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Andy You are listening to Working File; a podcast about design practice and its relationship with the world. My name is Andy Mangold.

Matt And I'm Matt McInerney.

Andy On this episode, we talk about how we as designers establish our self-worth.

Matt Doggone it, Andy, people like you.

Music

Andy I just finished building my new bike just barely in time to bike here for this recording. [chuckle] It was like a race against the clock. I had to put all the pieces together, and then pedal it over here. And nothing fell off, which is always a good sign on the first time riding a new bike you just put together.

Matt Except for you; don't you love getting bike parts so much that a bike part falling off seems like an opportunity.

Andy Well, you don't want it to fall off while in use because danger, physical harm is real.

Matt Explain how that works, I don't understand.

Andy But also, I went through a phase where I really liked buying old bike parts on eBay for fun, and that phase is long over, though. You're way behind that. That was three years ago, Andy.

Victoria Like buying them and doing something with them, or just having them?

Andy Yeah, well, putting them on bikes maybe, sometimes, but...

Victoria I don't know, you didn't mention that part.

Andy Yeah, well, I would do it sometimes. I will admit that I have bike parts in boxes in my basement that have not been on bikes ever that I bought six, seven years ago.

Victoria It's all I'm asking.

Matt Well, it's hard to stereotype you if you continue to grow and change.

Andy Exactly.

Matt So keep going and work on that a little bit.

Andy I'm a little bit too dynamic. Anyway, welcome to Working File. So Victoria and I are here again together in the studio, and this time everything is working perfectly, he said, jinxing it. But everything here is going great.

Victoria Thank you.

Andy Victoria, welcome.

Victoria Hi, thank you for having me here. I'm with you in the studio.

Laughter

Andy Just to confirm, I am not lying. I don't have her tied up here and making up some situation. She can confirm, we're here in the studio. And then, we're also joined by a new contributor from New York, by Kara Haupt. And Kara, you're fresh off a new job at The New Yorker, congratulations!

Kara Yay! Yes, thank you!

Andy And have you actually started yet?

Kara No, I start tomorrow. I'm a little nervous.

Andy Oh, wow! Tomorrow! This is so exciting! We're on the eve of a whole new chapter.

Kara Yeah, I know. Big week!

Andy Big week, very exciting! And Matt, how are you doing in Philadelphia?

Matt I'm great! I am moments away from getting married. So I'm...

Andy This is a big week!

Victoria It's like standing right there and waiting for you, moments.

Matt Yup.

Andy We got a new job.

Matt Should I have scheduled this a different day? Maybe I should've done that.

Andy We got people getting married. I have a new bike. What's new in your life, Victoria? Something exciting?

Laughter

Victoria I can't compete with that.

Chuckle

Andy Well, I'm glad we all have new things to be excited about. So tonight's topic is self-worth and confidence, and lack thereof, and how this pertains to our job as designers. And this topic came up for me because recently, there's been a young man... He might be my age, actually. I don't really know how old he is, but he seems young.

Matt You're a young man, Andy.

Andy I don't feel that way, Matt, but I appreciate that compliment. There's this guy, he's been hanging around a little bit, and I met him through some friends. And he is basically trained as a graphic designer, he worked at a graphic design studio doing branding and more typical, air quotes, graphic design work. And he's trying to basically move over and start doing more product design work, so websites, apps, that kind of thing; it's like software design. And he basically reached out to me 'cause he's in this program, which is like a bootcamp-y, kind of like rapid education, like a six-week, 10-week program, or whatever to bring people up to speed on a new type of thing, and that thing is product design, in this instance.

Andy And it's been a weird... It's been a very organic mentorship kind of role that came out of nowhere, which was interesting and welcome. I thought it was very fun to have somebody that I could talk about and introduce to this whole career, which I've been doing for six years now, and show them the ropes a little bit, and offer a little bit of a foil to the things that he was being taught in his formal courses. Anyway, the whole thing, it made me feel good. Selfishly, it was like, "Oh, I have knowledge to share with this person. It feels really good to feel like I actually have a crude, some sort of expertise and experience over these past six years that I actually can pass on to somebody." Which made me realize that I think up until this moment, I've really been struggling with the fact that I don't actually feel that way on a day-to-day basis. Most days, I actually really struggle with the sense of not really feeling like what I'm contributing to a project is really valuable because I've gotten to this point where I kind of... The way I think about design is less specialized and more just a generalist, make sure everything is considered and happens, and gets put together.

Andy And so, I have a lot of issues in my life, but you would not normally criticize me as being somebody who doesn't have confidence. Self-esteem and sort of a sense of self-worth is never really a weakness of mine. So it was interesting for me to realize that this was actually a situation where I had been undervaluing myself for a long time, or at least, in my own mind, thinking of my contributions to the team as not special and not valuable. And having this sort of new person who was coming into the industry fresh allowed me to see clearly that, "Oh no, I actually do have something to bring to the table." And so, I wanted to discuss that because I think a lot of people struggle with lack of sense of self-worth, a lack of confidence in their career, and I think some of that is specific to design, and it's not something that gets talked about a lot. So, Matt, how do you feel about yourself right now?

Laughter

Andy Just right now, in this moment.

Matt Oh, I feel great! I think I probably have a similar internal self-worth, and then the way people would probably assume I feel about myself, which is that I probably... If you asked someone else, they probably think, "I bet Matt thinks he's great." And then, internally, I think, "I don't know. I don't know if I'm so good at this."

Andy To be fair, Matt, you do say pretty often, "Matt's great, Matt's great, I'm great." [chuckle] I've heard you say that many times.

Matt You're saying I put it out in the world.

Andy You do project that.

Matt I project confidence, but I don't necessarily always feel that way.

