WIP Have you been in situations where you felt like you experienced a lack of confidence and how did you deal with it?

LG I think I'm in constant imposter syndrome, to be honest. Especially right now that I’ve been doing design for a good three years, and am moving more into an art direction role. I would just be like, “this is something I used to do in my bedroom for fun.” For me this is such a pure expression of myself that when I'm putting it to a client, I'm thinking, “is that good enough?” I think it really helps having a team who can guide you as you go, especially when you're more junior. But I think a lot of us are in imposter-syndrome-brain most of the time, just making it up as we go along and figuring out problems that no one really knows until they are faced with the situation.

WIP Were there any moments during your transition from student to professional where you felt unprepared ?

LG For sure. I think a part of being someone who's so excited to get into the industry, I'm still so grateful every day that I get to do this job, probably because I'm still really new to it. And I think that makes a lot of people, myself included, very eager to jump on opportunities that aren't necessarily looking out for your best interest. People might ask for a hundred pounds for a logo and call it a day. And because you have no idea how much to value this work yet because you're so fresh, you kind of jump on things that aren't necessarily nurturing your talent or your experience. I was unprepared for how ruthless it can be out there, and how people can have no issue exploiting you. So I think knowing when to call it quits or being like, this isn't good for me anymore. Or if a client is not paying or if a client is not responding, knowing when to stop and realise this is detrimental to my career, to my mental health, all these things. To sum up, something I was unprepared for was to value myself more.

WIP In our industry, it's often central to our careers that we share our personal projects. What are your thoughts on this?

LG I feel like there is a lot of pressure to do a lot of stuff outside of work. There is like a lot of pressure to be like “I'm making this exhibition, I'm doing this, I'm doing that”, even after a nine-to-five. I feel like that's quite stressful and counterproductive to making something organically. So when I do make personal work, which I used to do a lot more when I was at university, I think I realised that it's okay not to have this amazing practice as you're still getting used to the workplace. It’s taking a lot of your brain power to do things because you're new. I think when I realised that, whenever I work on personal projects now, I really go to something that interests me without that pressure to make something beautiful and perfect to share.

@lo0wiz

dazed.studio