Out With The Old, In With The Good
Iāve long maintained the opinion that you should discard from your portfolio any work which you are not proud of. Iāve practiced it, too. My Dribbble profile is very telling of the work you donāt see in my portfolio; itās messy. Unfinished. But thatās just the way I use the platform. Itās a feedback machine ā I post, someone replies. My portfolio, however, is more of an announcement. A visual elevator pitch of my abilities.
Until relatively recently, I considered and introduced myself as a āDesigner and Front-End Developerā. Now, I consider myself simply a āDesignerā. This identity shift was the result of realising that the development work I do is in an effort to realise a design problem. The problems I solve may be personal itches or client briefs, but they are design problems nonetheless. Onword was born out of a need for a place to write, accessible anywhere. Brills out of a need for a simple solution to seeing my regular payments in one place. Personal life problems that were solved with a design-aware approach.
My writing, and as a result, this blog, was also a solution to a problem. Its early days saw it focusing on web development tips and tricks. Slowly, that turned into a blog discussing hot drama topics. Then, a browser quirks log. Though the last year or so has seen my writing shift focus to broader fields. Design, attitude, and problem solving in a much wider sense. My writing once served as a backlog; a personal reference of my own progression. But now, I consider it a portfolio item. And as an important part of my portfolio, it must undergo the shame filter.
In a recent entry from The Great Discontent, Frank Chimero goes into his thoughts about his old work (emphasis mine):
Any creative person I know feels a bit of shame about his or her past work. [ā¦] This is something I think about as a writer. When is it okay for me to delete something Iāve written, something I donāt like any more? Archives are good, but I donāt need to stand behind all of my work forever. Kafka wanted all of his writing burned when he was on his deathbed and who could blame him? I hate that as a reader, but love it as a writer.
It was as if Frank had lifted the words Iād been struggling for right from the tip of my tongue. I think anybody who has been writing long enough knows exactly what Frank is talking about; luckily for those on the web, the delete key is an easy one to press.
But what of personal growth, reference, and posterity? I think from the sheer volume of hits many of my shameful posts still get on a fairly regular basis, itās safe to say that the delete key isnāt an option I can easily take. So yes, I could prune, tweak, edit, repost, and take retrospect on the posts Iām shameful of, but as designers (or developers) would you take the time to go back to each shameful piece of client work youāve done and rework it? I doubt it. I think as writers who take themselves quite seriously in a digital space, we should have the same ruthlessness as a designer would when reviewing their portfolio. Of course, for the sanctity of the web, donāt remove the posts in question altogether; as a web user, I know there are few things more frustrating than following a link trail to a 404 Dead-end.
For me, thereās a little more than shame going into the hurried cleansing of my blog. Thereās more than a small amount of vanity in it, too. I feel like Iāve spent a good deal of time and energy in my last few posts to initiate a certain persona. One of professionalism and consistency; the kind I wish my portfolio and design work to represent. The kind that the young, code-obsessed me worked so hard to avoid.
I donāt doubt that one day, that persona may get left behind. That one day, I might hide this post along with many others after it amongst the rest of them. In fact, Iād be surprised if the attitude and style with which I write today remains unchanged for the rest of my career; after all, Iām just getting started. But the fact remains that writing is a huge part of my professional life. It has helped me grow as a designer and a human being, and as such, I feel it belongs in my portfolio. It is a collection of work which shapes my output. Itās part of the person that my employersāpast, present, and futureāare paying. And just like I donāt want you judging my ability based on the table-filled designs of my first web work, I donāt want you judging my ability to communicate based on a three-year-old post about Adobe Flash.
As my view of design and writing broadens, my perception of myself narrows. I see the person I want to be, and Iāll edit my way there if I have to.