Victoria I think that's pretty relatable.

Andy You said, yes, Victoria, you feel that way too?

Victoria Not necessarily; I didn't say that's for myself, but I think a lot of people feel like that. That's one of the most common things that I hear, is people saying, "Oh, I project more self-confidence than I have."

Matt Yeah, I think it's one, self-defense, and then, two, "How are you gonna get any work if other people don't believe in you, or you don't make other the people believe in you?" So it's a self-defense mechanism and a sales tactic, I guess. But I can't say that I don't suffer from the same thing you do, Andy, especially when you're maybe interacting with the same people over and over again, and just the novelty of what you do, or the skill set that you have, it's expected and it's the norm.

Andy Yeah, that feels like a big part of it. I think when you're in the same context, and you're talking to the same people over and over again, you lose a sense of what you're contributing as being special or meaningful. It just feels like, "Oh yeah, well, if I wasn't here, surely, somebody else here would just have the same thoughts I'm having. I'm just a weird proxy for this idea; I'm not actually contributing something directly." Usually, something I felt.

Matt Or even if it's new people, but they're clients, the fact that they're paying you money means it's expected that you would have the skill set, so of course, why would you not? As opposed to, I don't know, interacting with somebody in a completely different capacity where she's like, "Oh wait, you know how to do that?" I don't know, meeting someone at a party and explaining something might be a little bit different than selling yourself to somebody and saying, "I'm worth this amount of money."

Andy Yeah, I don't get that sense of validation from clients, ever. Sure, clients, oftentimes, have told me directly, or told our company, they're like, "You did a great job! Everything came out good!" Express some appreciation or validation for our value. But that never does it for me. I guess I always feel like in that situation, it's somebody else's contributions that are really responsible for the success of the thing. Or that because that is the expected way that relationship is supposed to go, that it's just normal for them to be happy. And if they're unhappy, then I failed. And if they're happy, then I guess I'm just barely getting by, whatever.

Matt Yeah right, exactly. It's like if the movers ding your furniture, I'm very upset with the movers; if they do everything perfectly, it's like "Well, of course, that was what they were supposed to do."

Andy Everything got moved. Kara, what is your perspective on this? Do you struggle with a sense of confidence and your self-worth as a designer?

Kara Don't think I do in the day-to-day professional environment of not feeling qualified, or I feel like, I don't know, the work that I'm doing isn't important, or whatever. I do feel like I've felt that a lot of... I feel like I'm good at the type of design that I do. And if I try to do a type of design that I haven't done before, I'm not good at, then I feel like those feelings come up of... I don't know if you wanna call it "imposter syndrome" or something like that. But I don't feel like that really happens when I'm in an environment doing the work that I'm doing in a day job environment around the people that I work with, if that answers the question.

Andy Yeah, I think you're saying you have a very healthy relationship with things, which is that the things you are good at, you feel comfortable doing and confident. And the things you're unfamiliar with, I think justifiably, you might feel less confident because they're not your main things, that's sort of new territory. That sounds like the correct way to feel. [laughter] As opposed to the way I feel, which is that there's a thing that I know I'm good at, I've been doing it for a long time, and yet, I don't feel the emotional benefit of it all the time. I oftentimes don't feel inside of my heart, and then soul that I'm doing something good and it's worthwhile, which is maybe a deeper-seated issue.

Matt I think I've also heard you just point out things that you've never done before, and just say, "I'm pretty sure I'd be great at that if I decided to dedicate the time to do it."

Andy Well, that's the thing. [laughter] Like I said, confidence is not usually a thing that I have an issue with at all. And I do subscribe to that vision of the world, Matt, which is that I think the things that I'm not good at, I'm not good at because I haven't tried, or practiced, or really put the effort in to be good at. Which is to say that, yeah, I think if I wanted to become a, insert whatever, as long as it doesn't require some biological advantage... I'm not gonna become a great NBA player, it's never gonna happen; I've got some limitations there. But something that's mental or a task. I don't think just me; I think people can learn to become good at almost anything. So yeah, it's all messy. So I'm curious, Victoria, you are pursuing, perhaps, a more specific type of career than the rest of us, in that the work you're doing is, I don't know how to put it.

Victoria I'm just casually shaking my head at him, not really twitching, go on.

Andy Okay, so how did... [chuckle]

Victoria It's a reflex, keep talking.

Andy Well, Kara talked about how she feels. Sometimes, she's in a situation where she's expected to do a type of design she's not familiar with, it's not her normal type of work; therefore, she feels out of place a little bit, as we all would. Do you ever feel that way? Or do you feel like you are doing the thing you're expected to be doing? What's your whole relationship to this?

Victoria Well, I feel like I'm doing the thing that I'm expected to be doing, but I'm just always getting better at it. That sounds right, right? [chuckle]

Andy I hope so.

Victoria I hope so, too. And that's gonna plateau at some point where I actually know what I'm doing all the way for sure.

Andy But will it plateau, though? Do you hit a point where you stopped getting better?

Victoria Well, no, but probably not. Just that I started doing my job when they were still training me, so I'm getting there, I'm almost there to where I don't need someone constantly fixing what I'm doing. Say your question again.

Andy Well, my question was going to be: If you did agree that there was some more structure to the kind of work you're doing, then... For example, some days, I'm designing websites and apps, which there's a certain amount of structure to that. And some days, the design work I'm doing is something, it may be totally unrelated. Now we have to make a compelling app icon, which is a type of design that I, frankly, have never been that good at, where it's like, let's just... You have to make a cool something. There's not really limitations, there's not a use case; you just have to make this cool and interesting. That kind of... I don't know how to describe it. That kind of visual image making, it's never been a thing that was a strength of mine. And I end up in those situations. Do you feel like there's that same diversity in type design where you end up doing things that you don't identify with as your main type of type design? Or?

