[MUSIC]

I'm gonna kind of give you a disclaimer about my talk because it's a little

different.

First off this is my first ever real conference talk,

I've only ever done little bitty things here and there so bear with me.

I might be kind of all over the place, this isn't practiced at all like, well I

mean I practiced but I haven't given this talk before obviously Super new at this.

I don't, I don't have any answers for you.

I think a lot of times we see really elegant talks that have a lot of

lists of rules of how to live by.

And bullet points on how to be an awesome designer or

even an awesome human and I don't have any of that.

In fact I don't have any answers I just have a lot of questions.

And so I'm really excited to be here and kinda talk through all of this with you

because these are all things that I've been thinking about a lot about design as

an industry and about specializing because I've become kind of a specialist.

But first off I feel like you kinda need to know a little bit about me first.

So I'm gonna introduce myself so that I can like back up what where I'm going

with this so stay with me I'm gonna go with this kind of fast I've got a lot for

you [LAUGH] so this is me.

I'm here.

My name is Jen.

I'm [LAUGH] thank you.

And really, I just wanna be your friend so, like, hit me up.

I'm on Twitter all the time.

And I have a lot of thoughts here so

if you have thoughts what I really want is to hear those and, so

talk to me about this, even like during this whole thing, you know?

I'd be really excited to hear from you about some of the things

I'm going through.

So first off, I started off in southeastern Pennsylvania.

And I grew up in a family that really loves cars.

And so my grandfather bought all these cars new in the 70s.

My uncles had all these wacky cars and motorcycles, and

my dad inherited a lot of these cars and we restored them as I was growing up and

the typography in these cars was just hugely inspiring to me

oh I don't have speaker notes anymore oops oh well.

I'm just going to wing it.

[LAUGH] There might be some like names and dates that I miss then so forgive me.

So this really impacted me and I didn't realize it for a long time.

I had been going to these car shows my entire life and

I didn't realize until I became a designer and

started drawing letters that these letters were really inspiring to me.

Really impacted me.

So this is kind of where I come from.

This is my perspective.

And I'm one of those kids who like drew, like band logos on their notebooks,

and like then drew band logos on your friends notebooks, and

then like continued to do that.

And like the difference between me is like I never stopped doing that, and

I would go home and

continue to draw, and I started putting my work on the internet when I was like 13.

And you can find it.

It's still there.

Like, I wouldn't suggest doing that, but you can.

[LAUGH] And that feedback from all across the globe,

even if I'd only hear from a few people, was really important to me.

And it lead me to this place of realizing what I liked.

Realizing what I liked to draw.

And that was letters from the very beginning.

I'm just super compelled to draw them.

I love letter forms.

I love calligraphy.

I love lettering.

I love typography.

And so now, skipping over a whole lot of my life, I'm a specialist.

And today I'm a freelancer and I stand before you as a freelancer.

I am not a typographer.

I don't like, go around correcting people, cuz I think that's really rude.

And honestly, a lot of people, most people do not know,

need to know the difference between lettering and typography.

Like, let's be real.

But we're all professionals here and we work with fonts and

we work with letterforms, and

we should be using the right words within our industry, I feel like.

So, first off we're going to talk about lettering, and what it is.

It's, like, the custom design using letter forms in an illustrated way and

whereas typography is using, gifs within a system.

To create fonts and then, you can create really awesome designs.

Like, I'm sure a lot of you guys do too with them.

So all my work is hand-drawn though.

Which is a little bit interesting.

And it's always been hand-drawn.

I've never really been compelled to create something directly from the computer,

even though I really, really, hugely respect the people that do.

Especially with lettering.

It's very hard.

And I'm, I'm just like green you just gotta get in there.

I use a lot of traditional calligraphy practices, and

my background's in fine are too, so

I often apply the fine art thinking into how I make the work that I create.

And I end up with just a lot of drawings, just so many.

There are just piles everywhere.

And it, I love the chaos of lettering because it's completely custom and

everything is unique and this chaos, this mess is mine.

It's like this is, this is me.

Really.

And, and it just has such a unique perspective to me, so maybe some of your

desks look like this, too, but it's just kind of all over the place.

Once the drawing is finished, and I try and draw it perfectly,

[LAUGH] on paper so that when I take it into Photoshop and

I fix it digitally, I really don't have to do too much editing.

