Some really good discussion in here.
I’m graduating this December, I can’t wait!
The first 2-3 years of ID school I was really stubborn. My life was to come into school at 8 AM and leave at 2AM, I was eating Subway 1-2 times a day, and pulling all-nighters at-least 1-2 times a week. I was (and still am to a point) very competitive, I came into school with no artistic or design background and felt that the only way I could catch up to my peers and the level of work expected for new graduates was to work harder than all of them. I had mentors pull me aside from Pensole and Under Armour and tell me I needed to relax, and shared their stories of burnout, and how overworking lead them to ill health, unhappiness and affected their families.
I didn’t finally understand how to balance my work and life until I had a teacher from Samsung come in to teach a sketching class. I was pulling all-nighters every week for his class and working my butt off. There were weeks where I tried to over-deliver in both his class and my studio class and fell flat on my face. The first time I took his class he lectured me weekly about how I was working to my own detriment, he gave so many tips on how to handle his assignments and work smart but I refused them and kept going at my pace. That semester I didn’t finish my final project for my studio and his final assignment for the class, it was a kick in the face. Somehow I didn’t fail either class, but that’s a whole other discussion.
My favorite quote from this instructor was about his role being a manager, and how as a professional we have to work smart. In his workplace he wanted to eliminate the mentality that people who work long hours should be praised. He said something along the lines of “Why would I want my designers to stay late? Now their wive’s and kids are upset with me and now it’s my problem…”
But there came a point where my foundation skills got up to par and my lack of design knowledge and aesthetic sense poked through everything. There was no way I could design great looking things because for the past 2-3 years I was sitting in a concrete building with no windows 16-18 hours a day. I had no inspiration.
Work hard, yes, but there comes a point where one needs to live life, and have life experiences to design great things.