Designer Or Content Creator?

The fear of the algorithm has made me forget what is more important between design or content.

Creating whale bookmarks for my daughter's birthday

The last few months have had me speaking to many in my circle. Sadly none are designers like me, but creatives and small business owners who are juggling many things at the same time. Parent, spouse, school, work, family and home are so vague in their explanation. Life happens - seems to encapsulate those vague concepts epically.

With all that they do, they have realised that marketing is a constant hamster wheel. They need to churn content constantly to get eyes on them and then eventually lead to sales. They wear the creator, business person, accountant and marketing hat interchangeably and it gets stressful fast.

With the changing algorithms of Meta and the inane need for gratification from likes and comments, they struggle with sharing their work. Meaning they decide it’s too much and get off the apps entirely.

I can’t fault them for that thinking, since I’ve done the very same. I’ve hidden from social media because it has become so easy toA: spiral with imposter syndromeB. or get sucked into the doomscrolling and brain rot

The first reason is why I hide mostly, because it has taken me years to recognise that I am an artist and a designer. Not having the paper qualifications somehow made me second guess myself and decide I am no good. Never mind that I have helped clients for 20+ years, never mind that I have created design in atleast 6 industries of graphic design. Never mind that my clients have come back to me again and again or recommended others to me.

Imposter can play hardball when you don’t recognise it in yourself.

But I digress. What the last few months have shown me is that everyone is tired of two things, AI generated design and the Meta algorithm. We are becoming content creators first instead of what we are meant to be focusing on.

Here are three things I’ve realised:

1. Designer / Artist first, not content creator first It has taken speaking to my circle to realise that we have been sucked into this fast paced life of thinking we need to consistently post and create content consistently to be seen and get sales. So we focus on being the content creator first and designer or artist second. That is the wrong direction. I am the designer and artist and illustrator first. So having to be a creator is so frustrating that I hid from socials because I felt less than and incompetent when life happened. I now realise, I am the designer that my clients want. The artist who creates the work I do. The illustrator who delivers on my promises. That is me, not the content creator.

2. It is about communication not content creation With all the latest business terms floating around I recognise myself using with my clients, one that burns my gut is ‘content creation’. It’s the same for my clients. The frustration they feel with not wanting to do that, I feel it personally. Like I said, I fail too. But here’s the thing. This is about marketing my work or my clients work. They need to show their product and build their trust with their audience. It’s not about creating silly content on reels or anything else, it’s about confidently promoting product. It is about communicating since I cannot be in front of others face to face, it is either in video or image format. But the idea is to promote my work that is truly on brand for my audience and not content for the algorithm.

3. AI generated content Every brand that has discovered AI has jumped on the bandwagon, whether to test or go the distance, content on the internet and even print media are using AI. In the content, in the images, in their videos AI has made its mark and it is noticeable. Brands I say, but mostly it is the small businesses that need to stand out are all the same still. Why? Because AI is whipping out the same content style or the image. These are recognisable from a mile away and it tends to be an automatic scroll away for most of the audience. Never mind that AI has strong polarising camps that swear by it or don’t, there are the environmental concerns along with the copyright ones. So while AI has made things accessible in evening the playing field in generating that dreaded content we need, it has also made them as bland as ever.

It is because of this that I have consciously realised that me as a designer is important.

The thinker, the problem solver is not gone. The creator or maker just has more tools to make things faster, especially for those who cannot design.

I market myself as the one who helps small businesses who cannot do their own design, because I know, not from my nonexistent degrees in graphic design, but in the years of practice and learning on the job of what works for a brand and what needs to be the basis for every brand.

A branding guide or even brand colours are where it all starts for me with my clients and it is why I express the need to build that first before they need the thing they think they need. This is where me the designer comes first and this is why I am a designer, not a content creator.