Stay in your lane

If you’re anything like me, your eyes get big at the plethora of designs on the internet. Generally speaking, inspiration is a good thing. But what happens when you are overwhelmed and even confused at the amount of inspiration you’re consuming? I often find myself there. Niching down and having a deep body of work is something I’ve bought into, I equate this to staying in your lane and focusing on your strengths. But how can I do that if I’m constantly getting pulled in different directions? In this post, I’m going to talk about 4 ideas to help designers stay in their lane and focus on their niche.

Know yourself. This may be an obvious point, but it can be easy to lose track of yourself in the hole of comparison. I think people have a good idea of who they are… in their head. It’s important to cement these things by writing them down. Start with an outline of your story, this should help inform your style. Your personality + interests + experiences = your style.

Understand the natural way you see the world. Develop your approach around the way you visualize ideas in your head. You will start to notice less friction with your work. My approach to this is not always using a reference. Sometimes I just like to doodle and see what my brain has to offer. This helped me identify certain characteristics of my drawing style.

Be selective. Don’t just let anyone influence your work. Carefully pick who you let influence your work and have a reason for it. Maybe you choose someone because they have a similar eye for illustration or similar values and principles. Whatever the reason, make sure it’s relevant to you. It’s not bad to challenge yourself and try a new approach, but you want to be weary of forcing a style that isn’t in tune with who you are.

Detours are a good thing. If staying in your lane is niching down, then taking a scenic detour is a good time to experiment with your work. Explore new techniques and let your thought process be challenged. These are good practices, but you may find that detours will be more productive if you know that you are on one, rather than finding out you’ve been going the long way just because.

If you aren’t staying in your lane, you’re probably taking the wrong exit adding unnecessary time to your trip. Understanding yourself and how you see the world will help inform how you consume inspiration and experiment with your work.