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Real Talk
48:48 with Jen MussariJen Mussari talks about her journey as a designer, and the influences around her.
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[MUSIC]
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I'm gonna kind of give you a disclaimer about my talk because it's a little
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different.
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First off this is my first ever real conference talk,
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I've only ever done little bitty things here and there so bear with me.
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I might be kind of all over the place, this isn't practiced at all like, well I
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mean I practiced but I haven't given this talk before obviously Super new at this.
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I don't, I don't have any answers for you.
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I think a lot of times we see really elegant talks that have a lot of
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lists of rules of how to live by.
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And bullet points on how to be an awesome designer or
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even an awesome human and I don't have any of that.
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In fact I don't have any answers I just have a lot of questions.
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And so I'm really excited to be here and kinda talk through all of this with you
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because these are all things that I've been thinking about a lot about design as
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an industry and about specializing because I've become kind of a specialist.
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But first off I feel like you kinda need to know a little bit about me first.
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So I'm gonna introduce myself so that I can like back up what where I'm going
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with this so stay with me I'm gonna go with this kind of fast I've got a lot for
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you [LAUGH] so this is me.
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I'm here.
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My name is Jen.
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I'm [LAUGH] thank you.
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And really, I just wanna be your friend so, like, hit me up.
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I'm on Twitter all the time.
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And I have a lot of thoughts here so
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if you have thoughts what I really want is to hear those and, so
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talk to me about this, even like during this whole thing, you know?
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I'd be really excited to hear from you about some of the things
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I'm going through.
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So first off, I started off in southeastern Pennsylvania.
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And I grew up in a family that really loves cars.
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And so my grandfather bought all these cars new in the 70s.
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My uncles had all these wacky cars and motorcycles, and
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my dad inherited a lot of these cars and we restored them as I was growing up and
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the typography in these cars was just hugely inspiring to me
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oh I don't have speaker notes anymore oops oh well.
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I'm just going to wing it.
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[LAUGH] There might be some like names and dates that I miss then so forgive me.
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So this really impacted me and I didn't realize it for a long time.
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I had been going to these car shows my entire life and
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I didn't realize until I became a designer and
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started drawing letters that these letters were really inspiring to me.
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Really impacted me.
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So this is kind of where I come from.
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This is my perspective.
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And I'm one of those kids who like drew, like band logos on their notebooks,
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and like then drew band logos on your friends notebooks, and
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then like continued to do that.
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And like the difference between me is like I never stopped doing that, and
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I would go home and
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continue to draw, and I started putting my work on the internet when I was like 13.
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And you can find it.
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It's still there.
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Like, I wouldn't suggest doing that, but you can.
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[LAUGH] And that feedback from all across the globe,
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even if I'd only hear from a few people, was really important to me.
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And it lead me to this place of realizing what I liked.
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Realizing what I liked to draw.
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And that was letters from the very beginning.
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I'm just super compelled to draw them.
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I love letter forms.
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I love calligraphy.
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I love lettering.
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I love typography.
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And so now, skipping over a whole lot of my life, I'm a specialist.
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And today I'm a freelancer and I stand before you as a freelancer.
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I am not a typographer.
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I don't like, go around correcting people, cuz I think that's really rude.
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And honestly, a lot of people, most people do not know,
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need to know the difference between lettering and typography.
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Like, let's be real.
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But we're all professionals here and we work with fonts and
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we work with letterforms, and
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we should be using the right words within our industry, I feel like.
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So, first off we're going to talk about lettering, and what it is.
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It's, like, the custom design using letter forms in an illustrated way and
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whereas typography is using, gifs within a system.
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To create fonts and then, you can create really awesome designs.
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Like, I'm sure a lot of you guys do too with them.
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So all my work is hand-drawn though.
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Which is a little bit interesting.
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And it's always been hand-drawn.
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I've never really been compelled to create something directly from the computer,
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even though I really, really, hugely respect the people that do.
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Especially with lettering.
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It's very hard.
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And I'm, I'm just like green you just gotta get in there.
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I use a lot of traditional calligraphy practices, and
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my background's in fine are too, so
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I often apply the fine art thinking into how I make the work that I create.
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And I end up with just a lot of drawings, just so many.
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There are just piles everywhere.
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And it, I love the chaos of lettering because it's completely custom and
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everything is unique and this chaos, this mess is mine.
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It's like this is, this is me.
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Really.
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And, and it just has such a unique perspective to me, so maybe some of your
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desks look like this, too, but it's just kind of all over the place.
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Once the drawing is finished, and I try and draw it perfectly,
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[LAUGH] on paper so that when I take it into Photoshop and
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I fix it digitally, I really don't have to do too much editing.
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And that's kinda my point.
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It's like, I am obsessive about getting it right, physically first, and
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then doing as little edits as possible.
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And that might turn into personal projects like this Cotton Veer tee on the left.
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Hopefully you guys all know Cotton Veer.
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They're such a great company.
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Small business based in Pittsburgh.
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Every dollar you spend with them goes directly to someone who really needs it.
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And, supporting folks like us really.
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And, then it might turn into client projects which is what I mostly do really
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and like this tee on the right for Art Directors Club.
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But, then, sometimes I'll do work on garments.
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And it's completely different.
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It has a completely different context from a t-shirt and this was an art piece also
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for the Art Judges club but it has such a different, it lives in a different world
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than that first t-shirt does, and I really love exploring the context that
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lettering can live in because it's such a like, straight basic.
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It's really black on paper, black on white.
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And I draw in black and I take it and then it can go anywhere.
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And I love playing with the boundaries of that.
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Or it can go live in public, where, which is really fun.
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I'm not sure quite if you can see, let me see if I, oh, there it is.
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So that's, I drew that.
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That's my website, which is just so crazy.
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And those are like my hands.
