Every morning I take the Caltrain to get to work and then every evening I take the train back to my home. During the first few days of my daily commute, I used to notice this building at one of the stations in the route that had three logos of (most likely) web related companies.
The first day I saw them, I forgot I had seen them the next moment. Over time, everytime I looked at them, I used to recognize them, but feel nothing. This is strange because I feel something towards most of the things in my life esepcially if they happen to be related to design. I like them or hate them. But there is always a reaction, a response to the stimulus if you may say. There is always a visceral reaction to most of the things I encounter.
Each day I would wonder why? Soon the 3 logos became an object of curiosity to me. I could not find anything wrong with them, but I could not find anything great about them either. And then it struck me.
They were just average. Just mediocre.
Think about that for a second! Three logos designed by someone and all three just average. It was not the first time I had seen something mediocre but it was the first time I had seen 3 mediocre logos on top of one building in the middle of nowehere.
I think, that is the worst that can happen to a design, a startup or one's life[1]. Just being average or mediocre. Mediocrity leads to apathy. Worst yet, mediocrity prevents you from being able to do amazing things.
If there is one thing you should avoid, it should be mediocrity. Not failure, but mediocrity.
[1] Some friends on Twitter suggested that being mediocre is the key to be happy in life. I might agree with that definition for life, for some types of people. But surely it should never apply to work. There is a difference between being mediocre in life and doing mediocre work in life.