The delete key is too easy to reach
You had something. It was strange, a little uncomfortable and it did not look like anything you had made before. So you selected all and hit delete. Within ten minutes you were back on familiar ground, working in a direction that felt reasonable and safe and completely forgettable. This happens so often in design work that most people have stopped noticing it. The moment something feels too different, the instinct to kill it arrives before any real evaluation does. That instinct is not quality control. It is self-protection dressed up as judgment.
Discomfort is not the same as wrong
When a concept makes you nervous, that feeling deserves a second look before you act on it. Nervousness about a design direction usually means one of two things: the idea genuinely does not work, or it works so well that it threatens your usual way of doing things. Those two situations feel identical in the moment. The only way to tell them apart is to stay with the idea long enough to actually test it rather than reacting to the feeling it produces.
What you replace it with is rarely better
The concept you reach for after deleting the uncomfortable one is almost always a retreat. It is the version that looks like work you have already done, work that has already been approved, work that already exists somewhere in a portfolio or a mood board or a competitor's website. It is easier to defend in a client meeting. It is easier to explain. It is also less interesting, less specific and less likely to solve the actual problem in a way that sticks. The safer version gets the job done in the same way that a vending machine gets lunch done. Technically fine. Completely uninspiring. You will not remember making it.
Give the strange idea one more hour
Before you delete anything that makes you uncomfortable, set a timer. Work the idea forward for one hour without judging whether it belongs in the final deliverable. Treat it like a sketch, not a commitment. Most ideas that feel wrong at five minutes start revealing their logic at forty. The ones that still feel wrong after a full hour of honest effort probably are wrong. But the ones that start opening up deserve more than a nervous reflex.
You had something. It was strange, a little uncomfortable and it did not look like anything you had made before. So you selected all and hit delete. Within ten minutes you were back on familiar ground, working in a direction that felt reasonable and safe and completely forgettable. This happens so often in design work that most people have stopped noticing it. The moment something feels too different, the instinct to kill it arrives before any real evaluation does. That instinct is not quality control. It is self-protection dressed up as judgment.
Discomfort is not the same as wrong
When a concept makes you nervous, that feeling deserves a second look before you act on it. Nervousness about a design direction usually means one of two things: the idea genuinely does not work, or it works so well that it threatens your usual way of doing things. Those two situations feel identical in the moment. The only way to tell them apart is to stay with the idea long enough to actually test it rather than reacting to the feeling it produces.
The moment something feels too different, the instinct to kill it arrives before any real evaluation does. That instinct is self-protection.
What you replace it with is rarely better
The concept you reach for after deleting the uncomfortable one is almost always a retreat. It is the version that looks like work you have already done, work that has already been approved, work that already exists somewhere in a portfolio or a mood board or a competitor's website. It is easier to defend in a client meeting. It is easier to explain. It is also less interesting, less specific and less likely to solve the actual problem in a way that sticks. The safer version gets the job done in the same way that a vending machine gets lunch done. Technically fine. Completely uninspiring. You will not remember making it.
Most ideas that feel wrong at five minutes start revealing their logic at forty.
Give the strange idea one more hour
Before you delete anything that makes you uncomfortable, set a timer. Work the idea forward for one hour without judging whether it belongs in the final deliverable. Treat it like a sketch, not a commitment. Most ideas that feel wrong at five minutes start revealing their logic at forty. The ones that still feel wrong after a full hour of honest effort probably are wrong. But the ones that start opening up deserve more than a nervous reflex.