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So [LAUGH] Squarespace, is a really interesting company.
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And I knew the people who worked there before I really knew the product.
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And the people who worked there were always really supportive of me, but
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in a very professional way.
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And we always had a very professional connection, and it's, it's always lovey
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dovey sure but it's, they've never like, kind of sponsored my life or
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anything like that, it's like they hire me for this job and like I get paid,
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just in the same way as any other client, and that's super cool and so
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they decided to after a few projects that we've done together.
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For their sponsorships for things like this,
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they decided to put me on their campaign as like, one of their cover girls,
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and I got to be on commercials and stuff, which was super crazy.
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So my, my work and my website was magnified by this company, and
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and then I, on the other hand, which is kind of really interesting.
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This is Starbucks on the right, and I did not get to say that I drew this.
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Like, I probably shouldn't even be telling you that I drew this.
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[LAUGH] And, like, so it's like two very different, and yet,
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equally large campaigns that, that kind of have an interesting context for
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the use of my lettering.
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But then sometimes it can get even bigger and this is super crazy.
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This is a commercial that I worked with an ad agency for and
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I don't, I, up until this point I hadn't worked with ad agencies that often.
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And I was really intimidated.
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I come from like super DIY punk background and
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I'm like damn the man advertising is evil or whatever.
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And but I loved cars and when Lincoln came to me, I was like,
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this is actually dream come true, but how do I feel about like, trying to sell new
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cars like, and so I got past it really quickly [LAUGH] and, I'm so glad I did.
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It was like a, an internal thing I still do like
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think about the clients that I work with if I ever work at a scale like this.
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Really what it means for my work to be applied to this brand like, and
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I will only take clients that I feel really comfortable partnering with.
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And so this was just so cool.
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I worked in house and I created like a stack this big of drawings.
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We had so many iterations on all these pieces.
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And the, it was crazy to draw something and
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then scan it and hand it to a designer who turned it in to a vector for me.
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I was like, really?
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You're gonna do that?
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That's awesome, cause normally, I have to like wrestle with Illustrator and
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he was great.
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And he was like, no I'll take care of it and he cleans up my files for me.
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I was like, I wanna hire him forever.
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>> [LAUGH] >> And then he would give it to a 3D
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modelling guy, who would like, turn it into a three dimensional object.
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And then he would give it to the lighting guy, who would light it.
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And then he would give it to the animator guy who would, like, mask it out and
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make it kind of move like this.
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And this turned into a commercial that would air at the Grammy's in front of 20
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million people.
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Like, I could never get my work to 28 million people just on my own,
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even though I really have that, like, moxie to do it.
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[LAUGH] I just don't think I could and
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This partnership gets the context of lettering into an elevated state for me.
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It literally elevated my work to a level that I just couldn't do on my own.
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But, honestly,
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I think my favorite projects are those collaborations that you do with friends.
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And this was a project that my friend Taras Kravtchouk,
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who's Swedish and also a product designer.
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He was contacted by Belstaff, which is a luxury motorcycle jacket company,
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which I think is kinda an oxymoron.
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But, basically, over the past few years, like,
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they have a long history British company of building these gorgeous field jackets.
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That were meant for
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motorcycling that dudes on Tribes would would ride these a lot.
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And over the last few years I started making like $2000 jackets that are canvas.
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And like David Beckham's wearing them and they're all like models and stuff, and
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real motorcyclists aren't wearing these jackets.
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And so in an attempt to like reassociate their brand with motorcycling culture,
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they hired my friend Taras, who's a product designer.
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I don't even know how they knew he was building custom bikes.
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Their like, we need some bikes for
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our shop, and he brought me on, because he knew that I could sling some paint.
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And I love motorcycles, obviously.
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[LAUGH] And, he asked me to paint the tank, and the details on the racing plate.
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And this is something I've actually wanted to do my entire life.
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Going to car shows with my dad, I'd see these, like, super-slick old Indians and
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stuff, and this was just really, really exciting for me.
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And then it turns into this!
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[LAUGH] Which is just mind-boggling to me, so and yet,
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in another state of collaboration Taras was in the garage building the bike.
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He had like three weeks to do this, which is nuts.
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To find it and to build it.
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In the garage while I'm painting, and I think the paint is wet in this photo.
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[LAUGH] Because his friend Ryan is this insane photographer.
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Ryan Hant he shoots a lot of photos for Bike EXIF.
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And he had his, he set up his lights in the middle of the night
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as soon as Taras gets that tank on there he shoots this shot.
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And it goes on a truck next day, and it goes uptown and
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now it's in a store in in like the upper east side.
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And then there's this one also, which is same thing.
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Paint's probably still wet.
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[LAUGH] We shipped it off to Los Angeles, so
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this is in the Belstaff store in Los Angeles.
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And we're working on another one which I'm not sure where that bike's gonna go.
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But the, so this is an ongoing project and this is like a dream come true for me.
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And I'm a freelancer, it's awesome.
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I get to collaborate with these people.
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I get to collaborate with whoever I like.
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And I get to say no to advertising companies that I don't like, or
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I don't agree with.
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Or I can, say yes to these small clients that I really love,
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because I have the freedom to manage my own situation.
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I also have the freedom to wear whatever I want when I, when I'm working.
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But like, let's be real like,
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that freelance life can really easily turn into that lonely life.
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Because work from home, I've seen it a lot,
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can really quickly become never leaves home.
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And then, like, you never put on pants.
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[LAUGH] And, [LAUGH] and
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I really just feel like there's just too much benefit to a community.
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Especially when you're a freelancer if you're working from home and
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if you're working kinda out there alone.
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You're putting yourself out there.
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We gotta, like, stick together, man.
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And I really think that we can battle this by going to stuff like this.
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And I'm super excited for Creative Self, and other start up conferences like this.