And that's kinda my point.

It's like, I am obsessive about getting it right, physically first, and

then doing as little edits as possible.

And that might turn into personal projects like this Cotton Veer tee on the left.

Hopefully you guys all know Cotton Veer.

They're such a great company.

Small business based in Pittsburgh.

Every dollar you spend with them goes directly to someone who really needs it.

And, supporting folks like us really.

And, then it might turn into client projects which is what I mostly do really

and like this tee on the right for Art Directors Club.

But, then, sometimes I'll do work on garments.

And it's completely different.

It has a completely different context from a t-shirt and this was an art piece also

for the Art Judges club but it has such a different, it lives in a different world

than that first t-shirt does, and I really love exploring the context that

lettering can live in because it's such a like, straight basic.

It's really black on paper, black on white.

And I draw in black and I take it and then it can go anywhere.

And I love playing with the boundaries of that.

Or it can go live in public, where, which is really fun.

I'm not sure quite if you can see, let me see if I, oh, there it is.

So that's, I drew that.

That's my website, which is just so crazy.

And those are like my hands.

So [LAUGH] Squarespace, is a really interesting company.

And I knew the people who worked there before I really knew the product.

And the people who worked there were always really supportive of me, but

in a very professional way.

And we always had a very professional connection, and it's, it's always lovey

dovey sure but it's, they've never like, kind of sponsored my life or

anything like that, it's like they hire me for this job and like I get paid,

just in the same way as any other client, and that's super cool and so

they decided to after a few projects that we've done together.

For their sponsorships for things like this,

they decided to put me on their campaign as like, one of their cover girls,

and I got to be on commercials and stuff, which was super crazy.

So my, my work and my website was magnified by this company, and

and then I, on the other hand, which is kind of really interesting.

This is Starbucks on the right, and I did not get to say that I drew this.

Like, I probably shouldn't even be telling you that I drew this.

[LAUGH] And, like, so it's like two very different, and yet,

equally large campaigns that, that kind of have an interesting context for

the use of my lettering.

But then sometimes it can get even bigger and this is super crazy.

This is a commercial that I worked with an ad agency for and

I don't, I, up until this point I hadn't worked with ad agencies that often.

And I was really intimidated.

I come from like super DIY punk background and

I'm like damn the man advertising is evil or whatever.

And but I loved cars and when Lincoln came to me, I was like,

this is actually dream come true, but how do I feel about like, trying to sell new

cars like, and so I got past it really quickly [LAUGH] and, I'm so glad I did.

It was like a, an internal thing I still do like

think about the clients that I work with if I ever work at a scale like this.

Really what it means for my work to be applied to this brand like, and

I will only take clients that I feel really comfortable partnering with.

And so this was just so cool.

I worked in house and I created like a stack this big of drawings.

We had so many iterations on all these pieces.

And the, it was crazy to draw something and

then scan it and hand it to a designer who turned it in to a vector for me.

I was like, really?

You're gonna do that?

That's awesome, cause normally, I have to like wrestle with Illustrator and

he was great.

And he was like, no I'll take care of it and he cleans up my files for me.

I was like, I wanna hire him forever.

>> [LAUGH] >> And then he would give it to a 3D

modelling guy, who would like, turn it into a three dimensional object.

And then he would give it to the lighting guy, who would light it.

And then he would give it to the animator guy who would, like, mask it out and

make it kind of move like this.

And this turned into a commercial that would air at the Grammy's in front of 20

million people.

Like, I could never get my work to 28 million people just on my own,

even though I really have that, like, moxie to do it.

[LAUGH] I just don't think I could and

This partnership gets the context of lettering into an elevated state for me.

It literally elevated my work to a level that I just couldn't do on my own.

But, honestly,

I think my favorite projects are those collaborations that you do with friends.

And this was a project that my friend Taras Kravtchouk,

who's Swedish and also a product designer.

He was contacted by Belstaff, which is a luxury motorcycle jacket company,

which I think is kinda an oxymoron.

But, basically, over the past few years, like,

they have a long history British company of building these gorgeous field jackets.

That were meant for

motorcycling that dudes on Tribes would would ride these a lot.

And over the last few years I started making like $2000 jackets that are canvas.

