wake-up call

oh my god......i've become stagnant. My design has become ubelievably boring and predictable. What awoke me to this realization? Where do I go from here? These are all questions going through my head. I received some advice from an art director friend of mine from back east who is now working here early this morning. Normally I would get my back up at such criticism....but in this particular case I respect this guy and know for a fact that he is a fucking good designer. Also...his advice was true. I sent him a letter and my resume asking if he knew of any jobs open around the city. He wrote back giving me a few job postings and some advice. The advice was concerning my resume. Now....I've had this resume for some time and I didn't put much stock in redesigning it. Since then I've added more stuff...but it's also become cluttered and busy. There was a time I'd look at something like that and say....what the hell am I doing? I can do better than this. I looked at my resume and agreed. It's reeally bad. And i've been sending this out for the last 6 months. Now....really...only one thing doesn't lead to being stagnant....but as I was walkinng along Queen Street and began thinking about my design in the last year. I'm repeating myself! I'm safe in my design! My god.....my website forms haven't changed in a couple of years! It's funny....before I knew the methodology of buidling a website, my design (although raw) wasn't so rectangular. I was actually able to design outside of a box. Everything is so structured now. Really...since I've been out of the design loop, and unemployed, my interest for tryinng has dropped. I used to nitpick and criticize my work. it's gotten to the point that I just want to do it and get it done. I really need to step back and look at stuff around me.....try to get inspired again. I need to get out of this creative rut. Starting with my website. I had done a version some time ago with the notion i was going to redesign verge.ca . I've now come to the conclusion that I'm throwing that out. I'm going to make the most imaginative design i've done in a long time. Here's hoping it works.