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Because we really wanna know each other, and that's really what matters.
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And we're better together.
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So yeah, I would say,
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some of the best connections I've ever made have been at conferences like this.
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And I am always stumped, once in awhile I hear someone who's like hating on
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conferences, and I'm like, well, that's okay.
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You probably just don't get along with people.
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[LAUGH] And so all of this like feel-good friendliness that I've
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collected over the past few years of freelancing has led me to this.
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And Ghostly Ferns is this really incredible company that Meg,
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who's over here, actually, started as her own practice.
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And then Laura's apart of Ghostly Ferns, too, yeah.
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>> [APPLAUSE] >> [LAUGH] I hope you all got to dance
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with them at some point over this trip, cuz it is top notch.
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And so Ghostly Ferns is kinda weird though I'm gonna explain it.
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Basically we're not an agency, but we kinda operate like an agency,
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we're not a collective but we kinda operate as a collective.
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We all are freelancers who specialize in specific things, and
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I specialize in a very specific thing.
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But if I were to make a website, I need Meg to design it.
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And if I were to make, work for a startup, I would need Laura to create some
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beautiful spot illustrations to really enhance the brand.
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And then we have a developer who actually makes the websites work.
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And now another designer and a product designer as well.
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And we, a company like Conde Nast could hire
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Ghostly Ferns and hire all of us to work on one project.
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Or, my own, my own clients come in just through my own website and
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continue to hire me.
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So, I'm responsible for my own situation.
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I am still super independent, but
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I have the support group and the work if I need it from Ghostly Ferns.
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And, and if you're a freelancer and also a specialist, I would
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highly suggest that you look into banding together with some other freelancers.
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If you're a designer and there's a developer you love to work with
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like keep that connection going because it's really important.
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With our powers combined we can make some really awesome stuff because of our
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specialties and this is one of my favorite shows.
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It's just, it's completely ridiculous.
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I feel like it's responsible for a lot of how I am today, also.
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So overall, it's like, like all the benefits that I've had
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from working as a freelancer and banning together with these people.
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Because throughout all this as I'm meeting folks I'm just trying to be genuine.
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And like, I'm sure you guys are all super cool, but sometimes you meet someone and
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you're like, oh that networky like, you can just smell it from a mile away.
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That like, desperate need to be like, have my business card, have my contact,
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follow me on Triple and bla.
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And it's like, okay, I'll get there let's be friends first.
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[LAUGH] And there are just so many benefits.
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So, if, I don't have advice overall, but
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if there's anything you take away from this it's this.
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Because it's better with friends.
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So, overall, things are good for me right now.
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I'm a lettering artist.
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Lettering is super hot right now.
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It's really hip.
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I think that we can all definitely, definitely agree on that.
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But I also have some things I've been thinking about lettering as an industry,
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because we're growing like crazy.
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We're at an exponential point.
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And I would definitely say that we're kinda at a golden era.
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Like, we're at a good point where I wanna use the word renaissance.
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But I know it's really dramatic.
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[LAUGH] So we gotta be conscious about the decisions that we make as an industry and
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I think it's really important to, to work together.
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In order to, to raise the industry as whole because if so
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much of industry is based on trend.
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And so much of our popularity is based on things just looking cool right now.
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That could very easily change.
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We need to make efforts right now to make lettering sustainable
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in case it goes away.
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And so I'm just gonna real quick go over, like super quick go over the history
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of some key things that I think have affected contempor,
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well, I'm gonna use the term contemporary lettering.
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Which is lettering as we know it right now, you know, like,
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Responsible by Jessica Hische and all them.
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Which is super cool and it's great and it's the reason that I have a living and
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can, like, live in one of the most expensive cities in Brooklyn.
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Is because of contemporary lettering today.
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But, but we can't remember, we can't forget that this isn't new.
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Like, it's really hot right now, and it's really, it feels so
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fresh, which is wonderful, but this isn't new.
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Letter, hand-lettering has been around literally since we could
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realize that we could communicate with words.
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Like, and so, I'm just gonna skip over cave paintings, and
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like, Illuminated manuscripts and all of the history of printmaking and
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how that completely changed communication.
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And we're gonna get to like to the 60s and 70s, which to me, was kinda
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the golden moment of lettering that we're trying to hearken back to right now.
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And so we've got Herb Lubalin.
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Awesome, incredible designer, incredible design studio.
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And the interesting thing about him is that he had a lot of guys working for him.
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And a lot of the lettering that Herb Lubalin is known for, he didn't do.
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He had lettering artists on staff, all the time, and so
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we got guys like Tom Carnase on the left, and Tony DiSpigna on the right.
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And they've just got such a,
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such a energy that I think this was made in like the 60s and 70s.
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You can recognize in some of the work that we're seeing today.
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Really cool.
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This is kinda a random little thing,
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but this is a post modern painting by John Baldissari.
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And he hired a carpenter to create the frame and
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then a sign-painter to paint the lettering on here.
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Because to Baldessari,
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lettering was the most neutral way to express art thinking in, like as a whole.
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And I think that this painting is really important but I could talk like for
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two hours just about this painting.
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And then all as well all know I like sign painting, sign painting is a craft and
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its super cool.
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And the all these guys wanted to just kinda make something as efficiently and
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as well and as beautifully as possible.
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19:50
But really it's an industry, like, a craft-based industry and
-
19:53
it always has been.
-
19:54
And then so when the vinyl cutter comes around, people Who wanna do things
-
19:58
efficiently and wanna do things as fast and as well as they can just kinda
-
20:02
switched over to making vinyl instead of painting things by hand.
-
20:06
And that's totally fine.
-
20:08
But it also changed the landscape of where custom lettering lived in our,
-
20:13
in our daily lives because we weren't going to the grocery store and
-
20:16
seeing hand painted lettering anymore.
