It’s always the same old story. Creative types begin their careers with a genuine passion for what they do but end up hating their jobs, which offer them no creative freedom or outlet for self-expression. It could have gone the same way for creative director of Facebook’s Creative Shop, Ji Lee if it wasn’t for his enthusiasm for personal projects that rekindled his love for his work.
“For me personally, the best way of always finding fun in my work and also finding my dream job is to do personal projects,” says Lee.
The Korean-born, New York-based designer, whose website is called pleaseenjoy.com, says that people who enter a creative career do so for the pure fun of it and not “to become rich”. He believes that it is so important for these people to find creative stimulation through side projects because this is the work that gets noticed and shapes the identities of artists, designers or makers.
Lee goes on to say that only when personal projects are shared, do great things start to happen. “What I’ve learned doing personal projects in my own life is that it’s very important to make as many things as possible and share as often as possible.”
Ji Lee spoke at Design Indaba Conference in 2006. Watch his full speaker talk on exploring foundations of analysis in seeing, meaning and representation.