And like David Beckham's wearing them and they're all like models and stuff, and

real motorcyclists aren't wearing these jackets.

And so in an attempt to like reassociate their brand with motorcycling culture,

they hired my friend Taras, who's a product designer.

I don't even know how they knew he was building custom bikes.

Their like, we need some bikes for

our shop, and he brought me on, because he knew that I could sling some paint.

And I love motorcycles, obviously.

[LAUGH] And, he asked me to paint the tank, and the details on the racing plate.

And this is something I've actually wanted to do my entire life.

Going to car shows with my dad, I'd see these, like, super-slick old Indians and

stuff, and this was just really, really exciting for me.

And then it turns into this!

[LAUGH] Which is just mind-boggling to me, so and yet,

in another state of collaboration Taras was in the garage building the bike.

He had like three weeks to do this, which is nuts.

To find it and to build it.

In the garage while I'm painting, and I think the paint is wet in this photo.

[LAUGH] Because his friend Ryan is this insane photographer.

Ryan Hant he shoots a lot of photos for Bike EXIF.

And he had his, he set up his lights in the middle of the night

as soon as Taras gets that tank on there he shoots this shot.

And it goes on a truck next day, and it goes uptown and

now it's in a store in in like the upper east side.

And then there's this one also, which is same thing.

Paint's probably still wet.

[LAUGH] We shipped it off to Los Angeles, so

this is in the Belstaff store in Los Angeles.

And we're working on another one which I'm not sure where that bike's gonna go.

But the, so this is an ongoing project and this is like a dream come true for me.

And I'm a freelancer, it's awesome.

I get to collaborate with these people.

I get to collaborate with whoever I like.

And I get to say no to advertising companies that I don't like, or

I don't agree with.

Or I can, say yes to these small clients that I really love,

because I have the freedom to manage my own situation.

I also have the freedom to wear whatever I want when I, when I'm working.

But like, let's be real like,

that freelance life can really easily turn into that lonely life.

Because work from home, I've seen it a lot,

can really quickly become never leaves home.

And then, like, you never put on pants.

[LAUGH] And, [LAUGH] and

I really just feel like there's just too much benefit to a community.

Especially when you're a freelancer if you're working from home and

if you're working kinda out there alone.

You're putting yourself out there.

We gotta, like, stick together, man.

And I really think that we can battle this by going to stuff like this.

And I'm super excited for Creative Self, and other start up conferences like this.

Because we really wanna know each other, and that's really what matters.

And we're better together.

So yeah, I would say,

some of the best connections I've ever made have been at conferences like this.

And I am always stumped, once in awhile I hear someone who's like hating on

conferences, and I'm like, well, that's okay.

You probably just don't get along with people.

[LAUGH] And so all of this like feel-good friendliness that I've

collected over the past few years of freelancing has led me to this.

And Ghostly Ferns is this really incredible company that Meg,

who's over here, actually, started as her own practice.

And then Laura's apart of Ghostly Ferns, too, yeah.

>> [APPLAUSE] >> [LAUGH] I hope you all got to dance

with them at some point over this trip, cuz it is top notch.

And so Ghostly Ferns is kinda weird though I'm gonna explain it.

Basically we're not an agency, but we kinda operate like an agency,

we're not a collective but we kinda operate as a collective.

We all are freelancers who specialize in specific things, and

I specialize in a very specific thing.

But if I were to make a website, I need Meg to design it.

And if I were to make, work for a startup, I would need Laura to create some

beautiful spot illustrations to really enhance the brand.

And then we have a developer who actually makes the websites work.

And now another designer and a product designer as well.

And we, a company like Conde Nast could hire

Ghostly Ferns and hire all of us to work on one project.

Or, my own, my own clients come in just through my own website and

continue to hire me.

So, I'm responsible for my own situation.

I am still super independent, but

I have the support group and the work if I need it from Ghostly Ferns.

And, and if you're a freelancer and also a specialist, I would

highly suggest that you look into banding together with some other freelancers.

If you're a designer and there's a developer you love to work with

like keep that connection going because it's really important.

With our powers combined we can make some really awesome stuff because of our

specialties and this is one of my favorite shows.

It's just, it's completely ridiculous.