-
20:18
Just everywhere.
-
20:20
And this drastically changed in like the 70s and 80s just
-
20:25
lettering kind of became not a part of our landscape or, of our environment.
-
20:32
And of course, like, like, punks are always gonna do it their own way,
-
20:36
and that's what I love about them.
-
20:39
And so Jamie Reid here, this is a super important design piece,
-
20:42
even though we think of it as maybe just a album cover for the Sex Pistols.
-
20:47
I really feel like this movement and this piece is kind of
-
20:51
representative of the whole of, of punk art that started in the 70s and
-
20:56
has kind of influenced zine culture and
-
21:00
like, low brow art and is still, and which is now super popular today.
-
21:04
And so we can't forget, can't forget the Punks.
-
21:07
And they've always ho, held onto a handmade aesthetic, even when vinyl goes
-
21:11
away, and even when lettering becomes not popular again, in the 90s.
-
21:17
>> [LAUGH].
-
21:18
[SOUND].
-
21:20
So, the 90s happens, and typography is just like, oh my God, we love collaging.
-
21:27
>> [LAUGH].
-
21:29
>> We get David Carson, and I don't want to be like,
-
21:33
oh this guy's such a bum, but like, he impacted design so largely.
-
21:40
Him, and all of his many, many, many impostors.
-
21:44
So, everyone wanted to make art like this in the 90s, especially graphic designers.
-
21:49
I mean, this is the cover of How Magazine, man!
-
21:51
And, like, he was so aggressively against legibility that,
-
21:56
like- >> [LAUGH]
-
21:56
>> No, for real, though!
-
21:58
He like, actually does not like legibility, and he'll just add numbers in,
-
22:02
like, on a poster.
-
22:04
Just because, and you're like,
-
22:05
I don't even know what time this thing is happening.
-
22:07
>> [LAUGH] >> And, and
-
22:09
yet, everything in the '90s looked like this.
-
22:12
Album covers, posters, book covers, and this pervasive, like,
-
22:17
lack of context and thought in work, this, it's like, it's like a lazy Dada art.
-
22:25
And because he really just didn't think about any of the things
-
22:30
that he was using and he used type as a decoration which I'm like so against.
-
22:35
Decorative type is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but
-
22:37
he's literally just like strewing it around.
-
22:42
And he's stubborn, right?
-
22:44
So this work is stubborn to me.
-
22:46
It does not wanna be read, it does not wanna, like, live in tangible context.
-
22:51
And and he's still super stubborn.
-
22:53
Does anyone wanna guess what year this poster on the right was made?
-
22:57
It was made last month.
-
22:59
[LAUGH] and yet it looks just like the 90's.
-
23:03
It, it just looks so much like the 90's.
-
23:05
I can't.
-
23:06
And yet, on a positive note we've got someone, like Louise Fili.
-
23:13
She made it through the 90's unscathed.
-
23:15
And I really feel like, you know,
-
23:17
she got her start with Herb Lubalin which is really cool and
-
23:20
then she became our director of Pantheon Books which is like a huge honor.
-
23:25
And she I feel like rep, I'm using her as a, as a, like a, like a golden goose,
-
23:31
like as a representative of a designer that has been adaptable.
-
23:36
And she has made it through the 90's,
-
23:38
she started in like the 70's, made it through the 80's, and now,
-
23:43
she's created work, she's created a studio that is so influential today.
-
23:47
She's like, her studio has nurtured the lettering artist that really,
-
23:52
really impacted where contemporary lettering today.
-
23:56
And I think that that's a really interesting design studio to think about.
-
24:00
So I had this moment recently, and I got this milk carton.
-
24:04
And I was just staring, I was like totally not paying attention, and
-
24:08
I noticed this milk carton in my kitchen and it's beautiful and
-
24:12
it represents a like, pervasiveness of lettering today.
-
24:18
If we're gonna like I'm just gonna real quick jump through from the 90s to now.
-
24:24
Lettering has just exploded and there's a lot of things that happen within there.
-
24:28
But lettering is everywhere today.
-
24:30
It's on credit card commercials.
-
24:33
I don't know why.
-
24:33
Like, if you're gonna think of anything that's super technical and
-
24:36
once you use fonts, it's like a bank or a credit card company.
-
24:40
And they're hiring like Dan Cassaro to do really gorgeous stuff.
-
24:44
I think that's really good and it means something to our industry.
-
24:47
That big brands like this want to hire people like me, like grungy art kid,
-
24:52
to make some awesome stuff for them that feels human and feels handmade.
-
24:58
This guy, actually, al Alan, Alan Ariail, he's an old-school lettering artist.
-
25:03
His website's in flash, and it has music.
-
25:06
And he [LAUGH] no, for real.
-
25:10
He, he just kind of like adapted to the climate of lettering as it
-
25:16
changed throughout all these years and he managed to now make a very beautiful
-
25:21
piece that totally operates within the context of lettering as we know it today.
-
25:25
And yet he's always been doing it.
-
25:26
He's been doing stuff for like Wheat Thins and it just, kind of.
-
25:29
Maybe in that time period where lettering wasn't as popular, and
-
25:32
he may have been like the only guy doing it.
-
25:35
It just kind of disappeared on like a tissue box or a cereal box.
-
25:39
And now, it's being brought to the surface and
-
25:43
the lettering is the most interesting piece on this box.
-
25:48
And a milk carton to me is like the most mundane thing that,
-
25:52
if you can make beautiful is really interesting.
-
25:54
And so I feel like this is really representative of how
-
25:57
ubiquitous lettering is today.
-
25:59
And so like, real quick, we got a history.
-
26:02
We got like punk posters, and graffiti, and street art.
-
26:04
Street art goes to galleries, gig posters throughout this, Hand Job is a big deal.
