your dues and that you have earned the right to do as you wish you may, in fact and in all possibility, not be challenging yourself enough.
Surely, if you are a Design Master with 30 years of experience running a highly lucrative design business where your clients grant you unquestioned creative freedom that allows you to spend long evenings and full weekends at home with your loved ones then, maybe, you have actually paid your dues. In which case consider yourself lucky, few people pay their dues in such way that they actually get a refund.
Graphic design is not harder or easier than other professions, it is how you choose to engage with your career that will determine how hard or easy it is and how costly your dues will be. You can be assured that hard work is well compensated in this industry-or at the very least, you will benefit from good karma-and that it is worth every penny you put into it. You just have to stop thinking of dues as something that you must survive early in your career, rather, think of dues as constant challenges in your evolution as an apt individual who has the amazing privilege of being in a profession that is at its best times undeniably exciting and challenging. Now, find yourself a warm, sunny spot, knead it, soften it, ready it, make it yours. Relax, enjoy, sleep a little. You have to get up soon and do it again. You'll need your rest.
On Paying and Paying and Paying and Paying Your Dues
My best advice on this subject is to just drop the notion that dues paying ever really ends.
I don't think I've ever stopped paying my dues, and it's been over 20 years since I graduated from art school and got my first job in graphic design. Sure, I've stopped paying certain kinds of dues, but other kinds keep showing up. I think this is because I continue to evolve and expand what my job actually is. I keep taking on new challenges in the practice of design. All of which means there is some kind of new learning curve involved. Learning new things always means paying dues somehow, to somebody, for something.
For me, the fun of life is pushing the boundaries of what's possible. That can often mean starting over and not having it all buttoned up. It means I might fail. It means that there are probably people much better at this new thing than I am, so I'll need to stretch, and perhaps even be a little lost and confused for a while. This kind of risk-taking involves putting in extra effort, long hours of due diligence, probably disappointing people along the way, then finally beginning to get it right, and eventually actually figuring out how to do the new thing. It is this journey that I think of as paying dues.
Early in a design career everyone ought to expect to pay some dues. Dues look like extra effort, patiently following your boss's lead, having a happy attitude and boundless energy (no matter what) all in the pursuit of excellence. Keep this up, and bigger, better opportunities get presented. As a result, perhaps mastery occurs. Keep on working hard and smart, and your peers might recognize that mastery.
At that point a choice happens-get comfortable or keep pushing yourself. The more experience you get, and the better you become at your craft, the less inclined you might be to try to branch out and change. You might just want to rest on your laurels and pretend that you are challenged, but in your heart, you'll know that the thrill is gone. Once you admit that, you've opened a door, and you might have to do something about it. It might create the possibility of more dues to be paid.
I am convinced that relentless curiosity is an essential trait in a designer. Curiosity leads to growth. Growth brings new horizons and, inevitably, dues. But dues mean you're really in the game, not sitting on the sidelines. When you stop having to pay dues, it is just the right time to look for new things to do that come with a new set of dues. In time, each person figures out for herself which dues are worth paying and which aren't. For me, the real point is simply to stay open to paying dues. Being vital and challenged is how I want to live. I figure that I can rest (and stop paying dues) when I'm dead.
Terry Stone
I don't think I've ever stopped paying my dues, and it's been over 20 years since I graduated from art school and got my first job in graphic design. Sure, I've stopped paying certain kinds of dues, but other kinds keep showing up. I think this is because I continue to evolve and expand what my job actually is. I keep taking on new challenges in the practice of design. All of which means there is some kind of new learning curve involved. Learning new things always means paying dues somehow, to somebody, for something.
For me, the fun of life is pushing the boundaries of what's possible. That can often mean starting over and not having it all buttoned up. It means I might fail. It means that there are probably people much better at this new thing than I am, so I'll need to stretch, and perhaps even be a little lost and confused for a while. This kind of risk-taking involves putting in extra effort, long hours of due diligence, probably disappointing people along the way, then finally beginning to get it right, and eventually actually figuring out how to do the new thing. It is this journey that I think of as paying dues.
Early in a design career everyone ought to expect to pay some dues. Dues look like extra effort, patiently following your boss's lead, having a happy attitude and boundless energy (no matter what) all in the pursuit of excellence. Keep this up, and bigger, better opportunities get presented. As a result, perhaps mastery occurs. Keep on working hard and smart, and your peers might recognize that mastery.
