Creating for me, not for thee

The Figma frames had become a cage. I needed a jailbreak—something silly, something whimsical. A creative escape just for me (and maybe the friends who’d witness it).

As someone in pursuit of a career in the product and UX/UI design space, I’ve spent countless hours, days, weeks, and months consuming resources to build my skills and perfect my portfolio. Since college—and even before—every time I touched a digital product, all I could think about was usability, accessibility, business metrics, performance, user-friendliness, research, testing… and more testing.

You get the gist.

😣 What was supposed to be creative work felt dry and boring

Even the things that were supposed to be creative felt monotonous. What do you mean every time I design something I have to back it up?

(Don’t worry, future employers—I can back up my design decisions.)

My creative engine had run dry, sputtering on fumes of obligation instead of inspiration. Every task felt like pushing a boulder uphill—while wearing roller skates. “Design is supposed to be fun,” I reminded myself as I coped. “Remember how fun it was when you designed that app? Where did that joy go?”

Sure, I could make a pretty UI, but even opening Figma started to feel overwhelming. Painting and crafting—what used to be my creative outlets—felt distant. Meanwhile, I was scrolling through blog after blog on “how to improve your UX portfolio” as I redesigned it for the fifth time. It was like beating a dead horse. You can only redesign the same thing so many times before even the horse starts giving you side-eye from the afterlife.

I honestly thought I had lost my passion for design.

Was product design even the right career move?

Should I keep grinding toward a path that felt so… empty?

Nothing was working. Not the tutorials. Not the networking. Not the endless practice sessions or pro-dev livestreams. I felt chained to my screen, as if I had to absorb every ounce of design theory until my eyes burned and my brain fizzled out. I wasn’t just burned out—I was a creative desert.

🤩 Seeing design from a different lens: a source of self-expression and joy, not production and business metrics

But then something small cracked through the fog.

Elizabeth Lin’s course The Art of Visual Design reminded me what it felt like to simply explore. There was no client, no stakeholder. Just learning and discovering. When Elizabeth said she saw a theme of “play” in my designs, something clicked. It made sense of everything I’d been making without realizing it.

Every time I designed something, I struggled to define my personal style. Each concept in my portfolio looked wildly different from the last. But once she framed it as “play,” I thought of my unpublished Monopoly-style "About Me" page with interactive elements, spinning profile pictures, floating Figma comment bubbles, and meme-inspired visuals in my case studies. I just want people to smile when they see my work.

Not always because they think, “Wow, this designer is competent,” but maybe just, “Damn, that was kinda funny.”

That realization lit a tiny spark.

As I was working on a bootcamp assignment, my partner asked me to design a personal site for him. Looking for inspiration (and procrastinating just a bit), I browsed siteofsite.co. My eyes were fried from screen time, but then—bam—I landed on Clara Kirkpatrick’s site.

It was whimsical. Full of childlike wonder. I instantly felt a rush of nostalgia and joy. It was the kind of website that you bookmark forever. I’d never doodled seriously before, never explored illustration beyond some half-abandoned sketchbooks. My artistic background was in painting and crafting, and maybe a bit of writing. So this kind of inspiration felt new—and exciting.

Coincidentally, a group of friends and I were planning an upcoming trip. One of them jokingly suggested I make a website for it. At first I laughed it off. But on the way home, the ideas kept coming. And I couldn’t ignore them.

So I thought:

Why not just… make it? And have fun along the way.

📜 So, here were my goals:

1. Make a website with illustrations (or at least illustration-forward design)

2. Practice visual style and image creation through illustration (Clara’s site was my reference and learning guide—apologies if mine feels too similar, this was an experiment!)

3. Make it fun

4. Try Adobe Illustrator and Readymag—two tools I’d been itching to explore

5. HAVE FUN & REIGNITE MY PASSION AGAIN

And oh, did I have fun.

The first animation I created—a little plane flying across the cities I had drawn—had me giggling at my desk. My partner looked up, startled. My fingers tingled with that long-forgotten electricity, and my mind started racing with more ideas. It was just a silly drawing I made in 15 minutes and animated in 3, but I felt pure joy. Like a kid watching cartoons—but better. Because this time, I was the one creating it.

As I kept building, the site became this world of funny easter eggs and interactive bits that I was itching for my friends to find—something between a travel site and a cartoon. I couldn't stop thinking: what’s the next thing I can draw?

I found joy in being creative again—not the justified, stakeholder-approved kind of creativity, but the messy, unfiltered kind. The kind that breaks grid systems. The kind that makes you snort-laugh at 2 AM. The kind that leaves your cheeks sore from smiling.

(I also found out that my style definitely leans into humor. If I can make myself—or you—giggle, I’ve won.)

The clouds recede as the plane flies. A poop emoji hides behind a box. A car drives across illustrated cities. Every scroll felt like a new animation frame. It was like building a children’s book, page by page.

Who knew I was capable of something like this?

🧘 Selfish designs are needed so that we have enough fuel to sustain ourselves in “work”

This wasn’t a portfolio project. This wasn’t for clients.

This was for me—for very selfish reasons.

No anticipated stakeholder management.

No user testing.

No market research.

No “best practices.”

(The site barely works on mobile—so what?)

I just wanted to build a tiny digital world that would make me happy again. And when I saw the smiles on my friends' faces, I felt even more empowered.

As designers, we’re so often focused on solving problems for others. But I truly believe we need to carve out space to create for ourselves too—to make something simply because it makes us feel alive.

This little site helped me reconnect with that spark.

📃 This is a letter for my future self:

When you feel the light of your passion flickering dangerously low, remember this:

Creativity isn’t just in polished portfolios and pixel-perfect prototypes.

It’s hiding in the sketchbook margins.

In silly animations that make no business sense.

In side projects that make you snort-laugh at 2 AM.

Go there. That’s where the fire lives.

That’s where you live.

This isn’t a sponsored plug for Readymag—but honestly, go make a weird little site on there. It’s free and it’s fun.

And lastly, huge thank you to Clara Kirkpatrick. Your work shook me out of a creative rut I didn’t even realize I’d sunk into. You gave me permission to play again.

If you’re reading this and feeling stuck—I hope you find your silly spark too. If you want to get a feel of how the website feels, here's the published site. When I eventually collect all the pictures from my friends, I'll fill up the website gallery!

Thanks for coming along.

See you on the internet,

Felix