Can purposeful work be exciting?

Hanah Ahmed
​GMD

It is February, and I’ve just finished a 4 month internship at Design102, a social design company that creates campaigns across all government sectors. I applied for the job because a majority of my work at the end of 2nd year was social design based, and as rejections came in from branding agencies and I kind of realised I had limited options in what jobs I could apply for. 

​Don’t get me wrong, it's not exactly what I wanted to do, but there have been a lot of pros! The office was filled with welcoming and kind people, I was filled with anxiety but I settled in really easily, and I’ve had some great opportunities on professional live briefs. I didn’t find any of the work stressful, but I’m going to be honest, I was bored. It was a lot of making graphs, using istock and creating very coorperate design. I know this sort of design needs to be done by someone, and its ethical, but I feel like my creativity has been shattered. It’s made me think a lot about what I want to do as a career when I graduate. If i’m going to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week every week doing something, it should be something that excites me an fulfils my creativity.

​Thinking about this a lot ended up making me feel quite depressed. I’m not sure if I want to do another internship, any least for now. From the beginning of DPS I’ve never felt confident with my portfolio and I just feel like a jack of all trades, OK at everything, not great at anything. I'm taking this opportunity of not interning to try and get my creativity back and flowing with my own personal projects. I’ve decided I’m going to spend a bit of time solely working on my portfolio and skillset, I’ve always been interested in 3D animation from seeing so much of it in current design, and now is my opportunity to improve my skills in this.

A few pieces of inspiration:

Where I'm at now (aka pretending I know what I'm doing while following YouTube tutorials)

I’m also about to enter the D&AD new blood briefs, some of the brief options include challenging sexual conventions of sex and disabilities, money managing and mental health, and creating behaviour changes towards a sustainable lifestyle. These are all great examples of purposeful work that can be as bold and creative as you want to make it with no limitations. I am much more excited by the possibility of creating something that’s fun to make and looks good, as well as serving a purpose. I want to implement this idea of work in my SIP, and hopefully after this I'll have an answer to whether I think purposeful work can be exciting.

​In terms of what I’m going right now, I do feel like I’m in a massive time of uncertainty, I’m controlling my own schedule and what work I do each day which is a bit daunting especially after having a routine everyday in an internship for so long. I have absolutely no idea what the rest of my year holds but I’m staying positive about it.