Victoria Okay, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, I get a better idea of what you mean now. Sure, I haven't drawn a sans serif of my own yet; it's just more specific. I think I have more of a specialty in script-like things, working on that. But just in general, I don't know, I feel like when I was really insecure and anxious that my career was going to be a total flop, that was where I placed all of my self-worth just because it was a thing that hadn't happened yet. But now that it's gonna be okay, going okay, I feel like I don't put so much of my self-worth into... I don't bury it all in my work, I don't put it all there. Does anyone else feel like that? I was thinking about this.

Andy Yes.

Victoria That the better I get at this, the less I... The more that I can be like, "Oh, I'm an actual whole, well-rounded person with other interests, and also really like my work." Just don't tell my grandmothers that; I'm still training them to ask me about work when we get on the phone.

Chuckle

Matt I first felt that way, but I don't know if it's in a less healthy where I feel like when I was learning more, I assumed I'd hit... I may either learned something, or there'd be some sort of achievement, and that would make me feel better about my success, or whatever I had accomplished. And then you hit those milestones, you're like, "Wow! This doesn't make everything better. It's really not as there is something here."

Victoria My life is still bad.

Matt "But it doesn't solve every problem that I have." [chuckle] And then, I started thinking about life a little bit differently after that point. Is that a similar thing?

Victoria Yeah, I think so.

Kara I think I've felt that, too, of... I haven't had a ton of official professional experience, but I've always felt confident in my abilities, or I'm confident in my ability to solve problems. But once I had some professional evidence that had a certain kind of name attached to it, that, I think, helped me gain that confidence. And I feel like anybody who is walking out of school, or who is starting out their career who doesn't have that evidence, those feelings, feel a lot more vicious even though you might be confident in your own ability. You might not be able to show it so easily.

Andy Yeah, you can't point it out to somebody else and say, "See, I told you so."

Chuckle

Kara Exactly, yeah.

Victoria Do you ever get that evidence and dismiss it? Or is that, that just works for you?

Kara I think I do. I think we're all our own worst critics. And so, I probably would wanna redo everything I've ever made. [chuckle] And so, I think I do this. I can dismiss it, but I don't think that's what, personality-wise, is my first inclination. I think my first inclination is like, "Thank you, I know it's great."

Laughter

Andy Yeah. No, no, same. I hear different things from people.

Kara Yeah, totally.

Matt I do understand the feeling of someone else complimenting your work, and then, you... Saying thank you, but then also, internally being, "If you only knew, this could be so much better." Or, "I would do this, this, and this, and change it, you don't understand." I don't know, I can remember that when I was in bands, and you'd get off stage just after you performed a song, and somebody goes, "That was great!" And you're like, "I know every note that was missed. You don't understand; it was not great. You were just not very observant."

Victoria Kara was at this talk that I gave at the Type Directors Club last week, and afterwards, everyone was like, "That was great!" And I was like, "You have to say that; I'm right here."

Laughter

Kara It was great.

Victoria Thanks, Kara. I thought it went really well, and I had a lot of fun. But it's also like, "You're not gonna say that to my face!"

Andy I had to really focus on learning how to... Not even graciously accept praise, but just literally say thank you when somebody says something nice.

Laughter

Matt As opposed to arguing with them? What would be your natural inclination be?

Victoria I'll fight you.

Andy So my inclination is the same as what you said, Matt. Like, "I know everything that's wrong with this thing." And I think to go a step further, the reason that I always felt compelled to explain that to a very nice, innocent person that just was saying something kind who didn't know they were walking into this weird, psychological trap that I have in my brain.

Laughter

Matt Some sort of helpless victim that just thanked you.

Andy I think the reason I want to explain it to them is because I didn't want them to think that it was the best I could do. So whether they're being genuine or not, I wanted to be able to be like, "Yeah, well, you think that's good. Just wait until next time." Which is how I felt about most of my career is like, "Well, next time, I'll do better. And next time... " There's always next time, and it's never now. And that, to me, is why I always had to try and explain, "Yeah, but here are the things that are wrong with it because I want to do that."

Victoria Does anyone else get, also, the instinct to try to be humble when someone gives you a compliment? You have to balance the fact that in my head, I'm like, "Yes, I'm great! I'm awesome! I did that thing really well." But then, have to temper it.

Kara Yeah, I feel like I have that, too. Or you also wanna show that you're self-aware enough to see all the problems of the thing that you made. So it's like, "Yes, I am smart that I made that thing, but I'm actually even smarter than that 'cause I realize everything that's wrong with it."

Andy Exactly, yeah.

Laughter

Kara And which, yeah, I don't know how lovely of a personality attribute that is.

Andy I, myself, microwaved a burrito so hot that I couldn't eat it. That's how self-aware and meta I am of my own work. So I do think a lot of this... To me, I draw a line, though, because some of this is just basic lack of confidence in yourself, which I think is a thing that young people, and old people, people in all kinds of jobs and places in life have experienced at point or another for various reasons. I do think part of this is specific to design in a way, though, because I found...

Victoria Such a designer thing for you to say. Sorry, go on.

Chuckle

Andy I know. Obviously, sure, that's the lens through which I view the world. It's what I'm trained in, and what I've spent most of my adult life thinking about. So I'm more likely to see the world that way. But it feels like I am more confident in a conversation with another designer about myself, and what I bring to the table, and my expertise, and experience, than I am in a conversation with somebody who's perhaps a software developer, or somebody that is working in business, like the CEO of a big company, or somebody that comes from a different field. Because I think a lot of my hangups are tied up in design's role in a bigger project, which I oftentimes feel like doesn't actually carry the weight that maybe I was taught it carried, or maybe that I hope it actually carried.