I feel like it's responsible for a lot of how I am today, also.

So overall, it's like, like all the benefits that I've had

from working as a freelancer and banning together with these people.

Because throughout all this as I'm meeting folks I'm just trying to be genuine.

And like, I'm sure you guys are all super cool, but sometimes you meet someone and

you're like, oh that networky like, you can just smell it from a mile away.

That like, desperate need to be like, have my business card, have my contact,

follow me on Triple and bla.

And it's like, okay, I'll get there let's be friends first.

[LAUGH] And there are just so many benefits.

So, if, I don't have advice overall, but

if there's anything you take away from this it's this.

Because it's better with friends.

So, overall, things are good for me right now.

I'm a lettering artist.

Lettering is super hot right now.

It's really hip.

I think that we can all definitely, definitely agree on that.

But I also have some things I've been thinking about lettering as an industry,

because we're growing like crazy.

We're at an exponential point.

And I would definitely say that we're kinda at a golden era.

Like, we're at a good point where I wanna use the word renaissance.

But I know it's really dramatic.

[LAUGH] So we gotta be conscious about the decisions that we make as an industry and

I think it's really important to, to work together.

In order to, to raise the industry as whole because if so

much of industry is based on trend.

And so much of our popularity is based on things just looking cool right now.

That could very easily change.

We need to make efforts right now to make lettering sustainable

in case it goes away.

And so I'm just gonna real quick go over, like super quick go over the history

of some key things that I think have affected contempor,

well, I'm gonna use the term contemporary lettering.

Which is lettering as we know it right now, you know, like,

Responsible by Jessica Hische and all them.

Which is super cool and it's great and it's the reason that I have a living and

can, like, live in one of the most expensive cities in Brooklyn.

Is because of contemporary lettering today.

But, but we can't remember, we can't forget that this isn't new.

Like, it's really hot right now, and it's really, it feels so

fresh, which is wonderful, but this isn't new.

Letter, hand-lettering has been around literally since we could

realize that we could communicate with words.

Like, and so, I'm just gonna skip over cave paintings, and

like, Illuminated manuscripts and all of the history of printmaking and

how that completely changed communication.

And we're gonna get to like to the 60s and 70s, which to me, was kinda

the golden moment of lettering that we're trying to hearken back to right now.

And so we've got Herb Lubalin.

Awesome, incredible designer, incredible design studio.

And the interesting thing about him is that he had a lot of guys working for him.

And a lot of the lettering that Herb Lubalin is known for, he didn't do.

He had lettering artists on staff, all the time, and so

we got guys like Tom Carnase on the left, and Tony DiSpigna on the right.

And they've just got such a,

such a energy that I think this was made in like the 60s and 70s.

You can recognize in some of the work that we're seeing today.

Really cool.

This is kinda a random little thing,

but this is a post modern painting by John Baldissari.

And he hired a carpenter to create the frame and

then a sign-painter to paint the lettering on here.

Because to Baldessari,

lettering was the most neutral way to express art thinking in, like as a whole.

And I think that this painting is really important but I could talk like for

two hours just about this painting.

And then all as well all know I like sign painting, sign painting is a craft and

its super cool.

And the all these guys wanted to just kinda make something as efficiently and

as well and as beautifully as possible.

But really it's an industry, like, a craft-based industry and

it always has been.

And then so when the vinyl cutter comes around, people Who wanna do things

efficiently and wanna do things as fast and as well as they can just kinda

switched over to making vinyl instead of painting things by hand.

And that's totally fine.

But it also changed the landscape of where custom lettering lived in our,

in our daily lives because we weren't going to the grocery store and

seeing hand painted lettering anymore.

Just everywhere.

And this drastically changed in like the 70s and 80s just

lettering kind of became not a part of our landscape or, of our environment.

And of course, like, like, punks are always gonna do it their own way,

and that's what I love about them.

And so Jamie Reid here, this is a super important design piece,

even though we think of it as maybe just a album cover for the Sex Pistols.

I really feel like this movement and this piece is kind of

representative of the whole of, of punk art that started in the 70s and

has kind of influenced zine culture and

like, low brow art and is still, and which is now super popular today.

And so we can't forget, can't forget the Punks.

And they've always ho, held onto a handmade aesthetic, even when vinyl goes

away, and even when lettering becomes not popular again, in the 90s.

