Chaos in creativity

I used to think design was all about precision — pixel-perfect grids, the Golden Ratio, and this idea that “good design is invisible.” I chased that notion, striving for something that would blend seamlessly into the background, unnoticed but effective.

But then I started to notice that the work that really spoke to me wasn’t invisible at all. It was messy, loud, and imperfect. It had a kind of raw energy that couldn’t be contained by grids or templates. There was chaos in it — something real, unpredictable. Something alive. It made me reflect on my own work, where I often felt something was missing. I began to see how rigid I had been, not just in my designs but in how I thought about things.

Looking back at my old sketchbooks, it feels like I treated every drawing as if it needed to be a finished piece or at least a completed idea. There was little room for experimentation or creativity. It wasn’t so much that I was a perfectionist; it was more that I played it safe. I wasn’t letting myself explore the full range of what could be.

I grew up valuing structure. There was always a lot expected of me, and I took pride in meeting or even surpassing those expectations. But eventually, that structure started to feel more like a cage than a framework. I realized that the ways I thought about things—about life, about design—were too narrow, too stringent. I wasn’t progressing; I was just following a path laid out for me.

It may seem odd to discuss lifestyles in the same breath as design and illustration work, but life and art aren’t separate; they feed into each other. My work began to shift when I allowed more life into it. I started to embrace the chaos, to let go of the need for everything to be “good.” And in doing that, I found a new kind of creativity. It wasn’t about getting everything right; it was about trusting the process, letting things happen, and seeing where that took me.

I began to infuse more abstraction and unpredictability into my work. It wasn’t easy. I failed—a lot. But I learned, too. I found joy in the unexpected, in the imperfections. I began to trust in the things I created, to let them be what they were, even if they didn’t meet some arbitrary standard of good or bad design. I started trying things I wouldn’t have dared before, and in the process, I discovered that the real magic often happens when you let go of control, grids, and golden ratios.

I learned to call something done and move on, to push myself in new directions, to find joy in the simple, the fun, the lowbrow. I started to realize that the gravitas, the importance I used to chase, wasn’t what I wanted anymore. What I wanted was to create something that felt alive, something that brought a little bit of happy into the world.

So yeah, good design may be invisible, but it’s also forgettable, and honestly, who needs more of that? I’d rather create something a little chaotic, a little wild, and a lot more alive.

-BW