I’m no good at tutorials or how-to’s. My process is too personal to be objectively helpful, so I end up just telling stories. This post is a good example of that. Take It Back is the story of how I learned to deal with difficult clients and defeat a pretty thick creative funk. If you’ve ever been there before, hopefully this will help you the next time you come into it. (Note: Yes, the title is a Fallout 3 reference. Yes, I realize I said the word “design” like a thousand times. I’m cool with it if you’re cool with it.)

Gloom & How It Gets That Way

When I first started doing professional client work, I ran into a snag. Alright, that’s an understatement. I fell into a pit full of alligators that exclusively devoured creativity. I was having an extremely tough time dealing with corporate clients for the first time. As soon as I branched out my services to larger businesses, unfamiliar new problems arose. There were strange people—whose names I’d only seen CC’d on emails—telling me what to do with my design. And they weren’t just telling me what to do with my design, they were telling me to do horribly ineffective things.

I’m sure that, while some of them were just meddling egomaniacs, most of them were well-meaning people without much experience working with a designer. Many clients come from a corporate environment where groupthink is the only way things are done. Placing so much faith in one person’s decision making is very alien to them and might even seem dangerous. All of this is helpful in understanding their actions, but it didn’t do much to make me feel any better.

I was trapped in a constant cycle of designing, presenting my work, and then having it transformed into a visual abomination by “revisions”. It made me miserable in a way I’d never known before. Previously, design was my escape. Now, it took strength just to read my email and open Photoshop every day. I didn’t want to even attempt to make creative choices or take initiative on new ideas. I just wanted to hand them whatever they asked for and never do anything creative again. I started to question things I always held as true: can I really do this for a living? Do I want to spend my whole life dreading something I used to love because of clients destroying projects?

I’m A Human Being, God damnit!

This strange new set of rules that came along with professional design had robbed me of something I loved. So I did what came naturally. I got mad. I got mad at rules, deadlines, and bids. At creative briefs, conference calls and the word “delivery”. I got mad at all the bullshit that got tacked onto the thing I love. Suddenly, the problem became clear. Design had been taken away from me, and there was only one thing I could do. I had to take it back.

I resolved to make design fun again, no matter what it would take. Do you remember the days when you started? Remember how awesome it felt to show your newest piece to everyone who would look? I promised myself that I’d chase that feeling every day. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I’d figure that out as I went along. When it comes to changing your life, specifics have absolutely no place in your considerations.

I decided to start slow and test a strategy I’d had for some time but lacked the will to institute. My plan was to fight back, tooth and nail, against bad ideas. For every soul crushing, ineffective idea that found its way into my inbox, I tried to swing right back with something better. This wasn’t simply for the sake of being difficult, but to force myself to start making difficult creative decisions again. I became more honest about the impact of the client’s decisions. I stopped being afraid to tell clients when ideas were destructive and was ready with effective alternatives. It was met with mixed results. The clients that had faith in me were excited to see me taking initiative and offering solutions. The clients that I was happy to get rid of upon project completion were suddenly offended that I was second guessing their revisions.

Like An Invisible Friend, But A Client

It was a step in the right direction. I started to feel confident about my decision making again and wanted to confront new challenges. Best of all, it rekindled my interest in being creative. I was hungry to do something personal, original and, most of all, fun. I realized that no project was going to fall in my lap from some ultra-progressive, trusting client that would give me free reign. It was up to me and me alone to reclaim what I loved. The next step was obvious: I had to design for me and only me, and I had to do it like I fucking meant it.

I spent months working on personal projects for make believe clients of varying scope. I’d work about 14 hours a day combined on client and personal projects. I sacrificed sleep and socializing on a daily basis. I don’t think I even picked up a video game controller for weeks (a big deal, if you know me well.) My projects were built on ideas that my clients would never have the guts to let me try. Ads for whiskey with blood-filled bottles. Posters for movies that spoke through subtlety rather than blatant visual shouting. Album liner notes that told a story and forced the reader to come to their own conclusions. The medium was unimportant, really. All that mattered was that I challenged myself to make something new. It was wild, it was uncontrolled, and it was fun. I went to bed each night with a smile on my face and vivid compositions flashing behind my eyes, waiting to be made reality.

In those few months of pushing myself to new limits and creating things all my own, I learned more than I had in my entire time as a designer. Best of all, I had fun every day. I found myself smiling when I thought of new projects and getting excited about new sketches. Everything felt new and rewarding, and I remembered what it was like to be doing what I loved. Finally, design was mine again.

Conclusion

Like I said earlier, I’m no good at how-to’s. Maybe some of this will help you understand your own frustrations and give you a push in the right direction. All I know for sure is that it’s up to you to reclaim your creativity. No perfect projects will ever fall in your lap, and very few profitable clients will give you complete creative freedom. You can kick and scream at clients and tell them your solution is the most effective until you’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day, they can take all of your ideas and shove them into the trash can without a second thought. You won’t find a way to make sure this never happens. No one ever does. All you can do is find a way to make it okay.

At first, this just sounds like rabble rousing — one designer trying to inflate other designer’s egos by telling them that they’re infallible experts. It’s not. If anything, this advice comes from a place of wanting to help you make something better for your clients in the long run. Nobody wants mediocre, forgettable work, and that’s exactly what you produce when you lose the will to be creative. Your client, studio, or creative director would rather you fight them tooth and nail to create something amazing than put on a smile, mock up uninspired bullshit, and then shrug your shoulders when the project comes out blander than boiled tofu because you submitted to the will of groupthink.

So for the sake of the art that you love, if you ever feel like control of your work, your creativity, or your livelihood is being taken from you, there’s just three words you have to remember: take it back.