>> [LAUGH].

[SOUND].

So, the 90s happens, and typography is just like, oh my God, we love collaging.

>> [LAUGH].

>> We get David Carson, and I don't want to be like,

oh this guy's such a bum, but like, he impacted design so largely.

Him, and all of his many, many, many impostors.

So, everyone wanted to make art like this in the 90s, especially graphic designers.

I mean, this is the cover of How Magazine, man!

And, like, he was so aggressively against legibility that,

like- >> [LAUGH]

>> No, for real, though!

He like, actually does not like legibility, and he'll just add numbers in,

like, on a poster.

Just because, and you're like,

I don't even know what time this thing is happening.

>> [LAUGH] >> And, and

yet, everything in the '90s looked like this.

Album covers, posters, book covers, and this pervasive, like,

lack of context and thought in work, this, it's like, it's like a lazy Dada art.

And because he really just didn't think about any of the things

that he was using and he used type as a decoration which I'm like so against.

Decorative type is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but

he's literally just like strewing it around.

And he's stubborn, right?

So this work is stubborn to me.

It does not wanna be read, it does not wanna, like, live in tangible context.

And and he's still super stubborn.

Does anyone wanna guess what year this poster on the right was made?

It was made last month.

[LAUGH] and yet it looks just like the 90's.

It, it just looks so much like the 90's.

I can't.

And yet, on a positive note we've got someone, like Louise Fili.

She made it through the 90's unscathed.

And I really feel like, you know,

she got her start with Herb Lubalin which is really cool and

then she became our director of Pantheon Books which is like a huge honor.

And she I feel like rep, I'm using her as a, as a, like a, like a golden goose,

like as a representative of a designer that has been adaptable.

And she has made it through the 90's,

she started in like the 70's, made it through the 80's, and now,

she's created work, she's created a studio that is so influential today.

She's like, her studio has nurtured the lettering artist that really,

really impacted where contemporary lettering today.

And I think that that's a really interesting design studio to think about.

So I had this moment recently, and I got this milk carton.

And I was just staring, I was like totally not paying attention, and

I noticed this milk carton in my kitchen and it's beautiful and

it represents a like, pervasiveness of lettering today.

If we're gonna like I'm just gonna real quick jump through from the 90s to now.

Lettering has just exploded and there's a lot of things that happen within there.

But lettering is everywhere today.

It's on credit card commercials.

I don't know why.

Like, if you're gonna think of anything that's super technical and

once you use fonts, it's like a bank or a credit card company.

And they're hiring like Dan Cassaro to do really gorgeous stuff.

I think that's really good and it means something to our industry.

That big brands like this want to hire people like me, like grungy art kid,

to make some awesome stuff for them that feels human and feels handmade.

This guy, actually, al Alan, Alan Ariail, he's an old-school lettering artist.

His website's in flash, and it has music.

And he [LAUGH] no, for real.

He, he just kind of like adapted to the climate of lettering as it

changed throughout all these years and he managed to now make a very beautiful

piece that totally operates within the context of lettering as we know it today.

And yet he's always been doing it.

He's been doing stuff for like Wheat Thins and it just, kind of.

Maybe in that time period where lettering wasn't as popular, and

he may have been like the only guy doing it.

It just kind of disappeared on like a tissue box or a cereal box.

And now, it's being brought to the surface and

the lettering is the most interesting piece on this box.

And a milk carton to me is like the most mundane thing that,

if you can make beautiful is really interesting.

And so I feel like this is really representative of how

ubiquitous lettering is today.

And so like, real quick, we got a history.

We got like punk posters, and graffiti, and street art.

Street art goes to galleries, gig posters throughout this, Hand Job is a big deal.

Urban Outfitters, Napoleon Dynamite, comics and zines and then the internet.

The internet changes everything and it's like we already had an influx of DIY and

handmade with these companies starting up.

But the internet let us share art and it brought art into the lives of everyday

people which I really respect Instagram for doing probably not intentionally.

Or Pinterest, really any of these.

It's like, a teenager could be on Tumblr and

could see someone's work, like mine, or like someone else's and

I think that's really cool cuz otherwise I was just showing it to you guys.

