Is the work you put out a reflection of who you are as a person? Can it be easily replicated by someone else? Can an AI come up with the work that you produce to a similar level?
AI has changed everything. It’s easy for it to generate code, artwork, or plan your holiday. They’re getting better and better each day with OpenAI’s recent GPT-o1 release being described as the best to date with its ability to “reason”.
There are a lot of jobs that are now being automated or handled by an AI, meaning less human labour is required.
This means that more people will start to look towards different ways of making a living, one that aligns with who they are if they can help it.
More people will start to become internet creators as the creator economy continues to grow daily. You can make a lot of money whilst having a lot of autonomy going this route and it has a very low barrier to entry, only requiring a mobile phone and internet connection to get started.
The only caveat is that it is incredibly difficult to grow or stand out in the creator economy.
Everyone will be competing for everyone’s attention on the internet. So, most people will copy what works or jump on trends to stand out and become known.
This problem has been around before the internet.
It’s no different from what has been going on in the art world for centuries except that artists back then didn’t have an internet connection. Think about it:
How many artists have there been since the beginning of time?
How many are still remembered by society today?
Not just in art, but we still see this today in design and fashion.
Honestly, it doesn’t matter what creative industry you’re in. It will always be difficult to stand out uniquely, especially when very few others have accomplished this.
This can cause creatives to become afraid of expressing themselves through their work or to be bold. They don’t want their work to be skipped instantly like a YouTube Ad. That is completely reasonable. I wouldn’t want genuine work that is an expression of who I am to be looked at as something worthless.
However, as a result, they stick to producing work that is standard, safe, tried, and tested. The work they produce may or may not reflect who they are; they wouldn’t be able to tell you since they are focused on doing what works. Since they aren’t continuously pushing themselves or learning new things through doing original work, their creative juices stop flowing as well as they used to.
This is why Design Zindagi was created.
We want you to be able to draw from your genuine interests and curiosities within your work with the right tools and resources to do so.
Escape mediocrity through the originality that lies within you. This originality is something that everyone has and is what we call niches.
To understand what this is, you first need to:
Understand your authentic self
This is the version of yourself where you, as a person, are aligned with your values, morals, and desires. This is reflected in every aspect of your life from your personality to your career to your fashion.
In a sense, the authentic self can be thought of as the ideal version of ourselves that we are always working towards becoming.
Being authentic also means doing things that truly bring you joy.
A good way of probing into who your authentic self is through your niches or in simpler terms, your dreams, passions, hobbies, and interests.
Your niche interests – quirky passions and obscure hobbies – are more than just fun diversions. They're the secret ingredients that can transform your work from ordinary to extraordinary. Here's why:
Unique Perspective: Your niche interests give you a lens through which you see the world differently from others.
Deep Knowledge: The time you've invested in your passions translates to expertise that others don't have.
Genuine Enthusiasm: When you incorporate what you love, your work becomes infused with authentic energy.
When you've identified your niche interests, you now need to express them in a way that is authentic to you.
Exploring Mediums of Expression (For Your Niche Interests)
This is a phrase that we like to use to describe how you express yourself whether it be creatively as a hobby or through the form of a career. Here are some examples of what are considered mediums of expression:
Computer Programming
Creative Writing
Music
Dance
Design
Filmmaking
Acting
Fashion
Drawing
Painting
Electronics / Mechanics
Cooking
Public Speaking
Content Creation
Entrepreneurship
And plenty more!
Identify the best medium for you to express your niche interests.
Mediums of expression allow you to channel your inspirations and interests to create something and share it at scale. This ties in heavily with the idea of leverage, which we discussed in this article.
Leveraging your niche interests
When you’ve discovered your medium(s) of expression, this is where you can get truly creative. It’s about taking whatever you enjoy and exploring unseen connections between your niches and medium allowing for creativity to blossom.
There is a particular individual we’d like to highlight who did this quite well and that person is Steve Jobs:
He wasn’t an electronics engineer or designer by trade but was very business-savvy and curious. He dabbled in all sorts of niches including Calligraphy and Zen Buddhism.
Calligraphy is something he discovered whilst a college student. He was originally enrolled at Reed College but dropped out after one semester. He still took classes there, including a class on calligraphy taught by Robert Palladino.
"The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting."
This experience would go on to influence the types of fonts used on the Apple Macintosh, paving the way and setting the standard for how typography is done on computers:
The original fonts on the Macintosh (Source: Wikipedia)
Jobs described it as such:
“None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.”
This is something that can’t be easily replicated as this was a result of Steve’s unique experiences that came from his niche interests making him unique in his own right.
Finding your niche
That doesn’t mean we can’t take the same approach he did and apply it to our lives. You can start this right now by:
Listing your top 3 niche interests
Identifying 2-3 mediums you're skilled in or want to explore.
Brainstorming different ways to combine your interests with these mediums
Choosing your favourite idea and starting a project based on that.
In the future, we will dive deeper into this framework which we call the Zindagi method.
Has this given you any ideas for new projects to try? We’d love to hear them below in the comments!
Until next time,
Design Zindagi Team
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