Singing the Blues
I have many regrets. Too many. Mostly they are related to time.
As I see all the things I have to do and want to do, and feel all
the inadequacies of who I am and what I know, I weigh that against
the time I have, which makes me want to go back and steal a few
years—just a few—from my past.
I deeply regret not going to university or college because I
very much wish I had a solid knowledge of art and design history
and theory. But instead, I traveled, and I worked as a
typesetter—which combined to make an excellent, but informal,
education. Who is to say, really, which would have been better?
I regret spending 10 years as a book typesetter, instead of
maybe five or six—I feel like I learned most of what I was going to
in the first six years. But on the other hand, I do remember making
some egregious mistakes when Quark first came out, in the year
before I left. Maybe I needed that extra time, just to be slapped
away from fucking with the type just because I could. And can you
ever really spend too long working with type? Not really.
Every day I get an email from someone who has been touched or
inspired by a piece of mine. It's more valuable than laser-cut gold
foil stamping on velvet-flocked paper.
I regret the years I spent as a graphic designer, complaining
about clients and churning out the posters, brochures and
identities. But I learned so much, and the things you learn the
hard way are often the most valuable. And if I hadn't worn myself
out to the very end, if I hadn't completely wrung that side of my
career dry, down to the last drop, perhaps I never would have made
the leap to where I am now. Sometimes you just have to pass through
the fire.
I regret not being more engaged or aware through all my years as
a designer. When I finally lifted my head up and looked around I
had decades to catch up on and I'm still so ignorant and so far
behind. There is no upside to this.
But I will never regret walking away from my design business and
starting something new. I wish I had done it sooner—but maybe I
couldn't have done it sooner. I was 40, and maybe I needed to be
40. Maybe I needed to have the experience, both good and bad, piled
up in my past to push me forward. Maybe it's a little like playing
the blues: 20- and 30-year olds can do a lot of things, but they
can't really play the blues. Maybe it was like that.
I've been well rewarded for my efforts. Every day I get an email
from someone who has been touched or inspired by a piece of mine.
It's more valuable than laser-cut gold foil stamping on
velvet-flocked paper. And if the extra years of feeling the blues
are what it took, it was worth it.