I want to start off by saying that I do not have the answer to this question and it is something I have been struggling with for a while. The reason I decided to write about it was reading this article, which for a first time made me feel a bit better about my pretty undefined style (if I can even call it a style).
All of the artists I follow and admire online seem to have a pretty consistent style. They don’t even need to put names on their artwork, once you are familiar with them you’ll always be able to tell them apart from the rest. And that is undoubtedly great! I’ve been forever jealous of those with a clear signature style and have been trying hard to find my own. Even if I succeed in keeping my expression consistent for a while sooner or later I find myself captivated by a new style, technique or medium and everything goes out the window. It doesn’t help that I’m interested in doing so many different things: I love logo and identity design, but I love illustration maybe even more, I enjoy web design, but layout and printed media is fun too; digital painting feels great, but I simply need some watercolor in my life, vector illustration has that nice clean look, but messy unfinished pen and pencil/ ink sketches are so inspiring and there’s also lettering and calligraphy, on top of it all I want to learn some more video editing, animation and even coding… and there are all those other things I haven’t even discovered yet! There are also so many ways to do each of the things I already listed. I must admit indecisiveness is probably my greatest weakness, I love having options and I hate choosing, I just want it all!
I’ve been advised more than once to choose one or two of the areas I like and to dig deeper. But when I try I get bored pretty fast and feel like I don’t have that much to offer, I always do the same old thing. I feel stuck, as if I’ve stopped learning and growing, my motivation goes down and it all just feels wrong. When I learn new things and experiment I enjoy myself quite a lot, while at the same time feeling guilty for “wasting my time”, “stretching” too far and generally making my style even more of a mess than it already is. When I look at my social accounts, it looks like there are different people posting at the same time, which is why I’ve tried to keep different styles linked to different accounts. I’m not even sure how exactly to define this blog, there are so many things I want it to be about…
It is an infinite struggle, but the article I linked above made me feel a little more hopeful about it. Maybe there is after all a middle ground where it is ok to experiment and learn and diversify and still be taken seriously. I don’t really know yet, but I sure hope so!
