Why Authenticity Wins in a Polished World

The Problem with Universal Polish

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1:00Hey everybody, welcome back to the Deeply Graphic Design Cast. I'm Nick Longo. It's been a while since it's been just us. If you haven't caught it, we did a YouTube exclusive video of the Natural Products Expo West show. So be sure to check that out. It's on our YouTube channel. It didn't make sense to do it on the regular podcast channel because it's so visual and it's me walking around this trade show

1:35talking to different owners of brands. So if you haven't checked that out, it's over on our YouTube channel. For this episode today, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about something that I'm noticing a little bit lately and I don't think I'm alone in this. I'm sure you've been scrolling or looking at tons of different work. Maybe it's on social medias. Maybe it's on Behance. Maybe it's in Dribbble portfolios that you're catching here and there. posts, whatever it might be, right? I'm assuming you agree with me on this. Everything's looking pretty damn good.

2:06I mean like really good. I've noticed that a few weeks ago. I even said like, man, like everything I'm checking out is just stellar work, right? Unbelievably good. Impressive. Presentation worthy. Just like crystal clear. Super clean, right? It's polished. It's professional. And then five seconds later, I'm, I hate to say it, but maybe I've forgotten all about it. Nothing really was sticking. And that show I went to a few weeks ago, the one that's in our

2:36YouTube video, I mean, I must have seen, I think there's 1,700 vendors there that are showing off the latest and greatest in their brand, their packaging, their products. And again, with that exposure, I left going, wow, like I got up my game, right? Like there was so much good work, so much good work. You asked me two weeks later what stood out and I could probably name two or three brands. And that's the weird part because, you know, technically all this work is super solid, but did it strike a chord emotionally? It's kind of like empty when you

3:14think about it days, weeks later. And I think we all know a little bit why. We're in this moment right now where the tools, every tool, and I'm not just talking about AI, it's everything. Beautiful PSD mockups, video mockups, all these things that we could do that make it very easy to make something look super good. I have this like running joke in my class when students are messing with some vector work that they're designing, let's say for like a can or, you know, some kind of a drink. And it looks great, right? They're looking at it on their screen, they're looking at it through Illustrator. And the minute you

3:50drop it on a PSD mockup of a can in some awesome perspective with some cool angle and, you know, tons of like kind of like stuff in the background, all of a sudden, they're like, damn, that looks really, really good. You've all been there. Like you put work on a mockup, and it starts to look really, really good. It's clean, it's fast, and it's impressive. But in some cases, I think it's just impressive on the surface. Because, again, it's happening all the time. At the same time, though, it's created this

4:22quiet question that's sitting in the back of everyone's mind. Did you actually make it? And that's, that's a lot of times what I'm asking. And I'm sure some of the work I've created, someone could ask that same question. That's the shift. It's not about the quality anymore. It's about authorship. It's about the proof that you did this, right? It's about showing that there's actually a human behind this work. And as all these tools and all this advancement keeps going and going and going, and it's making

5:00things easier, faster, more polished. I think one of our things here is to push the idea of a human behind the work as much as we can. That's something you and I get to control with everything that we do. And that's what I wanted to talk a little bit about today. Because this is becoming a real advantage for designers who truly understand that advantage and why you should be doing it the same way. So we've, we've considered

Optimizing for Presence over Perfection

5:31this idea that the work looks good, right? But it all feels the same. And there's this pattern happening right now. Everything is super well designed. We've been taught to design well, we've been taught to design with balance, and everything is on trend. And because of that, everything kind of blends together. It really is, guys. And I'm guilty of it as well. I'm serious. I like when you think about how much

6:01right next to each other in whatever idea you look at, you can look at packaging design, you can look at fashion design, you can look at car design, you can look and you can see things right next to each other and think it's all blending together. I was reading something recently from It's Nice That, and they nailed this idea that a lot of work right now is technically strong, right? It's, it's buttoned up. It's got everything. But guess what? It's missing personality. It's missing the authorship. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. You start realizing that we've optimized for polish,

6:39but lost a bit of the presence. And when I had that written down, I thought, wow, that's truly what we've been doing. I'll use myself as an example. Optimizing myself for the polished look. That became more important than breaking down the concept of what's in there and why, and why I made these decisions. In fact, maybe this rise of social media and our portfolios being more global than just city

7:13wide, you know, like in our small world or in our bubble, this need and this want to consistently produce the most polished work. And again, maybe it lost a bit of presence. The question has changed. It used to be, isn't that, is this good? Does this, does this look good? And now it's, is this yours? And that's a big deal because when I look at some of the stuff that maybe we've generated over in the past year or two, I could probably question that. Is this mine? Was I heavily influenced by two or three

7:50other things that I saw that became part of my mood board? And you know, that's what we did. Did it really have reasoning to be there for that brand in any way, shape or form? You know, this is a big deal because if someone can't tell how you got there or what decisions you made for each one of those steps or what was uniquely you about it, then your work starts to feel replaceable. And gosh, that's a great question to ask when you're, when you're at that point of maybe like sending this off,

8:22maybe it's the first comps or something. Maybe that's a really cool thing to add to your process and ask yourself, does this feel replaceable? Because if, if, if, if you don't say absolutely not, this is, this is future proof. This has personality. This has layers. Yeah. That would give me 10 times more confidence in, in presenting that work nowadays. So I love this thought of ask yourself that idea. Does this feel replaceable? Because if, if it does, you're probably guilty of

8:54doing everything we've just talked about. And the things that I've done in the past where you're just mailing it in because it aesthetically looked polished and done. And was that good enough?