-
26:08
Urban Outfitters, Napoleon Dynamite, comics and zines and then the internet.
-
26:12
The internet changes everything and it's like we already had an influx of DIY and
-
26:16
handmade with these companies starting up.
-
26:19
But the internet let us share art and it brought art into the lives of everyday
-
26:24
people which I really respect Instagram for doing probably not intentionally.
-
26:29
Or Pinterest, really any of these.
-
26:32
It's like, a teenager could be on Tumblr and
-
26:34
could see someone's work, like mine, or like someone else's and
-
26:37
I think that's really cool cuz otherwise I was just showing it to you guys.
-
26:40
I was just showing it to designers, and
-
26:42
so now lettering is like seeped into the personal lives of everyone else as well as
-
26:47
as well as the prof, professional lives.
-
26:50
And we can thank, I think, a little bit Jon Contino, Jessica Hische, [UNKNOWN],
-
26:54
Erik Marinovich for teaching us how to use the internet and
-
26:58
how to really push lettering through the internet to where we are today.
-
27:02
And, obviously, they're not the only ones whose been doing this,
-
27:05
but I feel like I really learned a lot from these guys on how to show my work
-
27:09
In a way that makes sense to design as a whole.
-
27:13
But real talk.
-
27:14
Like, man, lettering is a trend, and if we don't, if we don't hold onto this and
-
27:21
try and find ways to make it sustainable, when the trends change,
-
27:25
and if we start making grungy collages again, I'm gonna be out of a job.
-
27:29
>> And I mean I'm not gonna be out of a job like I'm very, very solvent and
-
27:33
I'm gonna do this, no one's gonna convince me otherwise but like, for
-
27:37
a young designer who wants to be a lettering artist and asks me for
-
27:40
advice and they're gonna graduate next year.
-
27:42
I have a hard time telling them to get into lettering because
-
27:45
It's a little bit shaky right now.
-
27:47
We've gotta make efforts to like make it stick around actively.
-
27:51
And so there are some things I've been thinking about,
-
27:53
there's some things I've been noticing.
-
27:55
There's some problems that we have, that we, if we work past,
-
27:58
I really think that we can do this.
-
27:59
And I'm super optimistic about the future of lettering.
-
28:03
But yeah visual trends change, and if they do there's like this whole breed of
-
28:07
beautiful work that might go down with the like, super artisanal ship.
-
28:11
And I don't want to see that happen.
-
28:13
This is [LAUGH] a parody of one of the, I'm gonna call them lettering tropes.
-
28:19
A lettering trope that I see a lot is like this like inlaid piece
-
28:23
of lettering with some like artisanal it's like a wood grain and
-
28:28
there's tools all around because they obviously use all these tools.
-
28:32
And, one of my favorite things is like the pencil shavings,
-
28:35
like someone drew a piece of lettering and then, then sharpened their pencil and
-
28:39
put it down and took a picture of it.
-
28:41
Like, if you just think about what a tool means, what a pencil means to
-
28:45
the context of the lettering, that is not something you would do.
-
28:49
[LAUGH] Like, you don't sharpen the pencil after you use it and then put it down.
-
28:54
Like, that's,
-
28:54
that's just, we gotta think more about why these trends don't make sense.
-
29:00
Also, like, this is what I call the aggressive micron It's [LAUGH].
-
29:05
>> [LAUGH].
-
29:06
>> It's like, it's like using the, the pen to justify the means,
-
29:11
and I don't necessarily agree with that as, as meaningful context.
-
29:16
I'm not gonna say that you shouldn't do this because truly,
-
29:20
if you're taking a quick Instagram shot of your studio,
-
29:22
and there's some lettering that you're proud of and
-
29:24
your pens happen to be there like, that's cool context, people want to see that.
-
29:29
It shows your process a little bit.
-
29:32
But, there's like this forced, super aggressive,
-
29:36
like it's pointing at the thing and like your hand is holding
-
29:40
pointing out a finished piece of lettering like as if you're drawing it.
-
29:43
Or [LAUGH] I mean, I've done these things, you know.
-
29:46
Like, you gotta take some of the trends.
-
29:47
You gotta operate within them a little bit in order to figure out what you like and
-
29:51
what you're good at, but as soon as you start thinking about these trends,
-
29:54
I've been thinking about these and they don't make sense anymore.
-
29:57
I'm like.
-
29:57
Using a micron as a baselun, baseline for the lettering that's finished.
-
30:03
Is the pen then competing for attention with the lettering?
-
30:07
Like, it's almost like people, people just wanna see the pen now.
-
30:12
Like, just Instagram the pen.
-
30:13
But that's not, that's really,
-
30:15
really degrading almost to the beautiful lettering that people are showing.
-
30:19
And so I really feel like so much of the gorgeous work I'm seeing is, is, kind of,
-
30:23
being lost with, like, this aggressive action towards it,
-
30:28
just to, kind of, justify the fact that, yeah, I drew this.
-
30:32
And then I'm sure you're all familiar with this trope.
-
30:35
Don't, so disclaimer,
-
30:40
one of my favorite, favorite ever compositions or
-
30:46
like, styles or context for lettering is with photography.
-
30:52
And I feel like some of the most beautiful things I've done have been over photo,
-
30:55
photographs and the most beautiful lettering that I've ever seen
-
30:58
have been using photographs as well.
-
31:01
But my problem with this trope is that, that I'm seeing so
-
31:05
much work that does not consider what the photographs actually are and
-
31:09
how it relates to the context of the lettering.
-
31:11
And it almost sometimes feels like the lettering doesn't even matter.
-
31:14
It's like, oh I just saw this quote, I won't even think about who wrote it.
-
31:18
Whatever, and it just looks good.
-
31:21
And, I mean, that's ok too, you got to practice somehow, right?
