Impressions

Was planning to talk about another subject, but want to cover something off quickly.

The other day, my other (and better) half made a comment about how, despite my having a very good eye for great design, I wasn't translating this into my own work. He was talking about both my CV and business cards, and the only answer I could give was that "this is why I didn't pursue graphic design after completing a degree in it". I was a bit upset, mind, but he had a fair point.

It's very hard to be objective about your own work. It's even harder when you're your own boss. Sure, it's easy enough after a project to say what went well and what didn't, but that's not the same thing - here I'm talking about having completed a degree in something genuinely useful to my chosen career, but it not coming across in the first thing a potential employer sees.

All the content is there, sure enough. And I'm frequently told it's fantastic for experience as I'm very broad-skilled in a field where that's an advantage, and yes, that's lovely to hear. But hearing someone else not trained as I am in the use of white space in design (for example) say "I don't get it" hit a raw nerve. Not because I felt insulted (well, ok, I did, though that's not the point), but because I suddenly realised that I could make my CV the most cutting-edge, beautiful, inter-dimensional, healing object in all reality, and some spod from HR might look at it and go 'hmmm, poncy', before binning my once-in-a-lifetime object expounding the joys of employing me.

It was a bit of a shock.

I should really know this. But it's taken a computer programmer who has never been out of work to point this out to me, and who has done what squillions of recruitment agents couldn't: tell me what the problem is and, more importantly, help me fix it.

So, moral of the story. If you're not getting anywhere, ask someone left-field of what you do for a living to look at your CV, and they might give you an insight you weren't expecting. That is all.