Andy And then, the reality is like, "Well, we have to build this thing. And as long as it does the stuff it says it's gonna do, it doesn't really matter what color we choose for the buttons, and what font we pick." All that stuff is just set dressing. I think a lot of that undermines, in my own mind, my value because it's like, "Well, the more I learn about this, the more I feel like the decisions that I was trained to make like color, composition, graphic design things, the more I feel like those things don't actually really matter." And so, I'm on this weird feedback loop of the more I learn and the more experience I get, the less I actually think the things that I know about really carry weight.

Matt Does that mean that if you didn't make every single decision in the design of a product, then you see that as a failure? Is that where you're going with that?

Andy Well, no. Obviously, that almost never happens. It's rare that...

Matt Well, of course it doesn't.

Andy A product gets built with one person that's really in charge of it. It's just to say that it's making those decisions that's important, and where I sit right now in February 2017, Andy Mangold, I feel like design's job is to be an overarching voice in the conversation deciding about what the thing should be. I expect engineers to look at the world as an engineer would look at the world. And I think your job as an engineer is, "Well, we have to make this efficient, we have to make it reasonable to build, we have to figure out how these things are gonna technically work." And that's supposed to be your focus if you're an engineer. You're not really supposed to, as an engineer, be thinking about, "How is this going to make a bunch of money?" Or, "What are we gonna do about this kind of audience?" I think you're supposed to be thinking about how it works.

Andy And to the same degree, I think someone who is a business person or is supposed to be figuring out like, "Alright, how are we going to turn this thing into a business? How are we gonna have income coming in the door? And how are we gonna have that income be larger than our expenses?" And that's a whole another job with a whole another focus. And so, I don't expect a business person to know or care about exactly what a technical person is knowing or caring about. And so, at this... And this is, again, my little world. I often work in software, so these are the two... These are the big parties in the world I'm talking about, but the same thing can be said for editing. A publication, you have writers, you have editors, you have advertisers, you have the same kinds of different people. And I feel like all these other careers have their focus, and their focus is clear.

Andy And then, design, I honestly feel like the job of design is to be the one group that listens to all of the groups and understands more of where they're coming from, to play a bridge. Because if you don't have that role, then all design is either gonna do it at the end of the day, "Well, the business people decided how it's gonna be, how the subscription's gonna work, and how it's gonna be sold, and what the price is gonna be, and how many people we can afford to hire. And the engineers have decided what features are reasonable to build, and they've done all their AB testing and research, and they've figured out exactly what the thing has to do."

Andy And so, me, I'm either just gonna pick some colors for it, or I'm gonna working to connect all of the disparate parts of this. I'm gonna try and make sure that the business things are represented in the design, and the technical things are represented in the design. I'm gonna smooth out all these corners and bridge these gaps. And when that's your job, when you're the fixer, the little in-between-the-space job, it's hard to feel like you really have a place, and that you have a sphere that is your own. And that's something I've been feeling, which I feel like it relates more abstractly than just in my specific situation, but maybe I'm wrong. So to Victoria or Kara, somebody who's working at a different specific industry, do you have this sense of how your practice relates to the other practices going on in your respective companies, and how that affects your sense of yourself and what your job is?

Kara I don't think I get as existential about it, Andy. [chuckle] I guess I see myself as a part of a machine. And so my most recent job, I was the co-lead for content and social media design for the Hillary Clinton campaign, which is a small piece within the design team, which was a small piece within the digital team, and then a small piece within the social and content team, and within this huge organization that was based here in New York, and was also represented everywhere in the United States. And so, I think I understood what my role was, and I knew that I was just a piece of it. And I knew that I had to do my job to the best of my ability, and I needed to do it with a lot of thoughtfulness because I knew that if I messed up my piece, that's gonna make somebody else within the organization's job harder, and that turns into a domino effect.

Kara And so I don't know if I feel if that my role, that seems arbitrary or maybe doesn't seem like it really matters within this huge problem that was a presidential campaign. But I think I understood that I felt okay within my small role of knowing that I was making release... I had to make smart and thoughtful decisions constantly because that affected this whole entire organization. And I think there were probably maybe more existential feelings of being me making type choices. Those decisions probably didn't really seem to matter as much as to maybe some of my coworkers who were organizers on the ground. And so, I think I feel that role, and not in an intimidating way, but more of like I felt confident in the responsibility that I had in that role. Did I go to a totally bizarre direction? I don't know if that answered that question.

Victoria You're describing like you're doing your role and everyone else is doing their role all at the same time. It's not like you were coming in at the end of something like maybe Andy was describing where other people have executed a bunch of stuff, and then, they come to you, the designer. It seems like you and Andy have two different roles. [chuckle]

Andy Yeah, I think your answer, which was great, really highlighted the fact that maybe the issue I'm only having is that as a small company that works with other small companies, we don't have such carefully-defined roles on any project. Working in a big organization, that kind of oversight is necessary. Or if things are to get done, and if people don't know it's getting done, you have to have very specific... People doing very specific things, otherwise, it's hard to be responsible for everything. And so, it could be as simple as like... My main issue right now could be as simple as just working in small companies, you don't have the benefit of that bureaucracy, that kind of structure. And therefore, you end up having to eke out your own space when it might not be one naturally there for you. Do you feel this way, Matt? 'Cause Matt, we're at similar companies now doing very similar things. Do you have this feeling?

