award mania?

September 26, 2005

achievement, status, prestige, fame. powerful words for some of us. the desire to be known, recognized, praised for our accomplishments is universal. i can't think of anyone who wouldn't want to be recognized for a job well done. some of us relish more in the praise of man than others. the limelight motivates these people to do what they do, whether that devoting all their time to be successful, making connections, etc. i've never cared much for any of this. but what would you do if you kept getting recognized by others, in large-scale ways?

this is my story. over the past two years, i've been recognized several times by design industry professionals and by educators for my work. i had never even considered applying for awards (aside from trying to get my work into a local, on-campus design magazine), until i was encouraged by a professor to do so. i thought it might be fun to apply to some and see what other design professionals thought of my work and how it would stand up to other designers. some of these were local, others were international.

that's when it all began. since i was getting recognized, i figured i'd apply to other awards and see what would happen. upon each recognition, i would enter it into my resume. back then, i wasn't sure what was going to happen upon graduation, so having them in my resume would be helpful to attract potential employers. up until this year, i never noticed how many recognitions i received. most of the earlier ones weren't a big deal to me (excluding portfolios.com), so i didn't think much of them. but this year, everything changed. suddenly, my work was being awarded by bigger names and being recognized in much wider audiences.

i've never made it a point to tell people that i was given this award or featured in this book/magazine, beacuse i never saw a point to it. i'd only tell my parents and really close friends. but for the sake of this entry, i'm going to list them out, because it's the reason why i'm left confused.

to date, i've been recognized in seven different ways:
- Featured work in Print Magazine’s 2005 Digital Design Annual (Sept/Oct 2005 issue)
- Portfolios.com 2005 Awards, Gold & Silver Award
- 2005 RGD Student Award, featured in Applied Arts Magazine (Sept 2005 issue)
- Portfolios.com 2004 Awards, Gold & Merit Award
- Design Against Fur 2004 Competition, Honourable mention
- Featured work, Kalon poster, in 2003/2004 Verso Magazine

yesterday, i was snooping around google, searching on a domain name that i own (yes, i do that sort of thing when i'm bored). i learnt that a website i designed was supposedly featured in print magazine's 2005 digital design annual. i didn't remember applying for the competition, so i thought it was some kind of mistake. there was NO way i could have been featured in a magazine like print! to make a long story short, i headed over to chapters this afternoon to see if could really be true. and lo and behold, there it was! i had to look at it several times before i realized it was actually there. i guess i did apply to it.

this competition is like no other i've been involved in. everything before it was against other student designers (that's not to say that student designers aren't worthy of competing with. they are amongst some of the brightest, most talented people i've ever seen. and winning the RGD student award was a huge deal to me, because it involved all the graduating design students in ontario, including my own peers from my program (you have to understand that people i graduated with are just ridiculous. they are gifted beyond belief and they totally wipe the floor with me when it comes to design. they do things that i couldn't even imagine in my head! i was literally shocked when i learnt that i won that award). this competition was against industry professionals, from all around the world. these were the freelancers, the design firms, you name it.

i've never seen myself as a designer worthy of recognition like this. the reason for that? i've always thought that i was a jack-of-all-trades master-of-none person. a person who was good at everything, but not excellent in anything. i thought that way about myself in design. i knew that i did good work, but it wasn't the type of work that would wow your socks of. and as stated above, my classmates did work that was just incredible, work that i could never even dream of doing. but maybe i was wrong. maybe i am a great designer? maybe i do excel at something? a part of me can't admit something like that. i just can't believe it to be true. maybe that stems from the self-esteem issues i have.

so what's my big deal with all of this? it confuses me! i don't know why i keep getting recognized. i mean, i know that it's all God's doing, so is it supposed to mean something? am i supposed to learn something? is there more to the story than i realize?

perhaps there's two things happening here with all these awards.

