It's a vicious cycle. While systems become denser, their energy efficiency has decreased. Devices are getting smaller and smaller, but they are getting hotter.
It's much harder to be an in-house person than an outside person.
We need practice solving problems.
If you haven't read Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways you should be arrested for calling yourself a Designer
Unless you can begin with an interesting problem, it is unlikely you will end up with an interesting solution.
I know that being an in-house person is much, much harder than being outside...that's why I've never had a job.
Counter the effects of culture (steering your design ideas) by going out and looking for new experiences.
How do you do original work when culture is telling you which font face to use, which layout.
When you have something truthful to say, it will design itself.
Be stimulated by rejection
Forget all the rules you ever learned
about graphic design.
Once you have the statement, it will design itself.
There's nothing in my head that's worth anything at all because it's the culture that put it there.
I've never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.
No matter how many times your amazing, absolutely brilliant work is rejected by the client, for whatever dopey, arbitrary reason, there is often another amazing, absolutely brilliant solution possible.
Sometimes it's even better.
The best way way to get a visual image is not to think of a visual image.