“I suffer from Imposter Syndrome, but everyone thinks I’m just pretending…”
Mr Bean’s ‘repair’ to Whistler’s portrait of his mother.
Imposter Syndrome - the inescapable feeling that you’re blagging it, and that very soon, somone’s going to find you out…
Imposter syndrome is a subject that’s come up a lot with my students over the years. It comes up with my peers too.
In the creative industries, where there’s often no objectively right answer to a brief, the unsettling feeling that you’re ‘blagging it’ can be a debilitating problem.
There’s probably not much to say about imposter syndrome that hasn’t already been said. LinkedIn is awash with advice on how to recognise it, deal with it, or just remind you that if you suffer from it, you’re not alone.
I suffer from it too. You’d think that having spent my working life as a designer, I’d be hardened against it, secure in my own skills. However, I often second guess my creative decisions or compare myself unfavourably to my contemporaries.
In many ways, that’s actually a good thing. Over-confidence often begets arrogance, which suggests a fear of weakness, rather than a victory over it.
I love the occasions when I teach at Cardiff Metropolitan, because being in front of students makes me re-analyse the value of my skills and experience. I have to look harder for relevance every year, as new students will always be the same age, but I get a year older – the distance increases over time.
I talk frequently about the importance of a wide gamut of knowledge, and how drawing connections between disparate topics helps bolster good design decisions. With AI democratising the ability to produce polished visual decoration, the importance of embedded, resonant narratives in design is paramount. This can amplify imposter syndrome, because it puts the emphasis on the designer’s subjective, personal decisions, rather than on ‘objective’ visual decoration.
Over Easter, we spent a few nights in my in-laws lodge in West Wales with no internet, and a small collection of DVDs to watch.
Denied the opportunity to channel surf, my kids fall back on a few perennial favourites, one of which is ‘Mr Bean’s Ultimate Disaster Movie’.
I love to find meaning in the seemingly meaningless, but even I was surprised to find that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Mr Beans Ultimate Disaster Movie had something profound to say about imposter syndrome, and the importance of being alive to the world around you.
If you’ve been unfortunate enough to miss this cinematic gem; Mr Bean is an attendant at a London art gallery – on the brink of dismissal, but protected by a benevolent chairman. When an American gallery asks for secondment to oversee the acquisition of the famous ‘Whistler’s Mother’, they take the opportunity to get Bean out of their hair for a few weeks, despite him being completely unsuitable for the post.
Bean is way out of his depth in both the USA and the gallery. Events snowball. He trashes the property, marriage and career of his host (gallery curator David Langley, played by Peter MacNicol), and ruins Whistler’s painting hours before it’s public unveiling.
It’s excruciating. My kids roll about laughing. My wife and I squirm. Eli Roth takes notes.
The conceit of Rowan Atkison’s character, and the key to its success, is that Mr Bean rarely speaks. The comedy lies in Atkinson’s rubbery expressions and old school physical slapstick. This works well in sketch format but gets unwieldy in a feature length film. However, it’s interesting that Bean’s only sustained dialogue comes at 2 pivotal points in the film – a climactic scene where he tries to bring Langley’s daughter back to consciousness following a motorbike accident, and his public speech about Whistler’s Mother.
Interestingly, my eldest son, who’s autistic, is always at his most eloquent when he’s angry or upset - communication kicks in when it matters.
I find the speech fascinating. Having spent much of the film in slack-jawed panic, Bean has an epiphany about Whistler’s relationship with his mother. He reflects on the time spent with his host and the importance of family. The comparison is made poignant by the fact that Nicholl’s home and career have been brought to near ruin by Bean’s presence.
Bean’s attempts to cover up his fraudulent ineptitude translate into an emotional and profound speech. He is a fraud and an imposter, yet he manages to see things within Whistler’s famous painting that more learned and experienced people fail to grasp. His ineptitude and panic are a source of profundity, rather than a barrier to it.
When I stand in front of students, or see the work of my contemporaries, and imposter syndrome bites, I take it as a cue to step back from myself and ask the question “What is this feeling telling me to focus on?” If it’s a skill or process that I’m lacking, then I make it my business to rectify that. If it’s something more oblique, like an idea or a viewpoint, then I look to how my experience and knowledge relates to that idea, and what unique perspective I can consider.
Unless you’ve outright lied on your CV, imposter syndrome isn’t often about lack of skill. It’s more about situational awareness, and failing to spot the connections between who you are, and where you are.
Like Mr Bean, we may sometimes feel like imposters - out of our depth and winging it. But that feeling is an opportunity to see something through a wider lens – to apply disparate personal experiences to an area where we feel inadequate, and by doing so, create connections that put anxieties into context. Context is the net that connects our ideas and opinions to the wider world. If you can design with context, then you have validity and clarity, and that’s definitely not the work of an imposter.
Sometimes, all you have to do is sit and look at the paintings.