There’s a trite saying that if you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. Many people may love their job—the pay, the perks, the people—if not the work.
I love my work. It is one of the reasons why I find it difficult to imagine what “retirement.” Sure, I have always looked at the bottom line and worked to be successful, but the perks that I find most attractive are not about travel, awards, or influence. Instead, being with a small group of dedicated, responsible people who like each other and leading a studio that hums along without drama or trauma makes it a place I look forward to every morning.
It’s an ideal environment for getting into the “zone”—the biggest perk of all. It’s what happens when you become hyper-focused on whatever task is at hand, your tools become extensions of your thoughts, and execution becomes effortless. Time seems suspended, and outside distractions are muted. A feeling of super competence accompanies it. Most of all, it’s ecstatic.
Although I have never learned to play a musical instrument (my Mom said I didn’t need to, because I was the one who could draw), watching a virtuoso pianist or a classical guitarist perform, often with their eyes closed, seems a similar rhapsodic pleasure.
I have worked on design projects where hours pass and it seems like minutes. Recently, I had to do some revision work on a logotype and came to work early to give myself a few hours before I needed to leave for a class at 10:30. It wasn’t until another designer asked, don’t you have a class today? I was confident that I had at least another half hour before I needed to leave. Then I looked at the clock—which was always right there on the computer—and saw that it was 11:30. In all honesty, I didn’t mind a bit because the sense of being “in the zone” is so rewarding.
Describing this state, a colleague of mine said that it happens because I’m being “creative.” That is part of it, but it also can occur when I’m working on more tedious tasks like the final production of a magazine issue or bulk color correcting images. After spending years developing expert skills, it is a pleasure to exercise them.
If all that mattered were getting high on work, that would be enough, but getting in the zone also produces better results. One of my first logo designs was for the Biblical Archaeology Society. Working to find a symbol representing both archaeology and biblical eras, I assembled images of period artifacts as references. Still, they all seemed more illustration than icon, so I was about to give up on that direction. Back then, AURAS was a corner of my apartment, so I took a break and made a late-afternoon snack. When I went back to the drawing board (yes, an actual drawing board), I tried tracing over the images and simplifying them.
I became more and more focused on abstracting the images to find a shape that was both a specific object and a beautiful abstract form. Then a thought hit me—instead of making the artifacts look graphic, maybe I should start with graphic elements and make them look like the artifacts. Letterforms were a good place to find examples. Looking through Phil’s Photo sample book of thousands of fonts, I noticed a lower-case “g” that looked almost like a 10th century B.C.E. single wick oil lamp—the kind of ubiquitous handmade lamp used throughout the period. The capital “S” looked like a flame in a few fonts. In a matter of seconds, I drew the first logo of the Biblical Archaeology Society, a sketch that, with minimal alteration, has become the symbol of the Society for more than 45 years.
Right when I drew it, I knew that I had found the perfect solution. I was so excited I jumped up from the drafting table, did a fist bump while dancing around the empty apartment, and tried to think of someone to call who could appreciate my eureka moment. That’s when I noticed it was nearly midnight.