Matt Absolutely! I think it's the feeling of what you said of making your own space. It's not always clear when we start a new job exactly what I'm supposed to be doing sometimes. Yes, maybe we're designing and building a product, or designing and building a website, or something like that. And of course, that will need a designer of some sort. But sometimes, it's pretty open-ended at the beginning, and maybe it's even pretty open-ended as to like, "Who's providing you feedback? And who's giving you this?" And I think, sometimes, that lack of clarity, of course, that's why you're being hired. But also, that can make it hard to know if you've done a good job to know if you're managing it well.

Matt And the fact that it's small teams, we don't necessarily always have a dedicated person to be project manager. That usually just falls to either me or potentially a developer who's leading the project. So it's not always super clear who's in charge, and who's responsible for telling you that you did well and you could move on. So when that's not clear, you have to do it for yourself. And if you're not so good at praising yourself, it's probably pretty hard to feel like you've always done a great job. And I've also been in the situation where I've had less control, and all I wanted was more control. So I don't think it's a bad thing, necessarily; it's just once you have that kinda control over it, you're responsible for how you feel about it.

Andy Yeah, that's something they don't tell you when you get a management position or a leadership position like, "Hey, by the way, now, you're responsible for your own self-satisfaction, and no one else is gonna validate you at all. You have to just know that you're doing good, and figure it out," which is a... It's a challenging thing, sometimes. Victoria, you're at a smaller company, but one that has more careful roles and structures, perhaps, than the hodge-podge pile of mess that Matt and I are working at. Is that true?

Victoria Y'all have such different... You do different kinds of projects. I'm just making this one product over and over again. I don't know how to compare that. I do have people above me that tell me when I'm doing a good job or a bad job. So that's, I don't know, I like it.

Andy So I have a question about that because I haven't had that since it was in school, really, that I had somebody tell me like, "Here's a grade. You did good." We just have clients that either pay their invoices or don't, and that's just a pass/fail system, which isn't really...

Victoria Is that even really indicative of whether you did a good... Yeah.

Andy No, it's not at all. In fact, it's 0% indicative of whether or not you did a good job.

Matt No, not in the course.

Victoria Yeah, that's what I thought.

Andy It has nothing to do with that at all. So I'm curious, has that presence of that boss figure, that person that gets to tell you you did a good or a bad job, do you think that's mostly helped your sense of self-worth at your job? Or mostly hurt it?

Victoria It just runs concurrent to how I feel about myself, and how fulfilled I am with what I'm doing. It doesn't necessarily help. Just when there's a project in your hands, and you've gotta get it done, and they tell you, "Well, you're not done yet. You need to fix all of these things that you messed up." That's all that it is.

Andy Because I do think there's something to be said for... I'm at a small company, such that there's not that many designers at all at my company. Two, really, and some part-time interns. So there's not really a ecosystem of designers where I can figure out where I fit in, "And here's what I'm good at, and here's my specialty, and here's what people come to me for." It's just, "Well, there's two of us so you come to both of us for everything." Something I've noticed, though, is that sometimes, the presence of a more experienced person, like the person you were talking about, Victoria, that is your person that gives you this validation, "You did the good, you did the bad," check, check, plus, whatever. Sometimes, the presence of that person, I think, in the workplace is like an aspirational thing. Like, "Here's somebody who is doing the thing I'm doing, but they're doing it better 'cause they've been doing it for longer, they're more experienced, or whatever." And that gives you something to shoot for and gives you a goal, which is really helpful, I think.

Victoria So you're saying you don't have that?

Andy Well, no, I...

Victoria Sorry, go on. [chuckle]

Andy It's a different thing. Sometimes, having that person, I think, in a workplace, from things I've observed in our own workplace and others, gives people this sense of always being behind. So let's say you've got somebody that's been doing this for five years more than you. If you both keep doing your career, that person will have always done it for five years more than you. And so, it's not really a goal in the sense that if you're constantly comparing yourself to this one person or this group of people or whatever, you're never going to get there 'cause you're always gonna be chasing this moving target, which I think is something that, I don't know, something I think about when you consider who's got what skills in different work scenarios, and how you're gonna set those expectations for whose experience, and who's gonna be giving feedback to who, and how that whole system works.

Andy To answer your question, Victoria, no, in my job, I don't have somebody where it's like, "I want to be like that." I've started the company with some other people. So if we ever get to hire somebody someday that's vastly more experienced than us, that'd be a great privilege to be able to do that. And we haven't had that chance yet. Usually, 'cause people that are smarter than us don't wanna work for idiots, so they go off and do their own thing. So, no, I've always looked outside of my own work environment for those role models to try and aspire to because it's just a different situation. So I do feel like some of my little crisis has been triggered by...

Victoria So glad to be here for you, Andy.

Andy Oh, I know. I think part of it has definitely been triggered by the current world political situation, which has made me a little bit question just on an even bigger sense, the value of my skill set in the grand scheme of things. And Kara, you eluded to this briefly before earlier when you mentioned that some of your co-workers at Hillary for America were maybe on the ground doing organizing with community groups, or doing something that you felt like might be more directly involved, and maybe feel like it's more helpful. I do wonder how much of this is just me looking around and going, "Sure, maybe I am good at this, but what good is this thing that I'm good at? What can I actually contribute in a bigger sense with these skills that I have?" Which I think also comes from skepticism of looking at what other designers have done with their skills and being like, "Is that really helping?" And then, I have to turn that same sort of critical eye to myself always. Is that a thing that y'all have been thinking about at all? Is this me alone lying awake at night wondering?

Kara I think I certainly feel that way 'cause I was somebody that was using my skills to try to stop something from happening, or who was doing a values-driven, on-the-ground job with my design skills. And I spent the last week of the election in North Carolina canvassing, doing a lot of door-to-door stuff, and then helping out at some Democratic field offices. And that, I felt, was a really, really important thing for me to do as a person that had been sitting at an office for six months. Getting that perspective, I think, it made me feel confident in the fact that I was sitting at an office for six months, but it also gave me a perspective that I shouldn't always just sit in an office. And I, of course, had my own intense feelings about the election, and how the design community did or didn't respond during and after.