1. the devil's trying to lure me out of ministry
being at tyndale these past two-three weeks has given me a lot to think about. it's a lot harder than i thought. i'm behind before i started. everyone seems to already know all the concepts, while everything is all brand new to me. there's concepts and words that i've never even heard of! i feel like everyone's at least a few steps ahead of me. i don't even know how to do the "simple" writing assignments because i've never had those type of writings before. it's frustrating. really, really frustrating. i don't even know why i'm in the youth ministry stream to begin with!

enter the design industry. there are some nice perks. one, if you're good at what you do, you can make a really good living for yourself. two, you can work on really cool projects, projects that you might see in stores, on billboards, public transit, you name it! three, you get to work with other creative people, people that really get how you think and function. four, creative challenges are always different, so you're constantly trying to think up fresh ideas/approaches to things. this keeps what you do alive and interesting.

on the other hand, the design industry can be really intense and stressful. i guess this depends on the firm you work at, because burnkit (the place i interned at) was really chill. it had a great environment. also, i know that design, in and of itself, does not satisfy me. i've felt this way for the longest of times even when the situation/job/people was as ideal as could be. i also know that God knows WAY better than i do and that i need to trust Him and walk by faith. still, the pull of heading into an industry that i could be really successful at is tempting nonetheless, especially when it wouldn't be as frustrating as tyndale is for me (or at least it seems that way now). the devil attacks us in our weakness

how fickle am i? why is this thought of going into design always rolling around in my head when i know better? the battle rages on.

2. God's trying to tell me something
maybe God's trying to raise up my confidence levels in myself
i used to be a lot more confident in high school than i am now. i was never afraid of doing anything. i never doubted myself. i never second-guessed my abilities. now, i question myself all the time. i hardly ever feel like i'm adequate or good enough for the task at hand. it feels like i'm the polar opposite of what i used to be. either side of this is not right.

if you rely solely on your own skills and abilities, without ever acknowledging God, you've cut Him out of the picture and it becomes all about you, when it should be all about Him. i remember a pastor sharing about his experiences at the willowcreek art conference. he was saying that he had become so good as preaching/preparing sermons, that he would have been just fine without seeking/consulting God about it. after some time, he realized just how wrong that was.

but on the flip side, if you don't think you're able to do anything at all, you'll probably be left with a lot of self-doubt. self-doubt can cause people to jump ship at any sign of difficulty/challenge, causing them to potentially miss out on something great. self-doubt can freeze people from ever attempting new things. self-doubt creates a very narrow, inward focus. it becomes all about you and your lack of ability and takes it off God, the God of all possibilities. this is not the way to live the Christian life.

what we need is a healthy balance between the two, understanding that we can be confident in our skills and abilities, but realizing that God has given them to us, and that He is the source of it all. maybe i need to relearn this and re-believe it.

maybe i don't have to give up design altogether to go into ministry.
excellence is one of my core values. it's what i'm about. louie giglio, once said something along these lines, that there aren't enough Christians in the world that are excellent at what they do. this is problematic. excellence is related to character. if you were working in the world as a Christian and did not do your job well, you most likely would not have the respect of your peers. however, if you were doing extremely well, people would respect you. respect gives you leverage, authority into the lives of others. this gives you a place to share your faith. people will not listen to what you say unless they respect who you are. working in a design firm, even part-time, would be a great place of inspiration, growth and learning. i think there's a lot more that i could learn in this industry. and at the same time, it could be a great place to connect with unchurched people. i've found that there really aren't that many Christians in the design industry. who will go and reach these people?

another part to this, is that if you don't keep practicing design, you will lose it. my professors said that at the end of our graduation show and that's a very scary thought to me. i don't want to lose this.

here's the thing, i know in my heart of hearts that church ministry (though which aspect of ministry is still undecided) is what i'm truly passionate about and design is not. at the same time, while i'm not passionate about design, i really do enjoy doing it when it's on my own time. and if it's for some kind of church ministry, i get pretty excited about it too. when i don't design for a time, i miss it. perhaps the deeper level of that, is that i need outlets of creative expression in visual media, whether that be video, design or photography. *shrugs* but if design is an area that needs further exploration, i'm open to it.

so what now?
i have no resolution to this, except that i need to think, process and pray about it more. maybe i'm making a big deal out of nothing or maybe it's something that needs my attention. only time will tell.

Posted by Leo Chan at September 26, 2005 8:33 PM