I genuinely hate this type of thinking. There are a few good points but it misses the larger picture entirely. Once you start breaking this shit down into logic and reasoning, you lose what makes designing (or any field where you are creating something - even TPS reports) truly amazing. And you lose what makes you an amazing person who creates amazing things.
You crave to create to the best of your ability - beyond the best of your ability. You should never (and never want to) make excuses based on statements like "the user doesn't care". You should never want to create something that is mediocre or shit or anything less than the best possible piece you can. You should push yourself to do it better every single day. Whether you choose to push yourself to be more original, use new technologies, make the user experience the best it can be based on user testing, or really nail that ie8 support - that is up to you.
You are paid to create and you are lucky to have the opportunity to create. We can bitch about clients and ie8 and ignorance and poor feedback all we want. We can realize that 99% of the users aren't going to notice that amazing detail that took 12 hours to get right. But that's all irrelevant. You should be creating for you, holding yourself to your own standards and the standards of people far superior to you. You shouldn't hold yourself to the manager who prefers MS Word Art over your pixel perfect brochure.
And no - this doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want. But at least start there. Get the project. Go into it thinking you are going to own this and it's going to be better than everything you've ever created. Truly desire to create the best. Part of that creation involves working with others, working with clients, overcoming obstacles, making sacrifices due to X and Y and Z. Your original vision may be lost - a little bit or a lot. But you still have the ability to create the best piece you can. It may not be the ideal color scheme or the perfect layout that you started with. But that's okay. It's part of the creation. If the client fucks with your colors, then focus on creating the best possible graphics or code or whatever. If the client changes every little bit, then focus on learning from this experience. Do a better job at explaining your process, or educating your client, or communicating. Do something - anything - better than you did last time.
Don't ever fall into thinking it doesn't matter. Don't ever make excuses for not delivering the best possible piece. Don't deliver shit ever.
Create something amazing. And remember you're a million times luckier than the guy standing at a bench, slapping little components onto other little components 1000 times a day / 6 days a week that eventually become your keyboard, or mouse, or laptop that you get to create with. Take advantage of that.
I genuinely hate this type of thinking. There are a few good points but it misses the larger picture entirely. Once you start breaking this shit down into logic and reasoning, you lose what makes designing (or any field where you are creating something - even TPS reports) truly amazing. And you lose what makes you an amazing person who creates amazing things.
You crave to create to the best of your ability - beyond the best of your ability. You should never (and never want to) make excuses based on statements like "the user doesn't care". You should never want to create something that is mediocre or shit or anything less than the best possible piece you can. You should push yourself to do it better every single day. Whether you choose to push yourself to be more original, use new technologies, make the user experience the best it can be based on user testing, or really nail that ie8 support - that is up to you.
You are paid to create and you are lucky to have the opportunity to create. We can bitch about clients and ie8 and ignorance and poor feedback all we want. We can realize that 99% of the users aren't going to notice that amazing detail that took 12 hours to get right. But that's all irrelevant. You should be creating for you, holding yourself to your own standards and the standards of people far superior to you. You shouldn't hold yourself to the manager who prefers MS Word Art over your pixel perfect brochure.
And no - this doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want. But at least start there. Get the project. Go into it thinking you are going to own this and it's going to be better than everything you've ever created. Truly desire to create the best. Part of that creation involves working with others, working with clients, overcoming obstacles, making sacrifices due to X and Y and Z. Your original vision may be lost - a little bit or a lot. But you still have the ability to create the best piece you can. It may not be the ideal color scheme or the perfect layout that you started with. But that's okay. It's part of the creation. If the client fucks with your colors, then focus on creating the best possible graphics or code or whatever. If the client changes every little bit, then focus on learning from this experience. Do a better job at explaining your process, or educating your client, or communicating. Do something - anything - better than you did last time.
Don't ever fall into thinking it doesn't matter. Don't ever make excuses for not delivering the best possible piece. Don't deliver shit ever.
Create something amazing. And remember you're a million times luckier than the guy standing at a bench, slapping little components onto other little components 1000 times a day / 6 days a week that eventually become your keyboard, or mouse, or laptop that you get to create with. Take advantage of that.