Kara And so, I'm at the point now where I think it's that kind of reckoning, or this conversation that we're having right now is a super important thing to do if you're looking at the context of your day job. And also, maybe realizing that sometimes, your sparkly skill set might not be the best way to inflict change in the world, and maybe it's canvassing door-to-door, but I don't know if it's always one or the other. I think it's probably a good combination of both. But then I feel it too, now, as I'm starting a job in media again, that I hope I keep asking those type of questions of how I'm spending my day, and if I'm using my skill set in a way that is needed.

Andy I definitely agree that it doesn't seem healthy to me to think of oneself as a designer and a designer-only; and therefore, your only interface with the world can be through what you do professionally. That's not true of any other professions, never seems to be true of design. I feel bad 'cause I always come back to the plumber.

Victoria You're always a plumber.

Laughter

Matt I know. I don't know what it is about plumbing that I always bring that up as the other type of job you can have. "You're gonna be a designer or a plumber?" is what I always think.

Laughter

Victoria Do you even know a plumber?

Matt Mario as a kid?

Andy I have a nice plumber that fixes my pipes when they are broken. Hi Brian. But yeah, I do, oftentimes, think that people end up in a design-related career because it's something that they cared about. I don't think you go to art school because you're like, "Well, this offers the clearest, highest return on investment for all of my money I'm gonna sink into my time here." People end up studying design or pursuing design largely because it's something they care about and feel drawn to and feel good at, which I think is different than other jobs. I wasn't thinking when I decided to become a designer those many years ago that this would be the way in which I would have the greatest positive impact with my life. That was not the thing that was in the front of my mind. And I think maybe that is what's at the front of doctors or nurses or even lawyers' minds when they're doing their thing. But, yeah, I do think it's important that we not only think of ourselves based on our skill set, and what we bring to our jobs, even though those things might be, perhaps, more important to our self-identity than they are for other people in different jobs.

Victoria Can I say something because you said doctors and lawyers?

Andy Yes.

Victoria So I came from a Fine Art background in college, so I was like, "Oh, I could be an artist, maybe." And then, I was like, "Oh, I could be an illustrator, maybe," because that seemed a little bit more useful and I liked that. But I worry as an illustrator that then, I would never be making anything that helped people enough. So then I got into type design because that seemed even more useful in the world. It's like you're making tools for people to use; doesn't get much more useful than making tools. But I still feel like I could be doing more to help people. And even though I've gravitated more and more towards a field that's practical... Why can I not say anything?

Andy Where's your heart?

Victoria Towards a field that's practical and useful, and I wonder, sometimes... I wondered this in college, and I wonder it now; I wonder if I had gone to med school instead, and if I were a doctor, and if I were curing orphans of disease, would I still? Is this maybe just something that's in my head? Would I still be feeling that I wasn't doing enough? Is that just a permanent thing that I have?

Kara Yeah, I think I would feel that, too. And I think that's a sign of a good person, or a healthy...

Laughter

Victoria Nice!

Kara Yeah, I think it's a... You should always be feeling this way, I think.

Andy It's like the parallel of... You should never look at your portfolio and be like, "Ah, yes! The perfect portfolio. All of my work is flawless." Because if you've done that, then you're not growing anymore; you've stopped. You made that work, and then you didn't even grow beyond that; therefore, you look at it and think it's great. So I think looking back at your contributions to your life and saying, "I could be doing better, I could be more good, I could be more caring, I could be more generous, I could do more positive in the whole world with my life," means that you're going to continue to be better and better at doing that, like you have...

Victoria As long as you are actually continuing to be better, and not just wishing you were.

Kara Yeah.

Andy Well, I think that's... It probably comes down to people's different personalities.

Victoria You have to wish before, then you could do it, but you have to actually do it.

Andy Yeah, it's a step process. But I do think an important part of it is wanting to do better, and then feeling bad that you didn't do better, and then maybe actually doing better. Yeah, it all seems like such a mess. So I'm curious to hear from you three what are some of the things, either big or specific, that have helped boost your confidence. So we've talked a lot about maybe all the reasons why we struggle with feeling that we're doing good things in the world, and, Victoria, my example is not... I never think I should become a doctor for a lot of reasons. I don't think I have the bedside manner for me to be a doctor.

Victoria Oh, you could do it, come on!

Andy But the thing for me is I always think that in a different life, I could have been a scientist, and I could be trying to fix diseases and figure out how to revert all of these horrible things we've done to the globe in ruin forever. And that feels like a career I could've had in a different life. But I don't. Here I am making websites, and recording podcast, the world's most useful thing. It's so helpful to everybody to speak into microphones and put it on the Internet. But what are the things that have made you feel better over the years? So the example I gave of having this person that have show up in the office as somebody that was new to this career made me feel better because it gave me some perspective. That's one thing that's happened recently for me where I would be like, "Oh yeah, I'm doing okay. I'm learning things. I'm doing better." What are those moments that you all have had? Just good things that have made you feel good?

Matt I can think one recently where it was just... It was pretty simple, but it was designing a product that had to do with increasing safety protocol. And it just was like it was the most practical thing you could think of, and the end result is just like, "This is now a much safer process." And when I got to the end of it, it was like... It wasn't necessarily the flashiest thing I've ever designed, or the weirdest. Sometimes, I go through like, "Ah, I've gotta do something weirder, more wilder; prove that I can do something crazy."

