I was in the fine arts department during college. That was... oh, eight hundred years ago, I think. The community that confused me most were the potters. They baffled me: I swear it. They’d throw, like, a thousand pots a day (hyperbole being my passion today) and I couldn’t figure out how they were essentially different from any other pot they were throwing at any one time. I tried my hand at this art form. It wasn’t pretty. While I could master the first concepts, I had a tendency to “touch it too often.” Back and forth, back and forth until the thing imploded.

Potters don't often do this. They compose the piece in their mind and then at one point, they take it off the wheel. They have to. Touch it too much? Boom. Gone.

The same thing applies in other design disciplines. I find it better to conceptualize the effect I’m after and bring all the facets necessary to make it an art piece. Then I leave it the heck alone. If it sits open on my desktop too long, I start touching it. This is never good. But I wouldn’t want to give the impression that “compromise” as an art concept is the preeminent motive of the client (or “receiver” of art). Graphic design—being a commercial art form (generally)—is a consumable commodity and it stands to figure a client should get what they pay for. On the other hand, shouldn’t the maker of art know best when a piece has run its natural creative course?

I think it’s a fair compromise.

It’s a delicate balance to maintain—this pressure to be dynamic and compelling mingling with the professional knowledge that if I mess with this work much longer, it’s going to show all the pregnancy pangs of over-elaboration. And that is the sure vice of amateurs.

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