At some point later in my design career, I stumbled onto an interesting philosophical perspective regarding my work and how it defines (or doesn’t define) me. As a designer, I think it’s natural tendency to feel our value is commensurate with whatever we are working on at a given time. We want it to be creatively challenging and fulfilling, and to encapsulate our skills, our tastes, and our value, particularly if it’s a long-term project we’re expected to commit months or even years to. On the other hand, if we’re working on something perhaps tedious or less visible, it can feel like a slog, a waste of time that never ends. But a couple decades into my design journey, I discovered an analogy that seemed like a healthier way to think about the work that comprises my own career arc…

The Director’s Lens  I’ve been a fan of Alfred Hitchcock’s films for nearly as long as I’ve loved the Beatles, which is saying something. My first critical exposure to his work was an undergrad Comparative Lit class I took called “How to Read a Film,” where we were given an assignment to discuss his implementation of narrative point of view in the film Suspicion, starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. I became deeply immersed in both the assigment and the film, which led me down a rabbit hole of digging deeper into Hitchcock’s filmography. Mind you, this was before the streaming era, so if it wasn’t available at the video rental shop or broadcast on linear TV, I was out of luck. To date, I’ve seen most of his films but not all, which is kind of cool actually, since it means there are still unseen treasures for me to discover.

On a separate tangent, one day I was daydreaming about “definitive works” of prominent figures in the arts; In other words, If I could only pick one piece to epitomize the life’s work of a given artist in any field, what might it be? For example, van Gogh’s Starry Night is universally recognized as both well-known and generally representative of his accomplishments. For the band Queen, it might be Bohemian Rhapsody. And so on. 

However, when I tried to apply this idea to Hitchcock, I got stuck. Rear Window is my all-time favorite film, but I’d be hard pressed to recommend it as a singular entry to represent his career. It’s a masterpiece built on themes of voyeurism and restricted space, but it’s so entirely different than even his other well-known films. In contrast, consider something like Psycho, a gritty modernist slasher film that fundamentally changed the horror genre. And the there’s Rope, a brilliant technical experiment produced to play out as a single continuous scene. These are just a few examples of the diversity of stylistic and narrative liberties Hitchcock embraced throughout his career. He is the sum of his experiments, his technical obsessions, and his evolution. To truly understand him, you have no choice but to consider his entire filmography.  

Self-Reflection When I shifted my perspective to try to imagine my own career in a similar way, it was eye opening and liberating. I stopped seeing projects as “successes” or “failures” and started seeing them as frames in a sequence.

• Projects become experiments: Instead of “Will this be my best work?” the question becomes “What can I learn here that adds to my toolkit?”

• Versatility becomes a signature: Much like Hitchcock moved from silent film to Technicolor, moving between “creative lanes”—from UX to 3D to physical making—isn’t a lack of focus. It’s building a richer filmography.

• The “Accrual” of Craft: Every project is an opportunity to let new skills accrue. Over time, these individual frames stitch together to create a professional reputation that has depth, soul, and a distinct “voice.”

The Long Game The beauty of the Hitchcock analogy is that it grants you permission to be curious. It allows you to “break things” and iterate in small, concrete steps. In the end, you aren’t defined by the one project that went viral or the one title on your business card. You are defined by the thread that connects everything you’ve built. You aren’t just a practitioner; you are the auteur of a life of work.