Showing Real Thinking in Case Studies

9:04So we're showing your work really comes in. It's not just a nice extra anymore, and it shouldn't just be a bonus slide in your case study as proof. I've been struggling with teaching my students how to do that properly. You know, it's funny because like you can go to the best designer, the best agency, the best marketing firm, best creative agency, and look at their, their case studies. Not one of them is really showing process. And here we are telling young

9:34students to do it. And then they asked for an example of what does that look like? And we've been struggling of trying to figure out how you put it in there to show proof, right? So I don't want it to just be this bonus slide that you're popping in there. I want it to be the proof that they figured something out. Showing your work isn't about steps. So that's one thing to consider. It's about thinking and it's about where I, as the designer, went wrong, what choices did I make, and all those things,

10:09right? They hear show your work. I've been saying that all the time. And I've been being told that all the time. And you think, cool, I'll throw in this little area of sketches or some of the initial thought process of some of our designs. That's not it. No one cares about the steps if there's no thinking behind them. What people actually want to see is this. Why did you choose that direction over another? What problem were you solving? And what didn't work? And here's why the good stuff is

10:46here and it stayed. How did that make it through the whole process? That's the human part. Like the last time we were talking about this, one of my students showed all the fonts that they were using in their case study. And we all kind of stopped and said, what value do you think that brings? And no one could really bring anything up. And a few people were like, well, you know, those are the fonts she chose. And I was like, okay, but do I need to see the whole A to Z and all the numbers of that font? Does that, does that really own its place? Did that deserve a spot in your case study? And we were all

11:20like, no. Then we thought, well, wouldn't it be interesting if you just showed two or three of the letters and why you chose them and what, what flourish or what part of that font had these characteristics that were in line with your brand strategy. And you chose that for that specific reason. And everybody just went, whoa, she made the change. We looked at it the next night and it was like a night and day difference. That is again, the human part. That is the thing that you did. And you looked through and you said, whoa, this has the personality I need. Let's make that the brand

11:55font. That's the part that like anything, all this polished stuff that we were talking about, that's, that's, that's the part that it all skips. It can't do that. Designers are, I think,

Imperfection as a Design Strategy

12:08needing to start to push back on purpose. And this is where it gets really interesting. There's a noticeable shift right now happening where designers are intentionally making work feel more human. I remember even hearing this getting predicted a year ago when so much AI stuff was just booming. And I think it's right. I'm starting to see that we're intentionally making work feel more human in whatever, you know, degree of work you're working on. You might be using AI for

12:4220% at the beginning. Then you're doing some sketching. Then you're going back to AI to fuse a few things, but then you're making all of this work after. What are you doing? You're adding layers of different things that make it more intentionally human, more raw, more layered, like more imperfect. Isn't it funny? Like that's the pendulum swing now that we're, we're moving to. You're seeing more of this. What, and please tell me if I'm wrong, because I'm seeing a lot more of this. I'm seeing a lot more collage work. I'm seeing a lot more things. I just saw something earlier today that blew my mind

13:15because I was like, what a mix of different medias they did in this beautiful packaging illustration that was on a project I saw on social media earlier this morning. They're adding more grain. They're adding more texture, more noise, more hand touched type. I love that. Like the hand touch type, the touch tool type touch tool, I think it's called in illustrator is one of the best kind of features for that. I showed my students just the other day that you don't just ever type out something and let it be as your computer typed it out, go in there. And that touch type tool allows you

13:51to move things closer, turn it and tilt it, expand something bigger. You can keep it live text and do that. Those kinds of little nuances, again, are what hand human type can do, right? Like that stuff to me is what feels great. You're seeing that kind of stuff. And it's not assembled. It's not generated. It's actually like got the fingerprints of the designer on it. And it's not because people suddenly forgot how to be like clean designers. And now you're seeing more grunge or more grit or more imperfection. It's because

14:26they're, they're trying to signal something. I really think they are. This came from a person imperfection is doing a job, right? It really is. Now this is the part that would have sound crazy just five years ago, but imperfection is now a strategy, not sloppy work. We're not talking about careless work. We're talking about intentional imperfections because when everything is perfect and everything is polished, nothing feels real. And maybe that's where we're at. When something has