-
31:24
But I just really think that, overall, this trope, kind of,
-
31:28
doesn't bring much value to the,
-
31:31
the words that are with it because, I mean, I've seen pieces that say like,
-
31:35
like beautiful Brooklyn, New York City, and they'll have trees behind it.
-
31:39
I'm, like, have you been to Brooklyn?
-
31:42
Like, come on, man.
-
31:42
It's not, it's not, there's no trees there.
-
31:44
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]
-
31:47
Also interesting about this trope it's been done before.
-
31:51
Ed Roscha did this in the 80s he's been doing this forever and
-
31:54
he's even made square paintings that totally look like Instagrams in the 80s.
-
31:59
And I, seriously, if you,
-
32:01
if you operate within these tropes I am not calling you out.
-
32:05
I'm definitely not.
-
32:06
You have to, like, find what really works for you, but
-
32:08
I think that we should know that this exists.
-
32:12
And I think that if you're operating within these, with these styles, then,
-
32:16
then we should be doing research and we should know about this, right?
-
32:20
So, overall, my plea is just, like, man, we don't need these cheesy tropes.
-
32:25
>> We're better than this.
-
32:26
We're more creative than this.
-
32:28
Lettering is cooler than that.
-
32:29
Lettering can live in much better context than just over some trees.
-
32:33
And so I really urge us to, kind of, like, get away from the trends that are defining
-
32:37
us, because they can very easily change, and they're already played out.
-
32:43
Another issue, real quick,
-
32:44
is that the value of lettering is determined by other industries.
-
32:47
So, graphic designers determine the value of lettering, And,
-
32:50
the fact that graphic designers all really like lettering right now, is awesome!
-
32:54
But, as soon as you guys turn around and don't like lettering anymore,
-
32:57
like, that's bad for the industry.
-
32:59
We need to operate individually of graphic design,
-
33:02
but underneath the canvas of graphic design.
-
33:06
And then also, a lot of us are freelancers.
-
33:09
A lot of us really don't talk to each other.
-
33:12
These are things that, every time I get with a with another
-
33:16
lettering artist who I only chat with on the internet once in a while, it's just,
-
33:19
like, pours out of us and
-
33:20
we can't stop talking about these goofy things that are happening on Pinterest.
-
33:24
And, you know, talking about all this interesting,
-
33:28
interesting things that we're seeing happening on the internet.
-
33:31
And the fact that we're isolated from each other
-
33:33
actually brings the value of lettering down because
-
33:36
we might not know how to price things if we're not talking to each other.
-
33:40
But obviously I'm not gonna, just gonna rap on my beloved industry without, like,
-
33:44
providing some solutions.
-
33:46
And, honestly, this is just big picture thinking.
-
33:49
Like, this is, these are some things that I think we could really apply today.
-
33:54
So if trends are bad for the industry how do we, kind of, get around that.
-
34:00
And I'm thinking that we need to diversify in the most grand sense of the word.
-
34:06
And not only diversify what we're making, by making and
-
34:10
experimenting and having fun and doing different stuff,
-
34:14
drawing different things, but then also, like, literally liking different stuff.
-
34:19
If you're scrolling through Instagram, or whatever,
-
34:21
your means of consumption of work is, and it all looks the same, that's fine.
-
34:27
But you're missing out on some really cool stuff.
-
34:30
Like, I wanna know what's happening in South Africa?
-
34:34
Like, what does lettering look like in Mexico?
-
34:36
And, so, like, go out and find them.
-
34:38
There are ins, there are Instagram accounts, by the way, that are really,
-
34:41
really interesting.
-
34:42
There's, like, Iranian goat herders that sell goats on Instagram.
-
34:47
That's really cool to me.
-
34:48
And that has nothing to do with lettering, but it's still interesting.
-
34:52
And if that's in my feed, it's gonna affect what I do, like, naturally.
-
34:58
And and so I really think that on top of liking different stuff, we need to,
-
35:02
kind of, boost artists that are doing weird things and, like, kind of
-
35:06
Experimenting and might not have the kind of rap sheet that our famous letters do.
-
35:14
And so industry standards could really help us, too.
-
35:18
If we can get together and talk about what it means to price for certain clients,
-
35:22
it's really great.
-
35:23
There's some really helpful blog posts out there about pricing, but I also wonder,
-
35:27
like, what if someone wrote a manual about pricing just for lettering.
-
35:31
Like, what does, what does lettering done on a computer cost verse what does
-
35:35
lettering done by hand cost?
-
35:36
Is that different?
-
35:37
I don't know. But I want to talk about these things and
-
35:40
I want to think about these things as an industry, because graphic design,
-
35:43
illustration, fine art, even, has a long history of kind of
-
35:47
working these things out and making them make sense.
-
35:50
And lettering with all of the, like, like, vinyl cutting it out and
-
35:54
the nineties cutting it out, we've got some, like, we're kind of rag tag.
-
35:58
We're all over the place.
-
35:59
We need to, to get together, kinda, start to agree on things and
-
36:03
that leads me to job titles.
-
36:08
And I know, like, like I'm, I'm like I said,
-
36:11
I'm from the DIY punk scene and I went to art school.
-
36:15
Titles really, really should not matter to me.
-
36:18
[LAUGH] But I really think that it can be very important and it can be very
-
36:23
empowering for younger designers who might not know where they're going.
-
36:26
If they know that they can at least call themselves a lettering artist because they
-
36:31
love to draw letters, like, that at least let's them Google lettering artist and,
-
36:35
like, get to the next step and get to the next point.
-
36:38
And I've had this conversation so much, it's like, what do you do?
-
36:42
I'm an illustrator.
-
36:43
Oh, that's cool.
-
36:44
Like, children's books?
-
36:45
Mm, no.
-
36:46
I guess I'm more of a designer.
-
36:48
And it's like, oh, cool.
