I forget sometimes that I have an art degree.
Not in a dramatic, I’ve lost touch with my true self kind of way. I literally just forget.
Probably because somewhere along the way, “artist” stopped feeling like the most accurate description of what I do.
I went to school for fine art. I learned color theory, composition, typography, photography, how to critique something without simply saying “I hate it,” and how to spend an unreasonable amount of time staring at something because it felt slightly off.
All of that still shows up in my work.
It just looks a little different now.
These days I’m designing brands, building customer journeys, figuring out systems, writing, creating campaigns, solving weird digital problems and, apparently, building an entire website while looking at it live in the browser and adjusting things until they work the way I want them to.
Which feels like something I should get at least a little credit for.
Because somewhere in my brain I still have this tendency to minimize the technical side of what I do. Like I’m just making things look nice and moving things around on a screen.
Meanwhile I am over here building an actual functioning website from scratch.
I wrote about the measurement side of the job in It started with a dashboard.
So.
Maybe the art degree wasn’t exactly useless.
Maybe I would also like a small thank-you card.
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