Why I don’t show unfinished work
When I first started out in design, I made a few agreements to myself. One of them is that I’ll never show unfinished work if it’s not presented appropriately. In practice, that means I:
- shred all drafts of to-be-published work
- shred all annotated, pre-feedback mockups
- never post “in progress” ideas
- shred & recycle all sketches, notebooks, lit reviews, and initial research
I relaxed the latter notion in 2013 in order to take preorders for upcoming work, but in practice I never share the work itself until it’s ready.
There are many reasons for this, most of which have to do with how the work is received, but also with how I am received, and what it means to put out durable, useful work that one can be proud of.
Why I don’t present unfinished work
First, the work is seldom of high quality. It’s not uncommon for me to make a first draft that is total garbage, just a comical waste of your time. Who wants that out there? Anyone?
Next, work contains ideas that frequently need to be turned into something radically different. It’s not uncommon for me to about-face a bold statement when checked in critique.
And finally, and most importantly, nobody needs to pore over garbage-looking notebooks that show what the inside of my mad scientist brain looks like as I throw together a lit review, just like nobody needs to rip down the walls of a house to look inside the drywall. That is scaffolding. It is not the point.
When I do present work
Publishing means I think the work is worth someone’s time. I stand by it as a representation of my creative practice. When it’s done, it’s done-done.
I seldom go back and revise work once it’s been published, but when I do, I take care to emphasize that the new edition is a wholly new thing. When the second edition of Cadence & Slang came out, I stood by its improvements to such a degree that for several years afterward, I would quietly swap first editions out whenever I saw one in the wild and recycle the old copies.
The whole point
In short, you get one life, and you should make it good. You should make the presentation of that life good. You should make the output of that life good. Why else are you here?