I was just showing it to designers, and

so now lettering is like seeped into the personal lives of everyone else as well as

as well as the prof, professional lives.

And we can thank, I think, a little bit Jon Contino, Jessica Hische, [UNKNOWN],

Erik Marinovich for teaching us how to use the internet and

how to really push lettering through the internet to where we are today.

And, obviously, they're not the only ones whose been doing this,

but I feel like I really learned a lot from these guys on how to show my work

In a way that makes sense to design as a whole.

But real talk.

Like, man, lettering is a trend, and if we don't, if we don't hold onto this and

try and find ways to make it sustainable, when the trends change,

and if we start making grungy collages again, I'm gonna be out of a job.

>> And I mean I'm not gonna be out of a job like I'm very, very solvent and

I'm gonna do this, no one's gonna convince me otherwise but like, for

a young designer who wants to be a lettering artist and asks me for

advice and they're gonna graduate next year.

I have a hard time telling them to get into lettering because

It's a little bit shaky right now.

We've gotta make efforts to like make it stick around actively.

And so there are some things I've been thinking about,

there's some things I've been noticing.

There's some problems that we have, that we, if we work past,

I really think that we can do this.

And I'm super optimistic about the future of lettering.

But yeah visual trends change, and if they do there's like this whole breed of

beautiful work that might go down with the like, super artisanal ship.

And I don't want to see that happen.

This is [LAUGH] a parody of one of the, I'm gonna call them lettering tropes.

A lettering trope that I see a lot is like this like inlaid piece

of lettering with some like artisanal it's like a wood grain and

there's tools all around because they obviously use all these tools.

And, one of my favorite things is like the pencil shavings,

like someone drew a piece of lettering and then, then sharpened their pencil and

put it down and took a picture of it.

Like, if you just think about what a tool means, what a pencil means to

the context of the lettering, that is not something you would do.

[LAUGH] Like, you don't sharpen the pencil after you use it and then put it down.

Like, that's,

that's just, we gotta think more about why these trends don't make sense.

Also, like, this is what I call the aggressive micron It's [LAUGH].

>> [LAUGH].

>> It's like, it's like using the, the pen to justify the means,

and I don't necessarily agree with that as, as meaningful context.

I'm not gonna say that you shouldn't do this because truly,

if you're taking a quick Instagram shot of your studio,

and there's some lettering that you're proud of and

your pens happen to be there like, that's cool context, people want to see that.

It shows your process a little bit.

But, there's like this forced, super aggressive,

like it's pointing at the thing and like your hand is holding

pointing out a finished piece of lettering like as if you're drawing it.

Or [LAUGH] I mean, I've done these things, you know.

Like, you gotta take some of the trends.

You gotta operate within them a little bit in order to figure out what you like and

what you're good at, but as soon as you start thinking about these trends,

I've been thinking about these and they don't make sense anymore.

I'm like.

Using a micron as a baselun, baseline for the lettering that's finished.

Is the pen then competing for attention with the lettering?

Like, it's almost like people, people just wanna see the pen now.

Like, just Instagram the pen.

But that's not, that's really,

really degrading almost to the beautiful lettering that people are showing.

And so I really feel like so much of the gorgeous work I'm seeing is, is, kind of,

being lost with, like, this aggressive action towards it,

just to, kind of, justify the fact that, yeah, I drew this.

And then I'm sure you're all familiar with this trope.

Don't, so disclaimer,

one of my favorite, favorite ever compositions or

like, styles or context for lettering is with photography.

And I feel like some of the most beautiful things I've done have been over photo,

photographs and the most beautiful lettering that I've ever seen

have been using photographs as well.

But my problem with this trope is that, that I'm seeing so

much work that does not consider what the photographs actually are and

how it relates to the context of the lettering.

And it almost sometimes feels like the lettering doesn't even matter.

It's like, oh I just saw this quote, I won't even think about who wrote it.

Whatever, and it just looks good.

And, I mean, that's ok too, you got to practice somehow, right?

But I just really think that, overall, this trope, kind of,

doesn't bring much value to the,

the words that are with it because, I mean, I've seen pieces that say like,

like beautiful Brooklyn, New York City, and they'll have trees behind it.

I'm, like, have you been to Brooklyn?

Like, come on, man.

