Careerism is arguably one of the most irritating cultural pressures in any profession, and it can truly annoy talented, creative people. If you’re a web designer, particularly a talented person who has more things on their mind on the latest if not greatest bit of design spam to come through the sector, careerism can be as comical and as irrelevant as it is lacking in substance.
Good website templates don’t make themselves, and nor does career spin about “great new whatevers” which are usually pretty trivial things.
You’d think, in a demanding profession like web design that the media mantra of “success is a new widget” would get a life, but in fact that’s the corporate, not the professional version of success. It’s definitely not necessarily the web designer’s concept of achievement, whatever it is. For creative designers, design is considered the real success, with good reason.
Creativity and commercial success are virtually inseparable in web design. This is a highly competitive industry, and to have a career at all, you have to go well beyond basic competence and “join the dots” types of website creation. Real website design and innovation is a true creative science. Gimmicks and gizmos are all very interesting to a point. Commercial reality, professional achievement, and a meaningful career portfolio aren’t, and can’t be, based on these things.
The classic form of careerism is based on a sort of “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” approach, and that shot just isn’t on the board in web design. You work with other professionals who can assess everything you do down to the last quanta, and you have clients who start by demanding perfection and then want something better.
A web design careerist isn’t a contradiction in terms, however, just someone with a far more realistic understanding of the nature of the industry. Careerism is an objective, rather than a way of life for web designers. To be the best in the business is a legitimate career aspiration, but to creative people, it also means a lot in terms of hard product and hard work.
Career achievements and web design
A creative web designer’s version of careerism, interestingly, is an uncompromising commitment to very high standards of achievement which actually transcend the more commercial type of careerism. The career environment demands this, and many good web designers achieve great career success by leading in their fields.
If you’ve seen the truly intriguing, and sometimes dazzling web designs which get raves in the industry and usually set the benchmarks for both designers and developers. These extremely creative designs are the best possible examples of the real career dynamics of web design. The benchmark designs are true professional accolades, and they’re also very portable portfolio materials. Many designers become famous in the industry for their work, rightly so, and they also build their careers on the creativity involved in their designs.
Creativity doesn’t make compromises. Talent sets its own standards, and web design clients are voting for talent with every new website template and good new idea. The best careers are ultimately based on creativity.
