The 50 Things Every Creative Should Know

"There is always someone better. Regardless of how good you are, there will always be someone better. It's surprisingly easy to waste time worrying about this."

The above is an example of Jamie Wieck's primer "The 50 Things Every Creative Should Know". It's advice for those making the transition from design college to the professional world and is touted as "the first fully-Tweetable primer for graduating creatives."

Many of the entries (including fun illustrations) are sound advice no matter your chosen profession. For example…

"You cannot score without a goal. If you don’t know what you want, then how can you pursue it? Having a goal defines an end point, and subsequently, a place to start."

But many are specifically geared towards creatives such as...

"Curate your work. Never stop editing your portfolio. Three strong pieces are better than ten weak ones – nobody looks for quantity, just quality."

And…

"Seek criticism, not praise. You learn nothing by being told how great you are. Even if you think your work’s perfect – seek criticism, you can always ignore it."

"Never work for free. Working for free not only devalues the profession, but it makes you look weak. Even a ‘nice’ client will take advantage of this."

"Don't take yourself too seriously. Take your work seriously, take the business of your craft seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. People who do are laughed at."

There's more where that came at www.the-50.org.