-
36:49
So, like, brochures and stuff?
-
36:51
Not really.
-
36:52
I use letters mostly.
-
36:54
It's like, fonts?
-
36:55
I'm like, okay, and that gets me practical with correction guy with the lettering.
-
36:59
And, like, I'm not really gonna, gonna bore someone half to death by, like,
-
37:03
talking about the difference between lettering and typography, if they're just,
-
37:06
kind of, interested in what I do and describe it definitely.
-
37:10
But that brings me to the word letterer, okay.
-
37:14
Letterer is a word that does not belong to lettering artists.
-
37:19
Letterer is a word that belongs to comic artists, actually.
-
37:22
And I think that if we just, just do a little bit of research into the words that
-
37:26
we call ourselves, I think that we'd come to an industry standard that would really
-
37:30
benefit and boost the industry.
-
37:32
So letterer,
-
37:36
a letterer is literally someone who writes comic sans all day.
-
37:43
Yeah.
-
37:44
It makes you a little bit less enchanted with that term, right?
-
37:46
[LAUGH] So, I, I didn't know what to call myself when I had
-
37:51
that conversation with people and when I first started to really specialize.
-
37:55
And so I did some research.
-
37:56
And I was like, this doesn't seem right to call myself a letterer,
-
37:59
but I didn't really know why.
-
38:00
So I did some more research in doing this talk and I asked John Contino and he was,
-
38:04
like, you really, like, set me up for trouble asking me that question right?
-
38:08
And he was, like, he hates that word also because he has a background that relates
-
38:13
to comics and he know that that doesn't belong to us.
-
38:16
Jessica Hische even was, like, I'm,
-
38:18
I'm actually calling myself a lettering artist more now.
-
38:21
But she liked the sound of the word letterer.
-
38:24
Disclaimer, you should identify as whatever you identify as.
-
38:28
Like, I'm not gonna tell you to change your Twitter bio, or whatever.
-
38:32
But I do wanna urge you to think about the words that we use because
-
38:36
words mean things, and words are, literally, our industry.
-
38:41
And so we need to get together.
-
38:42
And we can't agree on a term to call ourselves if we aren't
-
38:45
talking to each other.
-
38:46
And there are so many benefits to, to getting together.
-
38:50
Not only as an industry, but then also as an individual.
-
38:54
Cuz no freelancer is an island entire of itself.
-
38:58
It feels like that sometimes, though.
-
39:00
[LAUGH] I work in a co-working space, and I have completely obliterated
-
39:03
any sort of loneliness that has bothered me in any situation.
-
39:07
I worked from home when I lived in San Francisco, and it was miserable.
-
39:10
I was, I was so miserable.
-
39:11
And I was not getting the creative vibes from other people,
-
39:15
even from creative people who do super different stuff from, from what I do.
-
39:19
So I operate in a world where people are doing different specialties to me.
-
39:25
And, also I think that we need to have realistic perspectives of success.
-
39:29
This is, like, kind of a big idea, and it's, and it's, kind of,
-
39:33
hard to, to really bring it together.
-
39:35
But what I mean is that, we should know what success means to us individually.
-
39:41
I, I need to reevaluate what it means for me to be successful as a lettering artist.
-
39:46
And I really think that we can all benefit from, kind of,
-
39:50
evaluating this success together.
-
39:52
On the other hand, maybe we need to check our idols a little bit, too.
-
39:57
And I don't mean that we should be killing our idols, or
-
40:00
tearing them down in any way, I'm just saying that
-
40:03
the people that we really admire online are real people, and when you meet them,
-
40:07
they're just real dudes, like dudes and ladies doing their own things.
-
40:10
And I don't think that we necessarily need that over-romanticism that
-
40:15
the Internet really lets us get into.
-
40:18
And that's totally fine.
-
40:19
Like, like you are all wonderful people and I'm very excited to meet all of you,
-
40:23
and you're all my idols.
-
40:25
But like, I, I need to remember that my
-
40:28
self worth is not based on the accomplishments of you guys.
-
40:32
And likewise because life is more than how it looks on Instagram.
-
40:37
It's for real.
-
40:38
[LAUGH] It's just like, wa,
-
40:43
social media and there's so many stories right now about how social media is
-
40:47
affecting how we actually feel and we need to remember that it's all
-
40:51
a curated perspective of what someone wants to show us.
-
40:57
And when you're actually face to face with the person, you might see some little cool
-
41:00
mistakes and nice slip-ups that make them really human.
-
41:03
And it's really easy to idolize and romanticize the perspective of someone
-
41:08
if you're only seeing their very, very best and beautiful self.
-
41:12
And, I really think that we can benefit, from, from getting real,
-
41:18
so we're all real meaty people operating within a craft based industry and
-
41:23
I think that the reality of that can benefit us very, very much.
-
41:28
There's my cat.
-
41:29
[LAUGH]
-
41:32
Thanks [LAUGH]
-
41:39
[APPLAUSE]
-
41:44
>> Oh, it's so choppy.
-
41:45
[LAUGH] He's really cute.
-
41:47
So I have like two and a half minutes.
-
41:50
Thank you so much for kind of riding through this wackiness with me.
-
41:54
I've, I've been thinking so much about this and
-
41:57
I'd really love to hear if you have any perspectives as well.
-
42:00
So I think I have time for maybe like, one or two questions.
-
42:05
Hi!
-
42:06
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> [INAUDIBLE]
-
42:10
>> Well, so
-
42:11
he asked me what success is to me, and honestly, I'm, I don't know right now.
-
42:16
And I'm really trying to think about these things, and reevaluate what it is to me,
-
42:20
and I think that I can benefit from hearing what success is to you guys.
-
42:26
I know what feels good to me.
-
42:27
I know I like seeing my work in the context of like, that Lincoln commercial.