14:59a little edge or a little texture, a little unpredictability, oh man, do you lean in? Like think of the last few things that really got you to lean in. I guarantee you there was some, some unpredictability in that, right? You trust it more. You believe in it more. I'm seeing some standouts in packaging that really is someone being on the forefront of going, I want something unpredictable for not only this brand, but for this industry, for this shelf space, all those things,

15:36right? When you trust it more, you believe in it. The danger right now, I think is sameness. Here's the risk. If you don't adapt, I think to this shift right now, you keep making clean, solid, polished work. And it just blends into the pile because that level of execution is no longer rare. Seriously. I mean, if we're looking at things, be honest with what you're doing, right? Be honest

16:07with what you're contributing to this thing. If what you're doing is not really pushing the limits, you know, is it falling into that same category because that level of execution is no longer rare. Yeah. I'm, that's making me think super like different about how I'll approach the next wave of projects that come my way. AI can get you 80% of the way there in seconds, like literally in seconds.

16:38So if your value is only in the output, that's a tough place to be. What actually matters now is taste and decisions, the real world differentiation right now. And it's not how fast you can make something. It's how well you can decide. And that's what I think is going to rise to the top of a lot of work that is getting more work. You putting work out there that shows how you made

17:08decisions and how you got to that level. That's what's going to, I think, accelerate anyone's career in the future. And that's how you tell that you can make decisions, what direction is right, what to keep from a big pile of ideas, what to throw away from that big pile ideas, and what's actually fits the story that you're working on. That's fricking taste, right? That's experience. That's the stuff that now you can lean on into the next project, into the next position, whatever

17:43you're trying to build. That's something built over time for sure. And that's the part that you need to start showing. Right now, I think the biggest risk, too, is if you're not getting into decision making, taste, and judgments in your work as the human creative that's behind the work you're doing, regardless of the tools you use, man, like that's going to be our only savior, I think, in the future as we kind of look at where the industry is going and what our role is going to be. So that's the part

18:15that you need to start showing. So what do you actually do with this? What do you what should you be doing in the next few sets that you're putting together? Maybe it's a case study you're doing. It's a set of of projects or variations or concepts that you're sending out. What should you actually do with this? Well, this isn't about doing more work. I think that's the thing that most people might go, oh, you know, you're just adding so much more that I've got to do and be responsible for. It's not about doing more. It's about revealing more of the work that hopefully you've

18:47already done. Right. Those stuff you've already been doing. Simple shifts like show one rejected idea. I'm seeing that pop up a lot more on different posts and different kind of like stories and stuff like that is show that one that got rejected. Talk about why something didn't work. And I think not only is that just great to share and show the humanity of it, but that's also showing your own growth. I think that's a human side that any potential new client or employer would

19:19love to see. Right. Those are those are decisions that you've made. Add one slide explaining your thinking. You know, where did you change something to go more in line with the brand strategy or to create a brief that was already made? Just like that example I mentioned to you earlier about choosing a typeface instead of just dropping it into a slide. Zoom in on that font, show the characteristics of that font and why they matched everything you are trying to say in your creative brief and in this project in general. You can post a quick breakdown instead of just that final one.

19:55That's it. You're you're just pulling back the curtain a little bit more. And so it's not extra work. It's just going back into the archives, going back into that time where you made a decision. And that that keeps you sharp. I think the other thing I'm thinking of is like, I've got to be more diligent with the way I file all of my concepts and all my revisions and everything else, because when I do need to go back and I want to show more of this human side, more of the process, I will be

20:26much more organized in my files to be able to look through there and be like, boom, there's that one option that I was really pushing. And, you know, I, I took it out because it went so off of the path that we were thinking. So just keep that in mind. You're just pulling back the curtain a little bit

The Four Ps of Modern Design

20:44more. So here's where we're at right now. We're in a good moment where good work seems to be everywhere, right? Tools are leveling the playing field more than ever. And output alone isn't enough anymore. What people are looking for now is proof, process, personality, and perspective. Look at that. Four Ps. That's a new rule here on the Deeply Graphic Design Cast. The four Ps. I'll

21:14repeat them. Proof, process, personality, perspective. Guys, that's, that's everything. That's what will show. They want to see the human behind the work. And the designers who understand that are going to stand out fast. So the call to action, here's the challenge that I want you guys to consider. On your next project, don't just post the final. Show one decision. Show one mistake and one moment where you figured something out. Let's go back and look at that. You're showing one

21:49decision, one mistake, and one moment where the aha moment, where you figured it all out. Because right now, the goal isn't just to make great work. It's to make work that couldn't have come from anyone else. And that starts by proving there's a real person behind it. So I hope you guys enjoyed this. Please comment down below. You've got the YouTube channel. You've got our Instagram post for this. And you've also got everything here that you can comment on the podcast. I'd love to know what

22:19are you doing to kind of show more personality, be more real, and highlight the human behind your work. We'll talk to you guys later. Bye.

22:30If this conversation helped you think a little longer term about your creative career, hit like and subscribe. It helps more than you think. And if you know a creative who's trying to figure out their next move, share this with them. That's how we get this community to grow. Thanks.