The editor and the maker

I haven’t designed screens in a while. Like really designed them. From scratch, making the decisions, not directing someone else to.

I’m back in it right now. And it’s humbling in ways I didn’t expect.

Not because the craft isn’t there. It is. But because my eye has gotten faster than my hands.

I know what the work should be. I can see it clearly. Strategy, intention, the whole shape of it. Then I open the editor and the gap between what I see and what’s on the screen becomes the work. Every decision gets interrogated in real time by the same part of my brain I’ve spent years sharpening to catch what’s wrong.

That’s an uncomfortable thing to design alongside.

I keep catching myself doing the thing I do in reviews. Stopping too early to assess. Pulling back from the making to evaluate the making. The editorial instinct that makes me useful in a crit is the same instinct that wants to interrupt the build.

I don’t have a method for this yet. I have attempts. Some sessions I get under it. Some I spend most of the time watching myself work from two feet above.

What I notice is that the eye doesn’t slow down. You don’t get to un-develop the critical faculty. You just have to find some way to keep building anyway.

I’m still figuring out where that is.