The Worst Kind of Project
What’s the worst thing that can happen to a designer? A project that’s designed — but never realized.
You invest everything: your expertise, your time, your focus. Not just the hours spent working, but the ones spent thinking — shaping, refining, imagining. You build expectations, both your own and your client’s. And then, for one reason or another, the project never sees the light of day. It isn’t launched, published, or produced. Something happens — and the reasons no longer matter. What remains is pure frustration.
Sometimes it’s our fault. Most of the time, it isn’t. The work exists — the concept is strong, the vision clear, the potential undeniable. Yet it remains on a desk or buried in a folder — a prototype, a draft, or worse, nothing at all.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve learned to avoid pitches whenever possible. They often drain creative energy before a project even begins. In advertising, they might be a necessary evil. But in design, tere is no palce for them.
Please — don’t do this to designers. Respect their work.
Don’t miss the next essay. Signup for our newsletter
⸻ Newsletter signup
Everything beautiful is analog
We can't avoid digital; it is everywhere, and not all is bad, of course, but we are focused on it way too much, staring at our phones, for instance. Just think that everything beautiful that has ever happened to you was analog.
What are you buying with a designer?
Every designer has a special superpower: a feeling. Our feeling about branding and visual direction and the only way to get it is through experience.
To all the misfits who jumped to freelancing
We’ve been broke. Burned out. Ghosted. Underpaid. But we still say no to shitty jobs. We’d rather spend endless hours on a good one — a real one — that actually means something to us. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. Because we love this shit — and we’re damn good at it.
Side projects
Our work is not easy. You need to stay excited all the time, and that is impossible. You need to find something that drives you—things that blow out some steam.
The highest award for a designer: finished work, payment, and client bragging
The highest award for a designer: finished work, payment, and client bragging