Jagdish, a product and UI/UX designer with nine years of experience, argues that chasing design awards kills motivation. He walks through an activity to find what actually drives you, and reflects on helping thousands of students discover their real purpose in design.
What is my real inspiration in order to find my design? What is my real search in the field of design, whom I have to really take inspiration as some of the best designers in the world. People run after designers. People run after big design awards like let's say red dot design awards. If design awards, loupe design awards. There are two sets of things which we really race upon. Lot of designers get these achievements, awards and everything. Lot of people don't do that. If even when people reach this award, they don't know what to do after that. Have you been in that situation? Have you heard about people like that? There are thousands of designers who get red dot design awards every single year, every quarter. Lot of design competitions are there. Lexus Design award is there. If design award is one of the most prominent. What I came to know about these people is they barely get the path after that or they get stalled after that. They don't go beyond. So what are the reason behind it? It's because you don't have the intrinsic motivation why you wanted to become a designer. I'll give you an activity. It's not only a video where you just listen. Okay, pause this video. Take a paper. I hope you have taken it. Then take three minutes of time, pause this video and switch on your mobile timer 180 seconds. Do what really represents you. I think you can understand it. Okay, yes. So now I hope you would have did this activity. Maybe you would have written something, maybe you would have drawn something. Maybe you would have folded that paper in a different way. Maybe you have toned this paper. Maybe you're thinking still what to do. Three minutes is gone. Maybe you got distracted. Whatever you did in this three minutes, Discipline, honest is what is a reflection of. Okay, I used to do this with my students and see them live. How are they really behaving to this? How attractive the kind of output they give. Some people really make it as origam. Some people make it as just a drawing, some people make it as an illustration. So that is the intrinsic motivation why you are really driven towards design. Awards, achievements, big, big salaries, everything will make you what you call happy for that moment will make you happy for that particular moment. Not much will happen after that. But if you're intrinsically motivated and know the reason why you wanted to do this design and what is your way of projecting yourself through that particular paper or the sheet. What you did is what is the reality? If you're thinking not able to do anything, probably you're not enough motivated. Probably this is not the field for you. Waste time here. There are any other fields which you will be interested, please go and take that. Nothing wrong in that. Even if you spend six months learning from somewhere one year working in design firm, it's good to change the field right now. Okay? It's never late. So if you're very clear on doing something and you're really happy about, like let's say you did something like origami, sketching illustration, something is there in you. Start from here. Even if any design award doesn't exist, even if no social media is existing, even if nobody is appreciating you, will you still do the design? Are you still intrinsically motivated? If you wanted to really find out that, eliminate these factors and ask yourself this question. If nobody is watching me, what am I doing in design? That is what is the activity for you in that three minutes? If you are able to post that what you did in that three minutes and share with me, I would love to see that comments and I would love to leave you feedback and love to interact with you one to one as well. Not for all the people, but for the few selected out audience who is listening to this, then you can itself clearly know what kind of a path you wanted to make in design and move forward. A lot of people get stuck, right? A lot of people don't go after that. If this is clear, whether you achieve red dot or not, whether you design, whether you design big, whether you are going into big design jobs and salaries or not, you will never feel that is your big mark of success. You will be like a fluid, you will be moving along, you will be achieving lot of things beyond these awards and achievements and salaries. And you will find true happiness in what you do. It's about the process, what you do. It's not about the destination, what you make. So intrinsic motivation is very important and why you're motivated to come into this design field is very important. And who you are as a person is even more important than that. Okay, this is design for change. Thank you for staying tuning in with me. This is Jagdish. I have total of nine years of experience in product design and UI UX design. I'm a mechanical engineer turned designer. I've guided more than 12,000 students in order to get them success and lead them in a path of getting clarity more than design skills. I would say getting clear in design is the biggest ultimate goal and achievement. What I wanted to see in students and that's what I guide them. Okay, this is about me and if you wanted to really tune into this kind of videos. Please subscribe and you will get a lot of notifications. We don't want to subscribe. That's totally fine. But engage in this kind of a content because mentally you need a good nutrition also in everyday basis. Okay? Thank you so much. All the best.
