A writer, not a designer.

On the second to last night of SXSW in 2006 I found myself with just a handful of friends and their friends. We were some of the last to leave the biggest sponsored party—I think it was Flickr. The DJ shut down a while ago, the lights turned to normal, and the staff cleaned and restocked for the next day. I walked up to Paul Nixon who was with two of his work colleagues from Apple. He introduced me as “This is Greg Storey, he’s a blogger.”

While I shook hands during the rest of the introductions I couldn’t get what Paul said out of my head—a blogger, not a designer.

Years earlier I got an email from Jim Coudal with an invitation to participate in his Photoshop Tennis matches. I had an adrenaline rush just being invited. I replied with an enthusiastic “yes” and asked who he thought I would be paired with. “Oh,” he said, “I was thinking of having you write the commentary during the match.” I was gutted because I wasn’t thought of as a designer and somehow being asked to write felt like being recruited to join a high school sports team as the manager.

At the time—and even now—I never considered myself a writer or at least not a very good one. So if that’s how people saw me, then I must suck at design. To this day, this thought still lingers in the back of my mind. Especially was I struggle with a brand project I’m working on. Creative block or the inability to design notwithstanding I will be chipping away at the giant wall in front of me all day long in search of a crack.