Some days I look around my studio and wonder if I’m a fine artist who can do brand work, a commercial artist with a poetic streak, or just a designer who can’t pick a lane. The truth is, I’ve never really known where the line is between the “art” on the gallery wall and the logo I spent three days kerning until my eyes went blurry.

After three decades as a graphic artist, commercial creative, and unapologetic people-watcher, I’ve learned the struggle isn’t just about making the thing—it’s about making sense of who you are while you’re doing it. My browser history swings between Bauhaus retrospectives, offbeat Instagram sketchers, and corporate brand guides. I can sketch raw anxiety in the morning and turn around and design a tourism campaign before lunch. The only thing consistent is the creative turbulence. And the coffee.

Art schools, client briefs, and internet gurus love to ask, “What’s your style?” as if it’s something you can hang in the closet and pull out when needed. But style, for people like us, is more like weather—unpredictable, moody, prone to sudden changes, and sometimes hilariously inappropriate for the occasion. Some days I’m all monochrome, all restraint. Other days I’m wild colour, crooked lines, and brutal honesty. Most days, it’s a blend of both.

The graphic designer in me is obsessed with clarity, balance, the elegance of negative space. The fine artist wants to make a mess, dig for meaning, paint over what doesn’t feel honest. The commercial side wants the client to smile and the project to land on time, preferably under budget. It’s like having a boardroom in my head where everyone’s fighting over the same blank page.

And yet, the longer I do this, the less interested I am in putting myself in a box. What’s the point? The gallery opening and the pitch deck are both just spaces where you try to connect, to tell a story that matters to someone other than yourself. The style is in the fingerprints, not the formula.

My biggest breakthroughs—the work I remember—never happened because I nailed some particular “look.” They happened because I let myself get lost, confused, even a little embarrassed by what came out. A few years back, I finished a campaign for a tourism brand in the morning and, that same night, lost myself in a painting that looked nothing like my portfolio. That’s when I realised: maybe the only real style is relentless honesty.

The existential crisis of the paintbrush (or the mouse, or the Sharpie, or the napkin sketch) is realizing that your “style” isn’t one thing. It’s a living, shifting, sometimes infuriating collection of everything you’ve seen, everything you care about, and all the mistakes you’re willing to admit.

So I keep showing up—some days a commercial artist, some days a fine artist, always a work in progress. If you’re out there, wrestling with your own messy style, here’s my advice: let the work be bigger than the label. Let the crisis drive you to try something new. Your style isn’t what you show; it’s what you reveal.

Pour another coffee, open a new document, or ruin another canvas. The world doesn’t need another cookie-cutter. It needs your confusion, your curiosity, and your willingness to get it wrong—until you get it right.