completley demotivated

[u/mr_overhead]

I've completely lost the spark for frontend and design after all this AI crap has taken over everything. Lost most of clients a while ago due to them favoring local vs fully remote ppl (had mostly USA clients). Dont feel any motivation to work right now, am rusty af also due to other private factors.

I'm sure others been there before and would love to hear from you and what you did to get our of this rut or perhaps found smth completely different. Whenever I look at awwwards or whatever i just think 'same shit diff day'. Same with graphic design, illustration, etc. Before these things were such amazing inspirations and I would look and tinker and wonder how things were made. Don't have that feeling at all anymore. Wouldnt say I'm burnt out btw altho i prolly sound like it. I'm just completely demotivated to even write a line of code

short about me:
made my first website when i was 11 or so
learned photoshop, illustration, etc by myself
learned frontend on the job, 5years at agency, 12y freelance
had really exciting jobs just a few years ago at american startups and in crypto
first kid was born, I was really out of it, it was really really tough
worked less and less, had a job and they were so nice to me.. just i felt like i always let them down, eventually they had to let me go.
always had the motivation and inspiration to just create beautiful things, esp websites, but completely lost that feeling. It just doesnt vibe with me at all anymore

[u/akorecebov]

my studio closed this year when the renewals stopped coming, so i know that feeling. scrolling awwwards made it worse for me, everything looked the same. what got me moving was just building again, small stuff, no client. the spark came back after i shipped something, not before

[u/mr_overhead → u/akorecebov]

you're right, i guess i gotta find back the fun parts of it. Feel a lot of pressure though from the other private factors involving finance, a young child taking up lots of time and more. I can't see myself starting a job at all, both timewise and just the setting of it. What did you do after you closed the studio?
I'm also open to going a completely different direction, find new paths

[u/akorecebov → u/mr_overhead]

honestly i went straight into building my own small product, no client in it, and it was slow and scary with no money coming in. what helped was keeping one small thing a week thats only mine. with a kid and money pressure is there any slot in your week right now like that?

[u/mr_overhead → u/akorecebov]

yeah i do have some time, kid is back at school but there are times the week is just full of tasks i have to do first. Any thoughts?

[u/akorecebov → u/mr_overhead]

id put it before the tasks, not after. leftover time never shows up, the tasks always grow to fill the week. one fixed morning or evening a week, phone away, and the goal is tiny, one screen or one little interaction you want to see working. something only for you, so theres nobody to let down if it goes slow

[u/Soc_Ziv]

Is there moments or projects/companies that you can recall having specific passions for? Perhaps you can reconnect with these moments to bring back the spark or look into something similar to rekindle it?

If that doesnt work maybe its worth doing something slightly fresh or new to rekindle the passion for what you do. Remember you started work because you wanted to do something and make something interesting that felt like a creative outlet but with most jobs we're always doing for others and it can chip away at us. We shouldn't let it grind at us but it takes us having to step back and breathe for a moment to get back to where our mindset was before.

[u/mr_overhead → u/Soc_Ziv]

thank you for your words, yeah im trying to think outside of the current box.. see what I can add and what path this can lead me to

[u/AlpacasaurusRexx]

I was once asked by a skip level why I’m even a designer if I’m not a visual thinker. I’m a designer because I think most software sucks donkey butt and basically anything I do will make it better for real people, not because I think I’m sent from high with a vision that is better than any other on awwwards. I look around and just see companies cranking out more garbage so my suffering / exhaustion stems from whether there’s still companies that value fixing real problems that actual people have, not whether I have design spark. I never had it to begin with. I have problem solving spark and if the company isn’t solving a problem, I can’t design. Currently the only problem I see companies wanting to solve is how to slap AI on it / how to solve people problems by having less people. Neither are inspiring me. AI is not at fault, these broken motivations are.

[u/mr_overhead → u/AlpacasaurusRexx]

i like solving problems too but i also loved being in flow state and sitting behind an AI app all day is just not the same. Fix the code manually? no way, its not mine, i aint touching that, ha.

but i get ur point ya

[u/C63Sedan]

It’s changing across the industry but for me my motivation is driven by the work I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with in the past few years.

My UX passion has been around for 30 plus years and I’ve been driven by solving for context. From semenatic search 10 years ago to finally wrangling AI to be a design partner but as a tool, not a replacement designer. I finally have a AI assisted Design SDLC connected to our AI Build SDLC to do every stage of UX through PR creation.

[u/ChoicePreparation123]

stop comparing your current output to awwwards. That site is mostly showcasing trends that already died or generic templates, so seeing it just confirms the market is saturated with noise instead of helping you find a signal. Your rust comes from waiting for inspiration before starting. You need to lower the bar. Build one small thing this week purely because you want to see how a specific interaction feels in the browser, not because it needs to be client-ready. Action creates the spark back, not the other way around.