Where it started
The first time I noticed design, I was in high school, on a forum for a Counter-Strike 1.6 server.
Not the game itself. The forum had a design subforum and I ended up there. I started participating. Someone would post work, others would respond, and I found myself opening Photoshop to make things too. Funny edits of teammates mostly, nothing serious, nothing with a plan behind it. Just making things because it was enjoyable and the community was there.
That was fifteen years ago.
The reasonable detours
After high school I went to an engineering faculty. Not design, not anything close to it. And after that I ended up in IT, which wasn't even the natural follow-through from engineering. Just the direction things went. Infrastructure first, then support, then more complex problems, then the kind of work where people stop asking you to fix things and start asking you to tell them what's broken before it breaks. I got good at it. Built a reputation. Became someone organisations called when something important needed scrutiny. Reasonable at every step. Nothing you could point to and say "that was the wrong turn."
But somewhere in there the Photoshop kid from the forum subforum got very quiet.
When the noise came back
Four years ago he got loud again. I started noticing design work everywhere, on screens, in print, in the way an app moved, with the specific attention of someone who wanted to be doing that and not just looking at it. I noticed it the way you notice something that belongs to you.
And then I'd close the tab and go back to the ticket queue.
The waiting
I told myself the usual things. I need to save more money first. I need to know more before I start. I need to find the right course, the right moment, the right version of myself that is ready for this. I should wait until I have something to show.
The timing was never better. I understand that now.
What I didn't see while I was in it: waiting wasn't neutral. Every year I spent in work that didn't fit, I got better at being there. Better at tolerating the discomfort until it stopped registering as discomfort. That is a skill. I didn't want it.
My reasons got more sophisticated over time too. It stopped sounding like "I'm scared" and started sounding like "I'm being strategic." Same thing. Better language.
What finally moved
I don't know exactly when it shifted. It wasn't a single morning. The cost of not starting finally became visible. Not smaller, just visible. I could see clearly what staying was taking from me, and I decided I'd rather have the uncertainty of moving than the certainty of more of the same.
So I started.
What this is
This is a record of that. Learning design, the actual craft of it, what it asks of you, what it teaches you about seeing. Noticing things about how I work and what I'm afraid of. Writing about both.
Not a success story. Not yet. Not in the shape I'm imagining.
If you found this because something in the title was familiar, you probably know the feeling I'm describing. I'm not going to tell you what to do with it.
But I'm here, writing about mine.
