The Designer I Never Planned to Be

I never planned to be a designer. But I also didn’t drift into it as gently as I sometimes make it sound. The truth sits somewhere messier in the middle.

Design was the one thing at school I didn’t fail. That mattered. Not because I thought it meant anything profound at the time, but because everything else felt like hard work in ways I couldn’t quite explain. Graphics made sense. It was visual. Practical. Tangible. You could see progress. You could finish something. That feeling of completion has followed me ever since.

Lou and I have realised over time that I’m a doer. I like action. I like progress. I like ticking things off a list. I get real satisfaction from momentum and productivity, and I always have. That instinct shaped the designer I became long before I understood what design actually was.

I went to college, re-sat English because I had to, and did an extra year just to get onto the course I wanted. There was nothing elegant about it. But once I was there, I learned things that quietly differentiate me to this day. We didn’t have computers. We had gouache and charcoal. We learned how to paint flat colour properly. How light shifts tone. How composition works when you can’t just undo it. Typography wasn’t something you dragged around a screen, it was something you studied, letter by letter. Those fundamentals got into my bones. Long before software. Long before trends.

What I also realised fairly quickly was that in design, experience mattered more than qualifications. So instead of staying in education longer, I got a job. And that job was humbling. Nobody really trusted me with work. Nobody believed in me enough to give me responsibility. So I did the only thing I could. I taught myself everything else. Hardware. Software. Systems. Tools. I became useful before I became confident.

That pattern never really left me.

Over time, I built a reputation in agency environments for being efficient. Fast, but not sloppy. Quick, but still thoughtful. I’ve been asked to estimate jobs and specifically asked how long I would take, not someone else. That isn’t about ego. It’s about understanding how I work. I move quickly once I understand the problem. And I always have.

The issue is that for a long time, I didn’t always bother to fully understand the problem.

I love to create. I see a vision and want to execute it. For years, I designed first and asked questions later, if at all. Sometimes clients loved it. Sometimes art directors and creative directors did not. I fought those battles hard. I was passionate. Stubborn. Protective of my ideas. If I’m honest, there were times when I designed for myself even though someone else was paying. I cared deeply about the work, but not always about the context it needed to live in.

It took me a long time to accept that passion without listening isn’t collaboration. It’s just noise.

The real shift didn’t come from talent or experience. It came from learning to listen. Properly. To understand the client, the constraints, the reality behind the brief. To realise that my job wasn’t to impose a vision, but to uncover one together. Once I learned that, everything changed. Not my speed. Not my creativity. But my impact.

What’s strange is that when I look back now, all the pieces were already there. Communication. Observation. Travel. Shyness. Traditional training. Efficiency. A need to do rather than overthink. I just didn’t know how to assemble them properly yet.

I don’t care about awards. I never really have. I don’t even need everyone to like my work. What matters to me is that it works. That it makes sense. That it solves the right problem. That the person on the other side feels understood. If that happens, the visuals usually follow.

This chapter, more than any other so far, has made me realise something uncomfortable but important. I wasn’t on a straight journey toward becoming this designer. I was zigzagging for years. Pulling in opposite directions. Balancing ego with insecurity. Speed with depth. Vision with understanding.

And slowly, without noticing, I found the balance.
I didn’t plan to be this designer.
But every part of the journey shaped him.
And now, finally, I understand why.