Perfection is bullet hole that’s slightly off of the middle
For everyone reading that has a mild touch of OCD, OCPD or perfectionism, I’m sorry if the title puts you into a bad mood and hopefully you didn’t read this at the start of your day.
A good friend and I were chatting about the state of the creative industry and the calibre of people and their skills, within it. After a while, he asked me to write a piece about perfection. It made me chuckle that he asked me to write about it, but I do know a little thing or two about it. It’s actually been diagnosed as a personality trait (or flaw, depending upon how you regard it) of mine.
To add a little context, there seems to be a general feeling amongst agency owners, throughout the south of the UK, that people aren’t actually creating knockout creative work. Sadly, I would be inclined to agree with the sentiment. It’s obviously a generalisation, and there are definitely pockets of really hot talent, but in the creative economy local to me — which is Bournemouth and Poole — it feels a bit stagnant. It feels a bit like the conurbation has been given a moniker as the leading hotspot of talent outside of the creative-industry-shrine-that-is-London, and a lot of creatives in the area seem to have popped their feet up and mentally said to themselves “job done!”. When you actually look at the quality of the creative work being output by individuals, agencies and creative groups, it’s often quite underwhelming. It seems there is a lot of style-over-substance and a lot more effort put into what creatives wear, than what they create! A creative does a cheeky little logo on the side, all of a sudden it’s not a logo, it’s a side project. Someone calls them an entrepreneur. In comes a look of nonchalant smugness. Up go the feet.
I can’t stress enough — this isn’t a loaded piece of writing, targeted towards specific people, but it is an opinion that I know is shared more broadly than being simply my own opinion. I don’t sadly have a cure for this. But I do have my set of principles that I work
Approach
Tackle every single piece of creative as if it were something that you would want to include in your portfolio. Not as a filler piece, but as a leading piece that will win you your next appointment.
Practice
You’re never at the top of the game, but you can be at the top of your game. When you think of Usain Bolt, he’s pretty damned good at what he does. An element of that is practice. He doesn’t just rock up to the Olympic games and do well on the day — he practices (which is an understatement). Surely if a creative is only exercising their skill and craft in the studio… that’s a little bit like showing up on the day, having never practised beforehand?
Side projects
Not just creating umpteen different logos and calling them each a company, but significant, engaging, well-rounded projects of depth. They’ll teach you more than you could possibly realise. Creatives will usually gravitate to the design part of a side project, sure, but once it’s out in the wild, why not try and let it be bigger than the kudos of you? Let it be its own thing. Let it grow. Let it teach you.
Practice
Yes, that one again. It takes effort and a lot of it, to motivate yourself to get back onto a machine or open the sketchbook, after a full day of the same. But practice, so I’m told, makes perfect.
Understanding
Realise that perfection is something to aim at, but by definition, should actually be unachievable. Keep aiming. Keep moving towards it.
So there you have it. The criteria that help me strive for perfection and get others to do the same.
Get yourself on the path to perfection, but know it’ll never be complete. One person might say of me, that I’m 80% of the way there. Another might say that I’m only 5% of the way there. I’m fine with either because one way or another, I’m on my way towards it and that’s what I’ll continue aiming for. Hence the title of this piece — that bullet should never make it to the bullseye. It should always be just off. This way there continues to be something to keep aiming for.