At that point a choice happens-get comfortable or keep pushing yourself. The more experience you get, and the better you become at your craft, the less inclined you might be to try to branch out and change. You might just want to rest on your laurels and pretend that you are challenged, but in your heart, you'll know that the thrill is gone. Once you admit that, you've opened a door, and you might have to do something about it. It might create the possibility of more dues to be paid.
I am convinced that relentless curiosity is an essential trait in a designer. Curiosity leads to growth. Growth brings new horizons and, inevitably, dues. But dues mean you're really in the game, not sitting on the sidelines. When you stop having to pay dues, it is just the right time to look for new things to do that come with a new set of dues. In time, each person figures out for herself which dues are worth paying and which aren't. For me, the real point is simply to stay open to paying dues. Being vital and challenged is how I want to live. I figure that I can rest (and stop paying dues) when I'm dead.
Terry Stone
The Office of Terry Stone Design Management Consultant and Writer/Educator Los Angeles, CA
Stay Up Late
One week after I graduated from college in Ohio, I moved to New York with my new wife Dorothy and began working as a design assistant at Vignelli Associates. It was 1980, and I was the lowest employee on the totem pole. Working in a design office in those days was different. I never touched a computer. As I recall, the office didn't even have a computer. In fact, we didn't have a fax machine.
I spent most of my days putting thinner in rubber cement and taping tissue paper over mechanical boards. Every once in a while I would get to do a mechanical myself, usually following the direction of one of the more experienced designers. I was working in New York City for a designer I idolized and I was the happiest person on earth. It so happened that we got an apartment that was three blocks-literally, a 135 second walk-from the Vignelli office. Work started at 9:30 a.m. I usually got up at around five minutes to 9 and still had time to pick up a doughnut on my way in.
Dorothy, on the other hand, had a corporate job downtown, in the World Trade Center to be precise. She had to wake up before 6 to be at work at 8. I literally slept three hours later than her every morning. Every night Dorothy would go to bed at around 10 p.m. I was still wide awake, and our apartment was so small it drove me crazy. I had a key to the office. So I got in the habit of tucking my wife in every night and going back to work to start another shift, which often would last from 10 to 3 in the morning.
This went on for four years. Anything I've achieved in my career I credit today to those four years. I loved working late at night. I worked on office stuff, and I worked on personal projects. I played music really loud and drank Mountain Dew. I would design anything: invitations for my friends' parties, packaging for mix tapes, one-of-a-kind birthday cards, and freebies for non-profits.
When Massimo Vignelli noticed I had extra time during the day, he started giving me extra work. Things that would have taken two days only took one, thanks to the night shift. The more work I did, the faster I got, and the better I got. It never occurred to me to ask for overtime. 25 years later, nearing 50 with three kids (and the same wife), I can't tell you the last time I was awake at 3 in the morning, intentionally, at least. So my advice to anyone starting a career as a designer? Stay up late while you can. It pays off.
Michael Bierut
Partner, Pentagram Design New York
I spent most of my days putting thinner in rubber cement and taping tissue paper over mechanical boards. Every once in a while I would get to do a mechanical myself, usually following the direction of one of the more experienced designers. I was working in New York City for a designer I idolized and I was the happiest person on earth. It so happened that we got an apartment that was three blocks-literally, a 135 second walk-from the Vignelli office. Work started at 9:30 a.m. I usually got up at around five minutes to 9 and still had time to pick up a doughnut on my way in.
Dorothy, on the other hand, had a corporate job downtown, in the World Trade Center to be precise. She had to wake up before 6 to be at work at 8. I literally slept three hours later than her every morning. Every night Dorothy would go to bed at around 10 p.m. I was still wide awake, and our apartment was so small it drove me crazy. I had a key to the office. So I got in the habit of tucking my wife in every night and going back to work to start another shift, which often would last from 10 to 3 in the morning.
This went on for four years. Anything I've achieved in my career I credit today to those four years. I loved working late at night. I worked on office stuff, and I worked on personal projects. I played music really loud and drank Mountain Dew. I would design anything: invitations for my friends' parties, packaging for mix tapes, one-of-a-kind birthday cards, and freebies for non-profits.
When Massimo Vignelli noticed I had extra time during the day, he started giving me extra work. Things that would have taken two days only took one, thanks to the night shift. The more work I did, the faster I got, and the better I got. It never occurred to me to ask for overtime. 25 years later, nearing 50 with three kids (and the same wife), I can't tell you the last time I was awake at 3 in the morning, intentionally, at least. So my advice to anyone starting a career as a designer? Stay up late while you can. It pays off.
Michael Bierut
Partner, Pentagram Design New York
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