Matt It wasn't that at all, it just was a very clear problem that this could solve, and it seemed like the product can now... It seemed like we came up with a product that can do that. That made me feel great, and it doesn't... I don't know if it's just such a clear goal, and then, getting to the end of it, you're like, "Oh, well, I accomplished the goal. And that was what I set out to do, and so therefore I feel better about myself." But something about it being super practical, applicable in the world, and then, thinking about where it could go and how clearly it could improve a process that is good for everyone, that made me feel great.

Andy Kara, Victoria, is anything that happened to you recently that we can make very positive in our show about self-worth and confidence?

Kara I don't know of how recent it is, but I have this media project website thing called "Babe Vibes." And we've put out a couple of projects. We did one called "The Pep Talk Generator," which you can go at to our website and have a randomly-generated pep talk for you. [chuckle] And that has been our most successful thing that we've done. We've also done some magazines on self-care. And every once in a while, I'll get an email about one of those projects that are very personal and heartfelt, and I feel like those projects helped that person for whatever reason, whatever day it was. And I feel like those have always been a really good confidence booster because... 'Cause I've been doing Babe Vibes, I think, pretty much by myself. And so, sometimes, it feels very emotional to be the mom of this weird thing that feels pressure-ful. [chuckle] And so, those moments feel like a good confidence booster.

Victoria Well, mine isn't really recent either, but my last semester of college, I dated a med student. That put to bed my whole, "Oh, if only I had been a doctor, I'd be a much better, perfect, good person."

Laughter

Victoria But it really just... Like Kara said, anytime that I'm able to connect with someone that is a minority in my field, which is like anyone except for like cis white dudes; anytime I'm able to have a conversation with someone and help them out, or they help me out, I feel like I'm maybe gonna be leaving my industry a little bit better than I found it.

Andy I think so.

Kara Yeah.

Andy I thought of one more, which is related, actually, to podcasting, which is not my career at all. We're not even getting money from this is; this is our hobby. But one of the reasons that I like to make podcasts, honestly, the biggest reason is that podcast mean a lot to me, personally. I have had so many hard times in my life that podcasts have gotten me through. And it sounds so dumb to be goofy, comedy podcast that people are just making goofs is gonna be a thing that's gonna help people, but it has really helped me, and it's a thing that means a lot in my life. So, Matt, we'd, a couple years ago now, had a little meetup for one of our previous shows in New York, and just meeting people in New York that had even a shred of a similar relationship with our show that I have at the podcast that have meant so much to me, was a very similar moment where I was like... Made me feel really good about what we were doing because I saw what I valued in the things that I love in people that were listeners to our thing, which meant a lot to me, and I assume to you too, Matt. We've talked about how fun that was.

Matt Yeah, if I take it outside of my job, I think the recording something... Especially when we either meet somebody or get an email from somebody that had positive feelings, or... Somehow, even in the smallest ways, just getting emails where it changes someone's life, even in the tiniest way, that is probably the most rewarding because I've done exactly that same thing. I don't think I've ever written letters like that 'cause it feels a little bit embarrassing.

Andy I do it all the time. I'm a big cold-emailer, yeah.

Matt Do you, really? I find it incredibly embarrassing to do something like that. But when I get from somebody else, I appreciate that they put themselves out there, that they listen, that whatever... I always assume I'm saying something stupid. So whatever stupid thing I said connected in any way...

Andy Yeah, it's funny to me that that was a more rewarding experience than anything I've ever designed, in air quotes. Yeah. And then, the thing you've mentioned, Victoria, too is, which I think is really important to highlight, you're dating a med student. Not that we have to highlight you're dating a med student thing, but...

Victoria No, please, go on.

Laughter

Andy Once you get close to a thing, it being completely disillusioned is so, so real. The things in my life that I have really pursued, and then either gotten to experience or achieved, as soon as you're there, not only is it not as important as you thought it would be, but oftentimes, it's totally disappointing. You're like, "Wait a minute, this is not at all what I had dreamed it might possibly be." And I think it's something that I have to remind myself pretty often is that, it's so easy to take what you currently have for granted, and assume that somebody else's thing, or a different job, or a different place to work would be so much better, a different career would be so much better. But the situations where I've gotten to experience those other things, it's like, "Well, actually, you know, this is messed up in a whole new cornucopia of ways." If you are a doctor, you probably don't get to be the one that gets to cure orphans of diseases. That's probably not a thing that's easy to do, in the same way that if you're doing any kind of job, there's a complex sort of thing going on there. So that's something that...

Matt That's why I can watch endless videos about chefs on YouTube and be like, "Oh, wow! That's really great." If I watch one moment of a design interview, I'm like, "Nah, they're lying. There's no way. This is not what it's like. How dare you."

Andy That is a real thing, too. I can't listen to any design, anything. I can't consume design media. I can't read design articles.

Victoria I can't listen to our own podcast.

Andy I have to do that for podcast reasons, but I wouldn't probably if it not for the fact that we make the show. I don't listen to other design podcasts for many, many reasons we won't get into here. But it's true, once you get close to something, you become very disillusioned, and it loses a lot of its appeal, and yeah, the fun, public-facing versions of that thing... You think of TV shows that highlight what it's like to be a professional chef, or you think of... Honestly, even great podcasts like Design Matters, the whole thing about that podcast is, "We're gonna interview people, and we're gonna celebrate their entire thing. We're gonna talk about all the good stuff they've done, none of the bad stuff, and we're gonna be a big celebration about it." That portrayal of anything is something that, I think, is hard to remind yourself if it's not your industry, that that is the rose-tinted version of it. We see that when we see design things 'cause we know how the industry works, but whenever we see an episode of Top Chef or whatever, we're like, "Oh, it'd be so cool to be a chef." Not Top Chef, Chef's Table, the one that's about chefs.

