First off, as you read this keep in mind that I’ll be speaking from the point of view of a corporate & in-house designer. Since sometimes you can’t really get to choose “creative” projects to work on. You know, not those ones that you get all pumped and stoked about when you read the specs in a brief…

There are those projects where you believe (emphasize: believe) that it’s got no potential to become a portfolio piece, all creative juice goes stale and suddenly you have a heavy feeling in your gut as you begin to work on it. Hell yeah, I’ve been down that road a gazillion times.

It’s all in the mind..

Yes. Or at least that’s what I believe. For instance, after working on a huge project, learning new ideas from the senior designers and info architects, peeking the newest CSS work-arounds from the programmers.

All our mocks got sent of for sign-off and green lights. There comes that waiting period where I get placed on a project in which I’ll have to build two dozen ads in different sizes. For you sales folk those would be big boxes, skyscrapers.

Specs I received were basically to fit in stock images with a huge body of text. A very tedious and repetitive project. My mind kept wondering off to that one cool project that’s “so awesome, and it would look sweet in your portfolio.” At the same time thinking of having to create around some 12 ad units times 2, feels like having to climbing the Himalayas.

The Difficulty / The Challenge

It was exactly that challenging feeling that got me down and bored out of my mind. “Dude, seriously? 24 ads? ” I felt myself sinking deeper into my seat.  It got me thinking… What if this was the project I will be judged by down the ages? What if this were the last ever project I’ll ever work on?

So I sat up and popped on my iPod and started looking for the cleanest way to layout the text and best place to add the graphics. After that I looked for the fastest and most efficient way to replicate the look & feel on the rest of the 22 ads, keep in mind not all ads were to have the same text and graphics being that those were ad units to be shown in different provinces of Canada… Six days later, I finished. Man, a huge rock just fell off my shoulders. Although they didn’t really turn out to be the greatest ad units on earth, I could look back and say I gave what I had to complete those.

It was exactly that feeling of difficulty that gave me the drive to see the challenge in it. The challenge being able to overcome the procrastination and follow through. Or beating a tedious job simply by seeing it as my last shot that had to count.

If I was to overcome this simple yet repetitive project, how much effort will I be able to put into a project that really catches your passion and drive?

I’ll just come right out and say it. Boring/tough projects are a good way to build creative character, as corny as it sounds… Not sure if it’s true, but I sure feel that way. It’s exactly that feeling that usually gets me through.

Quick note right here. This post has been inspired by a chapter in Paul Arden’s It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be A truly life changing book.