Do you ever feel like an imposter? How do you know if you are being confident or arrogant? I’ve known lots of designers and creatives over the years and one thing is for sure–we all doubt ourselves. We doubt ourselves when we can’t seem to come up with any good ideas, we doubt ourselves when we screw up something or cause a misunderstanding with our clients — it’s called “imposter syndrome”. It happens to all of us when things go wrong especially, but even when things are going right. So let’s talk about imposter syndrome; what is it, why it happens, who really are imposters, and how to fight it.

Have you ever had those days where you look at your work and think, “I hope this is good enough.” or “ What if they don’t like my ideas…” Maybe sometimes you think that when something doesn’t work out exactly the way you expect on a project, you’re a failure. Whether it be with some technique you can’t seem to grasp or a loss in client communication, sometimes you feel like a fake, you just pray that no one finds out.

Imposter syndrome looks like constantly going back to change something in your design, not because you know it can improve, but because you feel like you doubt your choices and your design is a mess from your lack of trust in yourself. It’s constantly worrying someone will call you out for being a fraud. 

 

Here’s the truth, there actually are imposters in our business. What I usually call “hack” designers. We have all met them, or have lost jobs to them. They are your friend’s cousin with Photoshop, the college student who steals designs off of Google, or the person who slightly alters something they were “inspired by” on Pinterest. They generally do bad design, because it’s easy. They are fine with being a technician, button-pusher, or order taker — they are simply a tool, like a screwdriver. The screwdriver doesn’t ask questions, it just lets you take it and put it to use wherever and for whatever the owner deems necessary. A screwdriver doesn’t care if it is being used properly, because it is a tool, it is there to be used. It doesn’t require strategy or deep concept work to be used. 

They take other people’s ideas and just do what they’re told or asked to do without any kind of thought or real strategic process. A true imposter is a tool, driven by the whims of the user/client. An imposter doesn’t care about feedback or elevating their work. They will sit in front of Photoshop or Canva and use templates and effects to try to make something look “cool” instead of making the design effective or strategic for the message and problem to be solved. 

Just know that doubting yourself or making mistakes does not make you an imposter. Doubt is inevitable, whether you are a multi-million dollar CEO, a big-time art director, a freelance designer, a mother, a student, or an athlete.

If you think you are an imposter, chances are that you aren’t one.

The real imposters don’t think that they are; they are convinced that they know what they are doing and should not be told otherwise. A true design professional is always wanting to improve. They worry about the quality of their work, they care about research, new ideas, strategy, and process; they carefully choose clients and try to frame the perception of what they do.

If you are worried about being an imposter, and you actually care, I can almost guarantee you are not one.

 

So why do even experienced designers feel like they are faking it and are just one step away from being found out? Well, because we too are human. We have doubts. And we live in a society where perfection seems to be the highest standard and the worry about imperfection stresses us out daily. We live in an insecure society and so we become insecure.

Whether people understand or value what we do, the fact remains that we have really important jobs as designers full of real pressure. There’s pressure in designing a poster for an event because the client is relying on us to communicate their message in a way that will sell tickets. There’s the pressure when creating a brand identity for a company because they need to get more business and hope that a rebrand will help. They are relying on us to make an identity for them that communicates who they are in a way that will bring in clients. It’s a bit of pressure when a band hires you to design merchandise for them that they can sell at their shows. Their merchandise is the primary income that a band or musician gets to take home after a show and they are relying on us to understand their target audience, reflect the voice of the band, and merge those things to create merch that fans will want to buy.

So we doubt. But then we need to question and double-check our reasons and intent for doing things and for making the design decisions we do. Doubt and insecurity come easily, but how we react to insecurity it is key.

But, sometimes being questioned is the very best way to figure out if you are on the right path or not. If you are and can explain why you chose to do what you did, you will grow more and more confident. 

So if being arrogant, overconfident, or ambivalent will only make imposter syndrome worse, how do you fight it?

The best way to fight imposter syndrome is to grow your creative confidence. 

These things help you fight off the feeling of being an imposter. When you use a reliable, and repeatable process, and actually practice using it, you will grow in your creative confidence. You’ll be able to your own method of working that is well thought out, planned, and productive–which gives you the ability to show clients that you know what you’re doing. It allows you space to be confident without being arrogant and allows you to share your expertise, not just ask them to trust you because you’re the designer. 

This gives you the backbone to understand your reasons and a place to begin to explain why you did what you did to your client. When we can explain why we did something to someone, it reinforces our standing as professionals and eventually as experts in our field.

That confidence will result in being able to trust yourself. But trusting yourself takes time and experience and not giving up. The more you do good work based on a process and question your motives, the more confident you will become as a result of producing great work. You will know you’ve done great work when you feel good about it (from as objective a standpoint as you can), your client is excited about it, and often as a bonus, your peers will compliment you on it. 

 

Few things in a creative life plague us like imposter syndrome and self-doubt. The important thing is to recognize that it will happen, and not be cornered by it. When you feel like “do I really always know what I’m doing?” know that you can fight it. Fight it with following your process, questioning your own work, and trusting yourself. Grasp these and your work will be amazing and eventually you will believe that it is. Confidence, lack of self-doubt, and the ability to fight imposter syndrome aren’t easy but they will come in time. I don’t mean to sound all Disney but truly, believe in yourself.