Comparison & Social Media with Creative Work
I introduced my students to the world of hand lettering—more specifically brush lettering. As part of that intro, I pointed out a few of my favorite Instagram accounts to follow for inspiration and open their eyes to the world of lettering.
We spent a couple classes sketching and practicing basic pen strokes and getting a feel for the lettering process.
Once we transitioned from the baby steps of practicing to formative exploration on their own custom lettering, things got shaky. I watched as the students’ excitement for this exercise got sucked out of the room…
What happened?
We allowed for some practice time to get comfortable in the medium—but of course the students knew we wouldn’t become masters over night or over a week of practice…right?
We dove into the culture of the field and surveyed all the fun, innovative, and interesting things people are doing—the students knew to take this as an aspirational exercise or at the very least a pulse check on the medium…right?
We took the training wheels off and allowed for creative freedom and inspiration to strike—they were motivated to try things out and create something original with their new knowledge…right?
My students were paralyzed by all the awesome things people were doing on Instagram and quickly recoiled their enthusiasm. I heard over and over how students felt there was no way they could do anything worthwhile because everything they saw during their research was perfect and way above their skill-level.
“Don’t make the mistake of comparing your twisted-up insides to people’s blow-dried outsides.”
And there is one of the problems with navigating social media as a creative—everyone shares their best work, you rarely see process images, and you never see the mistakes.
I struggled with how to regain control of the classroom at first. How can I pull them back and get them excited to experiment again?
I recalled some feedback I received from last semester’s course evaluations—a student suggested that I allow the students to just observe me design/create things so they could relate to my process more. I regularly demo things, give critiques, etc. but I had never sat in front of the class, opened a blank canvas, and designed something from start to finish…
It seems so obvious now. Once I set aside class time for students to observe me in my natural creative environment and listen to me think out loud while I designed something there was a huge turnaround in not only the project but the overall relationship I had with the students. We engaged with each other less as teacher-to-student and more as designer-to-designer.