It's not, it's not, there's no trees there.

>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]

Also interesting about this trope it's been done before.

Ed Roscha did this in the 80s he's been doing this forever and

he's even made square paintings that totally look like Instagrams in the 80s.

And I, seriously, if you,

if you operate within these tropes I am not calling you out.

I'm definitely not.

You have to, like, find what really works for you, but

I think that we should know that this exists.

And I think that if you're operating within these, with these styles, then,

then we should be doing research and we should know about this, right?

So, overall, my plea is just, like, man, we don't need these cheesy tropes.

>> We're better than this.

We're more creative than this.

Lettering is cooler than that.

Lettering can live in much better context than just over some trees.

And so I really urge us to, kind of, like, get away from the trends that are defining

us, because they can very easily change, and they're already played out.

Another issue, real quick,

is that the value of lettering is determined by other industries.

So, graphic designers determine the value of lettering, And,

the fact that graphic designers all really like lettering right now, is awesome!

But, as soon as you guys turn around and don't like lettering anymore,

like, that's bad for the industry.

We need to operate individually of graphic design,

but underneath the canvas of graphic design.

And then also, a lot of us are freelancers.

A lot of us really don't talk to each other.

These are things that, every time I get with a with another

lettering artist who I only chat with on the internet once in a while, it's just,

like, pours out of us and

we can't stop talking about these goofy things that are happening on Pinterest.

And, you know, talking about all this interesting,

interesting things that we're seeing happening on the internet.

And the fact that we're isolated from each other

actually brings the value of lettering down because

we might not know how to price things if we're not talking to each other.

But obviously I'm not gonna, just gonna rap on my beloved industry without, like,

providing some solutions.

And, honestly, this is just big picture thinking.

Like, this is, these are some things that I think we could really apply today.

So if trends are bad for the industry how do we, kind of, get around that.

And I'm thinking that we need to diversify in the most grand sense of the word.

And not only diversify what we're making, by making and

experimenting and having fun and doing different stuff,

drawing different things, but then also, like, literally liking different stuff.

If you're scrolling through Instagram, or whatever,

your means of consumption of work is, and it all looks the same, that's fine.

But you're missing out on some really cool stuff.

Like, I wanna know what's happening in South Africa?

Like, what does lettering look like in Mexico?

And, so, like, go out and find them.

There are ins, there are Instagram accounts, by the way, that are really,

really interesting.

There's, like, Iranian goat herders that sell goats on Instagram.

That's really cool to me.

And that has nothing to do with lettering, but it's still interesting.

And if that's in my feed, it's gonna affect what I do, like, naturally.

And and so I really think that on top of liking different stuff, we need to,

kind of, boost artists that are doing weird things and, like, kind of

Experimenting and might not have the kind of rap sheet that our famous letters do.

And so industry standards could really help us, too.

If we can get together and talk about what it means to price for certain clients,

it's really great.

There's some really helpful blog posts out there about pricing, but I also wonder,

like, what if someone wrote a manual about pricing just for lettering.

Like, what does, what does lettering done on a computer cost verse what does

lettering done by hand cost?

Is that different?

I don't know. But I want to talk about these things and

I want to think about these things as an industry, because graphic design,

illustration, fine art, even, has a long history of kind of

working these things out and making them make sense.

And lettering with all of the, like, like, vinyl cutting it out and

the nineties cutting it out, we've got some, like, we're kind of rag tag.

We're all over the place.

We need to, to get together, kinda, start to agree on things and

that leads me to job titles.

And I know, like, like I'm, I'm like I said,

I'm from the DIY punk scene and I went to art school.

Titles really, really should not matter to me.

[LAUGH] But I really think that it can be very important and it can be very

empowering for younger designers who might not know where they're going.

If they know that they can at least call themselves a lettering artist because they

love to draw letters, like, that at least let's them Google lettering artist and,

like, get to the next step and get to the next point.

And I've had this conversation so much, it's like, what do you do?

I'm an illustrator.

Oh, that's cool.

Like, children's books?

Mm, no.

I guess I'm more of a designer.

And it's like, oh, cool.

So, like, brochures and stuff?

Not really.

I use letters mostly.

It's like, fonts?

I'm like, okay, and that gets me practical with correction guy with the lettering.

