No hype just beautiful by Carole Guevin

No hype just beautiful

Or why quality superceeds any scam or scheme for world dominion, glamour and buzz because recognition will come if you do execute excellent and beautiful projects.

In this day and age separating inflated hyped quality from worthiness, is getting harder and harder, because pressures to perform are exerted from multiple directions at the same time.

To determine what stays and what goes is also being muddied by personal needs for recognition and life centered cares for survival, as well as worries from clients' expectations who want everything, mostly at little expenses and at the expense of our time and love for the craft.

Here are my rules of engagement that I have been practicing throughout my life as an artiste, designer, musician and editor aka as talent curator:

1) Be honest.

All the time with yourself (and others) and you won't get lost in the process. Creating requires tranquility and focus.

2) Avoid messing with trends.

Nothing is more efficient to drown and silence your own fledging voice than the perception of what is 'trendy'.

3) Avoid comparison without edit.

Learn to know who you are and where you are at presently. Being realistic, forces excellence. There will always be room for improvement.

Practice hones our skills.

4) Talent is just the starting place.

No amount of self-confidence will superceed working hard at developing it. Talent is the seed. Working hard is the nourishment to grow and prevail.

5) Taking risks.

Risks lead to both failure and success. You might enterprise a project and be dead-on or dead-out. Turn your failures into teachers and learn from them.

Forgive yourself and move on.

6) Giving your all.

Always give your best, this will take into account budget, time allocated till delivery is good enough.

Never let the scintillating vision you entertain in your mind blur the necessity of taking (baby) steps to get there.

7) Never give up the dream.

Unless you wake up one day to discover you are a cook rather than a designer, artist, illustrator, photographer, animator.. never give up.

You need tenacity and adversity to shape and finetune the true limits of your dream(s). Even if crawling on all four or totally discouraged, hang on to it.

In conclusion, one thing I have learned is that you never quite get there.

There's always another step, another improvement, another skill to learn or sharpen, another formidable challenge.

But would I trade the life I have?

Sometimes when in a bad spot, I may think so but I have NEVER done so.. and never will.

-> next: Portfolio checklist

Editorials by Carole Guevin