Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

Thanks for the feedback DT. I bring this up because I feel like I am constantly bombarded by small requests each day and have a hard time really focusing on my work. Sometimes I feel like my work is becoming more reactive to the needs of the company rather being proactive…seeking new design avenues and concepts.

So I’d love to ‘escape’ for a day each week to the comforts of my home studio and focus on special projects. I think a key factor here is to make sure my superiors know that I’m not wanting a free day without supervision where I sit in my pajamas and doodle while watching Futurama all day. Rather, I would set up agreed goals for my at home projects with regular progress checks. I’d have specific tasks to complete.

Hmmm, I think I need to craft a nice, to-the-point proposal for this and make it happen.

Ah I see now…hmm unfortunately such minor interruptions are part and parcel of a corporate design job. The trick is to prioritize and to manage the time for working on it in a small portion of your day.

For example, I spent most of my week “fire fighting” but reserve 2 days a week to focus on design. You can do something similar, say allocate the morning to attend to such matters and spend the rest of the afternoon on design work. Send a memo indicating to stake holders that this will increase overall efficiency in getting things done.

However I believe you can do it if you can prove that the day spend away actually improves productivity. That is the key, I think you need some kind of bench marking system going on with past projects.

Good luck and please let me know if you need any extra advice?

Hmmm…. at this point in time, staying in the office does has its benefits as there need to be some interaction beween the design team with the rest of the departments of the company. Briefing a design job is crucial and miscommunications can arise if designers are not in the office and can create mistakes and cause delays.

I opologize for the next issue I am going to raise.

More designers are moonlighting taking up jobs that are sub-contracted out especially due to peak periods. Renumerations for such jobs are very attractive (as high as their one month salary) and this further lure designers to focus on their moonlighting jobs. They are also eager to please the paymasters from their moonlighting job as that will encourage repeat jobs.

From the issues raised above makes employers more skeptical about allowing working from home for designers.

Again, I opologize

Hi Le Anne,

Please don’t feel bad! I enjoy comments from all points of view.

I do agree with you, I have seen and heard of many designers do freelance work, and I would not be surprised if any of my own design team did any.

There are a few ways to look at this. For one this discussion at the end of the day has to do with trust being at the center of it all. So this decision ultimately has to do the employer trusts the designer.

On the other hand its about a balance, I find designers often need variety to grow, controlling them and cropping their “wings” only seeks to stifle them. Therefore instead of freelance, I often encourage designers to enter competitions or perhaps take on other roles at work.

In design, variety is the spice of life, and at the end of the day I see the bigger picture, as such variety often means a designer can perform his/her job much better and that to me is more important.