What Design School Won't Teach You (That They Should)

Dear Creative Dispatch

1 . 26 . '26

Dear Creative,

Life would be easier if we could learn the most important lessons in the classroom, wouldn't it?

Yet there are some things life experience can't replace. Moments when you're like... what am I supposed to do?

That's when I go back to history, reading and speaking to coaches, teachers, and other experts, to at least try my best to avoid mistakes of those who've come before me.

With that in mind, Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century* is worth the read. (*Affiliate link. It's a short book!)

Two lessons stood out to me last year; I put these into my notebook and they carried me through.

Even when I got nervous, these helped me pick what often felt like the more brave option, personally and professionally, as someone hoping to both make bolder creative moves and embrace how I use my voice:

4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
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8. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

You don't have to do everything at once. And there's no such thing as perfection, so let yourself off the hook a bit.

Or, as heard in Spider-Man, Into The Spider-Verse: “You can’t think about saving the word, you have to think about saving one person.”

Small, intentional choices each day add up. When that person you save is you, you make magic in this world. 🪄✨

Source: https://scholars.org/contribution/twenty-lessons-fighting-tyranny-twentieth

When I previously wrote about my experience and process losing 100 pounds, the biggest takeaway that I've continued to apply, and what I think translates the most to any type of creative process, is this part:

the work never gets easier, as Duke Women’s Basketball Coach Kara Lawson told her team.
 
To succeed, you must get better at handling hard.

Hopefully that's motivation. For me, it meant I should find work each day that fueled me rather than drained me. This is the differentiator to truly avoiding burnout over the long-term, but what that answer is turns out to be so different for each person. It's worth the ride.

What Design School Won't Teach You (That They Should)

Tracy Ma's RISD talk is another one I come back to often.

It's centered on values and lessons she wish she had learned in school. When I feel my creative work getting a little too stale, I watch her talk and read these five takeaways:

As soon as you learn, move on.
A constant learning and unlearning
Try to make sense of the world (design is a kind of ‘sifting’)
Don’t embroider. Use visual styles to create meaning
Making fun of yourself (and other people too if they’re rich and evil) is a currency you can trade on