It’s June 2016 and I am preparing to give the most important presentation of my entire life.
It's the final presentation of my Master's in Architecture degree and six years of university education, along with £50k worth of student debt, is resting on this moment. I also know that half of the teaching staff think that I am a genius (and want to give me a distinction) and half of them think that my project isn't "proper architecture" and that I should be failed outright.
You see, my final year project is unconventional, and I am the sort of person that normally wants to do everything by the book. You know, succeed at school, get everything right, get top marks etc. This is why it particularly hurt when, one month earlier, I had already had the most damning response to a draft of my work that I had ever had in my entire life. It seemed like my project was doomed to fail, bringing with it the shame of failing university and returning home with no future prospects.
As I later found out, my tutor, George, told me that the aftermath of that mock presentation was the moment he knew I was onto something great. Because the first thing I said to him after that experience was:
"I don't care if they fail me—I'm doing this project the way it needs to be done, and to give it the justice it deserves."
Now let me tell you something about architecture students, because they are built differently from everyone else. They are willing to work 18 hours a day, every day of the year (my tutor, Adam, even worked on Christmas Day), to infuse as much meaning, depth and beauty into their work as they possibly can. They also subject themselves to being humiliated in front of their peers by the teaching staff, and they do all of this for a career that only just pays above the average salary in the UK. When I graduated after my first degree, I could have earned more money stacking shelves in my local supermarket than working in architecture. You see, we do it for something else. And when you stand up to give that final presentation of all of this gruelling work, there is something much more personal on the line.
So, when it came to that final presentation, I put everything I could into it. I created the project that needed to be created, without fear - regardless of whether a few people wanted to fail me because I didn’t meet their narrow expectations.
I later found out there was an argument about my work during the marking process. Half of the teaching staff did still want to fail me. But the group that wanted me to have a distinction won the argument. And not only that, I found out that my project had been selected to be the university's nomination for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Presidents Medals.
This was an extremely powerful moment for me. You see, the Presidents Medals are the highest possible honour bestowed to students of architecture. Each year, universities from across the world select two of their best students to be nominated for the awards. And most of the awards are won by an elite set of architecture schools in and around London.
Nobody from my little university had ever won anything before. So when I started my course six years earlier, as a fresh-faced 18 year old, I had set myself the challenge of being a winner of one of those awards.
And I won one of them.
This resulted in me attending a lavish awards ceremony at the RIBA in London, I was featured in the press, and I was now able to write a uniquely strong CV.
(And the teaching staff that wanted to fail me started singing my praises on social media)
A few months later, having left university and started work, I quickly realised that the role of an architect was going to be too limiting for me. I didn't want to draw up details for toilets, I wanted to make films, take beautiful photographs, create amazing websites and help to build extraordinary businesses.
I became a creative freelancer for hire, working with companies to create assets for their marketing and advertising. In every instance, I tried to exceed my clients' expectations and deliver a finished project that not only met their brief, but tried to go a little bit further.
As time passed though, and I started to complete more and more work, I couldn't help but think that there was a different way of approaching all of these projects. Ways that were more unconventional, but had the potential of being far more interesting and effective to audiences.
However, I kept finding that my hands were tied. I couldn't change the context I was working in and ultimately, too many of my clients weren’t really very interested in my ideas.
I raised this with a business mentor — who told me the world is what it is and you can't change what people want.
I challenged prospective clients to try and expand their brief to something more interesting — and lost the work to more conventional competitors.
And time and time again, my ideas were overruled or diluted. This resulted in projects that met the brief, were conventional, familiar and safe — but were ultimately boring and forgettable.
I knew in my heart these projects could have gone so much further — if given the right conditions and if I was able to be more confident in myself.
Contrast this with the projects where I did have full creative control:
A website for a pair of forward-thinking architects, who encouraged me to create a puzzle game which actively disqualified anyone that wanted a more conventional architect (and who seem to always have more work than they know what to do with).
A weekly email marketing list which had a 90-95% read rate every single week (most marketers get excited about a 17-28% read rate)
And a short film that was so powerful for one family, they played it multiple times around the deathbed of their husband and father who died far too young. They did this because it gave them the strength to get through the worst moment of their entire life.
This made me realise two things:
People have very different criteria for success — many people are just happy with that simple video or website they have in mind. But that's not me; and
I haven't found enough of the right people who are ready for my way of thinking yet. But I can go and find them.
Eventually, one day, I thought I had landed my dream client. They were really happy with what I was doing and were giving me more and more responsibility.
I could see all of the different ways I could help their business and I had a million more ideas of all the things I could do to make them extraordinary.
I put all of my years of learning and experience into a project for them that was so nuanced, so calibrated, so unconventional, so beautiful, only to hit a brick wall.
I was knocked back and instructed to follow their way and what they wanted to do.
This left me with a tricky problem. Because they were asking me to do the very thing I had been learning not to do. The very thing that, because of previous clients intervening, had led to so many projects meeting the brief, but being boring and forgettable.
So, I knew I needed to change something.
I wrote this story to try and improve things. Maybe not right now, in the moment of writing, but hopefully for the future.
To find the clients that do want my way of thinking, my approach and everything I can do for them.
And the process of writing reminded me of that time when I said to my tutor, George:
"I don't care if they fail me—I'm doing this project the way it needs to be done, and to give it the justice it deserves."
I knew that, although the principle of doing the right thing for a project would involve taking the much harder personal path—a path that would require very specific clients—it was the only path I could take.
So I took it.
Let me know what you think: hello@nativeorigin.co.uk