Dear Designer: Why Do I Feel Like an Impostor?
Oh, impostor syndrome! This is one of the most common feelings I hear from our students at ilovecreatives. And I get it.
Some are just starting their design careers. Others have been designers for years. What I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t really matter where you are in your career or what your skill level is. Creative people are constantly looking at where they are, where they want to be, and all the things they still want to get better at.
In a way, I think we creatives are constantly giving ourselves impostor syndrome. You get better, so you want to do something harder. You get bored, so you switch it up. You get burnt out, so you try something new. You see someone making something incredible and think, “I want to learn how to do THAT.” The feeling might never completely go away, but what can change is how we deal with it.
While writing this, I realized I didn’t actually know what impostor syndrome is. Is it a real syndrome? What makes something a syndrome?!
Turns out, the original term was “impostor phenomenon,” coined by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. It’s basically when there’s evidence that you’re capable, but you still have a hard time believing it. Instead, you think: “I got lucky. They liked me. They haven’t realized I don’t know what I’m doing yet.”
It’s not actually a clinical diagnosis, which is why “impostor phenomenon” or “impostor experience” are sometimes preferred to syndrome.
But whatever, we call it impostor syndrome. So there’s that.
My first job, I felt like an impostor
When I got my first job as a junior art director at an advertising agency, I was maybe a two on a skill level from one to 10. My degree was in marketing. I took one advertising class. I barely knew Photoshop or Illustrator. I was a beginner.
Looking back, I was SO slow—I was still learning how to use the Pen tool! I looked at inspiration constantly, but didn’t really understand how to take something I liked and apply it to my own work without copying it. I was surrounded by designers who seemed to know what they were doing while I was still trying to figure out how to design.
So yeah, I felt like an impostor because, in a sense, I kind of was one. Haha.
But what were my options? I didn’t have time to go back to school and get an art direction degree. I already had the job; I needed to keep the job. Plus, there was a creative brief sitting right in front of me that I needed to finish.
I stopped asking myself, “Am I a designer?” and instead asked, “How do I get better at this?”
Changing the question is the thing that has helped me through pretty much every impostor phase of my creative career.
The Gap by Ira Glass
“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.”
I talk about “The Gap” by Ira Glass all the time because it has made me feel so seen.
The idea behind Glass’s message is that when you’re starting out, you probably already have good taste. You know what you like. Your mood boards are great. You know what good work looks like.
And that’s actually what makes it so frustrating, because then you sit down to design and what comes out doesn’t match what’s in your head. That space between your taste and what you’re capable of making right now is the gap.
I was like, THAT’S ME!
I came across “The Gap” after I quit my job at the good ol’ Saturn return age of 27. You know, when you’re figuring out what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.
Even, at age 22, the gap was very clear. The next step was asking: “How do I close it?”
My senior art director, Kelly, was so fast. She’d look at inspiration and start making things. She would try a bunch of ideas and keep all of her comps (i.e., compositions or versions) visible. She wasn’t constantly editing herself while she was trying to come up with the idea.
Watching her work was probably more helpful than looking at a hundred completed designs.
That was the aha moment for me. The work was messy and iterative, not magical. It made getting better feel tangible.
It’s also one of the reasons I teach the way I do now. During student reviews, I’ll sometimes open Figma or Squarespace and actually work through something live so students can see the entire process. Other times, we figure out what the gap is and talk through what to do next.
What’s your gap?
Now when one of our students tells me they have impostor syndrome, I want to know what they actually mean.
Maybe you don’t think your designs are good enough yet. Maybe you’ve never presented your work to a client. Maybe you’re changing careers and everyone else seems like they have more experience. Maybe you’re scared someone’s going to hire you and ask you to do something you don’t know how to do.
The more specific you can get when identifying your gap, the better. Once you can get specific about what the gap actually is, it’s easier to figure out what to do next.
“I’m an impostor,” is really hard to work on. “I don’t think my portfolio is attracting the clients I want,” is something you can tackle.
If you’re still feeling stuck, it’s helpful to find someone who’s already done the thing you’re trying to do and see how they’d approach it.
And yes, reaching out to someone who seems way better than you can make you feel like an impostor all over again. Try anyway! You never know who’s willing to help or how their ideas will inspire you.
It’s also one of the things I love about the Squarespace Circle community. If you’re stuck on something, chances are another Circle partner has gone through that same thing. Start by posting your question in the Circle Forum and see how designers and developers with varying degrees of experience respond.
Plot twist, I’m still an impostor
I still say yes to things I don’t know how to do. I did it last week! The difference now is that I trust myself to figure it out.
I think Squarespace designers—whether you’re ready to call yourself that or not—are pretty good at figuring things out. Many Squarespace designers I know got started because a friend, family member, or partner needed a website, and they thought, “Sure, I can probably figure that out.” Then they did.
That takes curiosity, persistence, and a whole lot of troubleshooting!
So the next time you feel impostor syndrome (because as creative people it’s inevitable) look for the gap and ask: “How can I bridge it?”
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