Studio Note #31: Wasting Away in Margaritaville.
I didn’t know what a Parrothead was until today.
Today is my 49th birthday.
I spent a good chunk of the day’s creative block designing a koozie.
Anchor Energy is sponsoring an event featuring a bunch of Jimmy Buffett tribute bands and they wanted something fun to hand out. Which is how, on the morning of my 49th birthday, I found myself wading through song lyrics, tropical type, palm trees and parrots.
There are probably more profound ways to mark another trip around the sun.
Instead, I spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to get a parrot to sit correctly on the edge of a cocktail glass.
The first pass was too polished. Then it looked too modern. Eventually I got the bird where I wanted him, except the angle looked like he was perched behind the glass instead of actually sitting on the rim.
That bothered me.
So I kept messing with it.
The funny thing is, this isn't some massive branding project. Nobody is building a company around this koozie. There isn't a strategy deck behind it. It's going to keep a drink cold while people listen to Jimmy Buffett covers.
But the client wanted a parrot and I wanted the parrot to look right.
I've been making things professionally for a long time now. I've art directed photoshoots, hung exhibitions, built brands and designed everything from websites to business cards to stickers and signs.
Some of that work mattered a lot. Some of it was made to hold a beer.
You would think at some point you learn which things are important enough to obsess over and which ones aren't.
I'm starting to think that's the wrong way to look at it.
Maybe the important thing is that I still care.
At 49, I still get annoyed when something is a few pixels off. I still know when an illustration feels too polished even if I can't immediately explain why. I still want to try one more version when the perfectly acceptable version is sitting right in front of me.
And apparently I can still lose part of an afternoon to the precise location of a parrot's feet.
That's not a bad thing to realize on your birthday.
Not everything you design has to carry the weight of an entire brand.
Sometimes the job is simply to make something fun that people will want to grab, use and hopefully take home with them.
But that doesn't mean the details matter any less.
I don't ever want to become so experienced that the little stuff stops bothering me.
So today I'm 49.
And I spent part of it wasting away in Margaritaville.
I hope when I'm 59, caring about perfectly perched parrots is still a thing.