Andy Now we should go to our closing statements, end of the show segment time. So the thing I wanna close on is really just to say that I, like Matt, have often projected myself as being very confident, inadvertently or advertently, in my life. And what I want people out there that are listening to this to know is that I don't have, perhaps, as much confidence as maybe you thought. And if anyone wants to talk about it, hit me up on Twitter because I'm happy to discuss these things, which I don't think we discuss enough as an industry. And, yeah, I'm out here having a crisis too, so get at me.

Chuckle

Victoria Everyday, a different little crisis. I was thinking a lot about how art school, and then even after that, everyone really loves to be, "Oh, design can change the world!" And without any hint of irony at all. It can be productive to keep that mindset because just that reckless self-aggrandizement, it gets you pumped. But I like thinking of, "Here are the particular little ways that my niche of a field can affect people, and here's all of the ways that it cannot, and everything that it can't do." I think that there's power in knowing and stating out loud your limitations, and also in power in specificity. So, yeah, if only to keep your head from exploding all the time. That's how I think of things.

Matt Maybe I should learn to approach the world that way. I've only recently realized that I can't fill every gap with succeeding at a design thing, but...

Andy Planning a wedding will do that to you. You realize you can't do it all.

Chuckle

Matt You can't do every single thing. Maybe I'll learn that there are some things that my job can do for me, and then, there's personal things I can do that are also good. Maybe I'll go canvass.

Kara Yes, please, go canvass, 2018. I think my closing idea, that I think it is good to feel this way. I think it's good for us to be questioning our role, and whether that means the organizations that we work in, or if it's just the small design choices that we make every single day. I think it's good to grapple existentially with it, and to grapple constantly 'cause I think design is about thoughtfulness. And so, every opportunity to be thoughtful is a good thing.

Matt And it seems very clear to me that people that don't grapple with this are terrifying.

Laughter

Andy No, it's true.

Victoria Yeah.

Andy It is definitely true. Really, the canvassing thing, I did a bunch of phone bank... Not a bunch. I phone banked some during the election because I was like, "This is a skill I have. I can talk on the phone. I don't mind talking to strangers. I have no problem dialing a random number and just talking to people." I was like, "This will help." And I totally had one of those... It seems so great, and then you actually do it, and you could become disillusioned because I called... There was one night where I called upwards of 200 phone numbers, and I only spoke to four actual people. And of those four people, three of them were just furious that they had been called again, and just wanted to pick up the phone to yell at the people that called them. And the only one... [chuckle] For one person I talked to, that was like, "Do you know your voting location?" And they were like, "No, I don't think so." And I was like, "It's this church, do you know where that is?" And they were like, "I do. Thank you." And I was like, "You know what? Maybe this four-and-a-half hours of calling people was worth it for that one person." But it doesn't feel that way. It feels bad.

Victoria As long as you're not the only one doing those four hours of calls.

Andy No, there was a bunch of other nice people.

Victoria If veterans doing those four hours of calls, this isn't... Everyone's putting in the time, and it's gonna be something.

Andy And I will say that one of the most visceral moments of the entire campaign for me was the night I went and phone banked at one of the locations. I don't know what it is. It's a DNC look office, or something. It was an office in the city where I went. And there was a bunch of other people there, probably 30 or 40 other people. And it was shocking to me to see who cared enough to come out to phone bank because I was the only white man, first of all, of all 30 or 40 people, and it was mostly all retired ladies who were like, "Yep, I'm gonna go call some people because this is something that means a lot to me." And it was very visceral to me to see the people that cared enough to come out and do that. So that was a beneficial experience in perhaps a different way than calling all those phone numbers and getting yelled at by those people. But that's something I can do, I get yelled at, and I don't get upset about it, so that's my contribution. Well, I think that's the end of the podcast; I think we made one.

Kara Wow!

Andy Yay!

Victoria Sure.

Andy Victoria, is your talk ever gonna be on the Internet anywhere? Or is that a private talk for private eyes only?

Victoria My talk at the Type Directors Club from last week is going to be on the Internet at some point, but I don't know when. I will let you know.

Andy The only way you can find out is by following Victoria on twitter @victoriaalissia.

Victoria @victoriaalissia. That's V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A-A-L-I-S-S-I-A.

Andy We'll put a link.

Victoria No, no, you don't want me to spell it out again?

Laughter

Andy Please do it in Semaphore. This is...

Victoria No.

Matt Wait, let me rewind the podcast, I'm typing it in. Okay, nope, skip back five seconds, one second.

Andy Kara, you're starting a new job soon. Is there anything people should do, other than follow you on Twitter?

Kara I don't think so. You can go to babevibes.com 'cause that's still my baby, and I'm still gonna work on it a little bit. But, yeah, follow Twitter and Instagram, I think.

Andy Yeah, do check out Babe Vibes. It is very good. Despite me not being a babe, I still think it's cool.

Chuckle

Kara Thank you, Andy. [laughter.

Andy Well, thank you both for joining us. This has been...

Kara Thanks for having us!

Victoria Thank you much!

Andy An emotional rollercoaster of a conversation about self-worth, and how it's weird to feel good about yourself. That's the other thing. I just feel bad when I feel good about myself. Is that normal?

Laughter

Kara I think that's probably good to feel as a white man, to be honest.

Victoria Good.

Laughter

Music

Andy This has been Working File. Thanks for listening. This week, instead of writing a review, or checking us out on Twitter, go find a designer you like, and tell them you think they're swell.

Matt Tell them you think they have a cool Twitter account.

Andy And when you tell them that, tell them that we told you to tell them, so it's still marketing for the show 'cause I think that's the point.

Matt @workingfile on Twitter. This is a trick.

Andy Yes.