-
42:32
I know that I really like that, but, I, if I'm gonna aim higher and
-
42:36
really try and push the context of lettering
-
42:39
I need to really kind of get some specific ideas of what success is.
-
42:43
So, I think you can maybe expect to see some,
-
42:46
some interesting thoughts coming from me once I figure that out.
-
42:50
[LAUGH] Hi.
-
42:53
>> [INAUDIBLE]
-
43:08
>> Yeah.
-
43:09
The question was, the progress that I've seen in my, technically, in my lettering,
-
43:13
has it been because of workshops that I've gone to or has it been self taught?
-
43:19
I was very lucky to go to a super conceptual art school,
-
43:24
really thought about where design lives in the world.
-
43:28
And I was actually in the fine arts department so
-
43:30
I have a lot of fine art thinking in my life.
-
43:33
And so there were some classes.
-
43:35
I snuck into a class that I wasn't supposed to take.
-
43:39
It was called Hand Lettering and I did not have the prerequisites for it but
-
43:43
somehow I got into this class and
-
43:45
I just didn't tell anyone that I was not supposed to be there.
-
43:49
And the teacher is this guy named Joel Holland.
-
43:52
He's awesome and he lives in Brooklyn so, like, we're neighbors.
-
43:55
He impacted me so much because up until that point I was making weird fine art.
-
43:59
It was like super, super random, super punk, like really grungy.
-
44:03
And I saw the work he was doing and
-
44:06
I was like, he can afford to live drawing just letters.
-
44:10
And that's all I wanna do.
-
44:12
I might not have to do all of the other bizarre illustration stuff to do it so
-
44:17
I had some really effective classes when I was in college but
-
44:21
then when I graduated with this super conceptual like degree.
-
44:26
I didn't have a lot of technical skills, and so a lot of is self taught.
-
44:30
I taught myself the basics of typography like from scratch.
-
44:33
Yeah, books, YouTube is really awesome.
-
44:37
There's so many great calligraphy tutorials on YouTube.
-
44:40
And if you have that natural drive, you'll find these for sure.
-
44:43
Hey.
-
44:45
>> So, [INAUDIBLE]
-
44:49
stop that, like [INAUDIBLE]
-
44:55
this, this person [INAUDIBLE]
-
45:01
like, you know,
-
45:05
it feels weird to kind of be
-
45:10
in a community [INAUDIBLE] >> Mm-hm.
-
45:16
[BLANK_AUDIO]
-
45:20
Oh, that's such a good question.
-
45:21
So his question was, how do you, if you're working alone and
-
45:25
you're a creative person and no one around you is really doing what you're interested
-
45:28
in, how do you associate yourself with a community or build a community?
-
45:32
Even if you don't necessarily like the work of what's happening around you?
-
45:37
And, so I'm working on this right now.
-
45:40
I I really love the work that I love and so
-
45:43
I also really like to latch onto the people who make the work that I love and
-
45:48
I'm trying to find the beauty in things that aren't necessarily beautiful to me,
-
45:55
because they're beautiful to the people that make them.
-
45:59
And so my my goal is to figure out why the people that are making these things
-
46:04
make them because I have this weird natural compulsion to make letter forms.
-
46:09
But like someone else totally doesn't like there are people,
-
46:12
some people just totally don't even care and totally don't even look at it but yet
-
46:17
if they can respect what I can do then I can respect what they do.
-
46:20
And if you're living in a, a city or
-
46:23
a place where there aren't many creative people around the internet is so
-
46:28
incredible for it, and following and talking to people.
-
46:32
Twitter is like my lifeline during the day, when I'm working,
-
46:36
to other illustrators and lettering artists who are doing what I do.
-
46:40
So interacting online will help you interact in the physical world as well,
-
46:46
because when you go to things like this.
-
46:49
And you meet people that you've talked to online,
-
46:52
you'll have like a personal connect that will,
-
46:54
will filter through the Twitter conversations that you have after that.
-
46:58
So I definitely have friends that I only see maybe once a year at things like
-
47:03
this and yet,
-
47:04
I feel like that personality affects me because I talk to them constantly online
-
47:10
yeah I really think that conferences like this are super valuable to that.
-
47:15
Great I think I have time for one more all right.
-
47:18
Anyone hey.
-
47:20
[INAUDIBLE]
-
47:31
>> Cool, yeah. Totally.
-
47:32
So, he asked, when I said that I kind of pick and
-
47:36
choose agencies that I work for, what are the qualities that I look for?
-
47:41
And, ultimately I'm really, like, crafts driven and
-
47:43
I really respect people who love crafts.
-
47:46
And you can just tell.
-
47:47
Like, in the advertising world,
-
47:49
it can be difficult sometimes to make something really beautiful.
-
47:53
The art directors really want to make something beautiful and
-
47:56
everyone on the team wants to make something beautiful, but it's advertising.
-
47:59
There's a lot of research that goes into it.
-
48:01
And so, for me, I look for people who have successfully convinced their clients to
-
48:06
make something truly unique and really gorgeous.
-
48:09
And like if I've seen the work before that's really cool too.
-
48:13
And most of the times when agencies come to me it's like a dream come true,
-
48:16
because they've probably done something really awesome.
-
48:19
But if they're and this is just me personally.
-
48:23
Like if they're selling cigarettes I'm probably not gonna be like yeah,
-
48:26
I'm gonna work with them.
-
48:27
You know, and that's just a personal thing for me.
-
48:31
You have to figure out,
-
48:32
like, it's totally, I'm certain that some people would be like,
-
48:35
I'm not gonna work with Etsy, even though they're like my dream client.
-
48:37
So, it's different for everyone, really.
-
48:40
Yeah, all right cool.
-
48:42
Well, thank you so much for sticking with me for this.
-
48:44
[APPLAUSE]
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