This week: some mountain photographs I love, Hope Gangloff's gritty portraits, a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, a very sensual logotype, and one more electronica song. Inspiration log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
Read MoreHow dissecting the anatomy of a creative project can help you bring it to life. Questions to ask yourself: What is essential to its existence as a self-sustaining thing? What does it need in order to go out into the world and connect with other people?
Read MoreThis week: Marc Johns's playful, funny drawings, The 100 Day Project, photography of a mail order sex doll by June Korea, The Time Well Spent movement, and a poem from Don Paterson. Inspiration log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
Read MoreWhy and how I strived to break the wake up-check phone impulse, and created more mindful, focused mornings. This rule has made the biggest difference in my productivity and wellbeing.
Read MoreThis week: analog data postcards, minimalist hand-lettering, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Degas at MoMa, and a beautiful clock. Inspiration log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
Read MoreWhen I first started doing creative projects, I would often get sucked into this corrosive cycle— grandiosity, inertia, guilt— and eventually become paralyzed. In this post, I write about how the paralysis happens, why it happens, and some strategies I've used to overcome it.
Read MoreThis week: a romantic image from a 1950 film, intricate hand lettering from Tanamachi Studios, Sunday morning figure studies, an all-female production of the Taming of the Shrew, and some indie music I loved in high school. Inspiration Log is a weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
Read MoreThis week in Inspiration Logs: a Parisian illustration and design studio, drawings of grief from Anders Nilson, Alvin Ailey, a weekend exploring color theory, and a song from The Beach. Inspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that's touched me creatively.
Read MoreWhen you’re driven and ambitious, the natural thing to do is to set really high standards, and be hard on yourself until you reach them. Growing up, I dreaded — then learned to love — unsmiling, disciplinarian Chinese or Russian-style teachers. The standard was perfection. Good work wasn’t to be rewarded, it was to be expected!
But since graduation, getting a 9-5 job, quitting my 9-5 job, starting a business, and growing into myself as a full-time creative, I’ve changed my mind about the way I frame hard work and expectations.
Read MoreAs a creative, it’s at first hard to think about (let alone talk about) the idea of building your “personal brand” without feeling like you’re full of bogus. It has something to do with a fear of conveying an inflated sense of self-importance, only to have someone tell you hey, you’re not as good / interesting / talented / cool as you think you are.
Doing the work is already hard enough, without the pressure of needing to constantly prove and promote yourself. While creative work originates from a deep place, the idea of conveying a “personal brand” comes off as superficial, salesy, and pushy. But it doesn’t have to.
Read MoreThis week's inspiration logs include The Ones We Love, a photography collection exploring human connection, passages from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, art-deco street typography, and Max Richter's Vivaldi Recomposed. Inspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that's thrilled me creatively.
Read MoreThis past spring, I took a Typography class at SVA with Jason Heuer, who was previously an art director at Simon and Schuster. I must have finally recovered from the depleting experience that was college, cause I took notes like a madmen, and felt hungry enough to absorb all the knowledge and actually put it into practice.
In this post, I’ve gone through my scribbles to synthesize everything I learned from the class. The vast majority of these words of wisdom are from Jason Heuer. Thank you, Jason.
Read MoreInspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that's thrilled me creatively.
Read MoreOn days when I’m feeling overwhelmed or derailed by unexpected events, I feel this incredible urge to vegetate. As in: chuck my to do lists out the window and just binge-watch Netflix and eat fruit snacks. Instead, I’ve learned to quiet the all-or-nothing voices in my head, and settle for a little less.
Read MoreEttie is one of my close creative friends from college, and an amazing songwriter, musician, and artist. We met during the first few weeks of freshmen year, when our dorm was on the subway going to an event in downtown Manhattan. Everyone else was chirping, small-talking away, but she was standing there by herself, reading a book of e.e. cummings poetry. And that's when I fell in love.
Read MoreI initially heard a version of this quote on a Design Matters episode with James Victore. His point was: instead of making stuff to appeal to a mass audience, make things that are specific, honest, and true to you. In that specificity of individual experience is something that other people will connect to, because it comes from a soulful place, instead of pandering to an audience.
Read MoreI started my design and coaching studio last fall— chipping away on it during early mornings before work and on weekends- but it’s only been 3 months since I left my job to do this full time. Since I try to be so deliberate about planning my goals, I see the review process as the closing of that loop. At the end of every month, I sit down to look at what I’ve accomplished, and I articulate the lessons to take with me as I continue to grow. Here’s what I learned from months 1-3.
Read MoreIf there's any lesson that's struck true to me lately, it's this: that we can't predict, anticipate, and plan for the infinite possibilities of the future. As much as I like to set up structures and routines for myself and my growth as an artist, I try to remember to let myself trust in the unfolding mystery that is my life.
Read MoreWhen it comes to undertaking any daunting task — building a business from scratch, creating a piece of creative work, or aiming for some other ambitious goal - it’s too easy to get bogged down in the details. As a long-suffering perfectionist with a submerged urge to prove myself to the world, I tend to say to myself: OK, let’s take this from the top, and make sure everything I make is perfect and beautiful before I continue.
Read MoreI grew up in a risk adverse, immigrant culture in which the idea of finding the work you loved was always counterbalanced by the idea of having a stable, steady career. When you’re young and uncertain, the easy choice is the one right front of you. It’s the path you fall into out of convenience, as in: This is what I did for two summer internships, so, this is what I’ll continue doing.
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