And, like, I'm not really gonna, gonna bore someone half to death by, like,

talking about the difference between lettering and typography, if they're just,

kind of, interested in what I do and describe it definitely.

But that brings me to the word letterer, okay.

Letterer is a word that does not belong to lettering artists.

Letterer is a word that belongs to comic artists, actually.

And I think that if we just, just do a little bit of research into the words that

we call ourselves, I think that we'd come to an industry standard that would really

benefit and boost the industry.

So letterer,

a letterer is literally someone who writes comic sans all day.

Yeah.

It makes you a little bit less enchanted with that term, right?

[LAUGH] So, I, I didn't know what to call myself when I had

that conversation with people and when I first started to really specialize.

And so I did some research.

And I was like, this doesn't seem right to call myself a letterer,

but I didn't really know why.

So I did some more research in doing this talk and I asked John Contino and he was,

like, you really, like, set me up for trouble asking me that question right?

And he was, like, he hates that word also because he has a background that relates

to comics and he know that that doesn't belong to us.

Jessica Hische even was, like, I'm,

I'm actually calling myself a lettering artist more now.

But she liked the sound of the word letterer.

Disclaimer, you should identify as whatever you identify as.

Like, I'm not gonna tell you to change your Twitter bio, or whatever.

But I do wanna urge you to think about the words that we use because

words mean things, and words are, literally, our industry.

And so we need to get together.

And we can't agree on a term to call ourselves if we aren't

talking to each other.

And there are so many benefits to, to getting together.

Not only as an industry, but then also as an individual.

Cuz no freelancer is an island entire of itself.

It feels like that sometimes, though.

[LAUGH] I work in a co-working space, and I have completely obliterated

any sort of loneliness that has bothered me in any situation.

I worked from home when I lived in San Francisco, and it was miserable.

I was, I was so miserable.

And I was not getting the creative vibes from other people,

even from creative people who do super different stuff from, from what I do.

So I operate in a world where people are doing different specialties to me.

And, also I think that we need to have realistic perspectives of success.

This is, like, kind of a big idea, and it's, and it's, kind of,

hard to, to really bring it together.

But what I mean is that, we should know what success means to us individually.

I, I need to reevaluate what it means for me to be successful as a lettering artist.

And I really think that we can all benefit from, kind of,

evaluating this success together.

On the other hand, maybe we need to check our idols a little bit, too.

And I don't mean that we should be killing our idols, or

tearing them down in any way, I'm just saying that

the people that we really admire online are real people, and when you meet them,

they're just real dudes, like dudes and ladies doing their own things.

And I don't think that we necessarily need that over-romanticism that

the Internet really lets us get into.

And that's totally fine.

Like, like you are all wonderful people and I'm very excited to meet all of you,

and you're all my idols.

But like, I, I need to remember that my

self worth is not based on the accomplishments of you guys.

And likewise because life is more than how it looks on Instagram.

It's for real.

[LAUGH] It's just like, wa,

social media and there's so many stories right now about how social media is

affecting how we actually feel and we need to remember that it's all

a curated perspective of what someone wants to show us.

And when you're actually face to face with the person, you might see some little cool

mistakes and nice slip-ups that make them really human.

And it's really easy to idolize and romanticize the perspective of someone

if you're only seeing their very, very best and beautiful self.

And, I really think that we can benefit, from, from getting real,

so we're all real meaty people operating within a craft based industry and

I think that the reality of that can benefit us very, very much.

There's my cat.

[LAUGH]

Thanks [LAUGH]

[APPLAUSE]

>> Oh, it's so choppy.

[LAUGH] He's really cute.

So I have like two and a half minutes.

Thank you so much for kind of riding through this wackiness with me.

I've, I've been thinking so much about this and

I'd really love to hear if you have any perspectives as well.

So I think I have time for maybe like, one or two questions.

Hi!

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> [INAUDIBLE]

>> Well, so

he asked me what success is to me, and honestly, I'm, I don't know right now.

And I'm really trying to think about these things, and reevaluate what it is to me,

and I think that I can benefit from hearing what success is to you guys.

I know what feels good to me.

I know I like seeing my work in the context of like, that Lincoln commercial.

I know that I really like that, but, I, if I'm gonna aim higher and

really try and push the context of lettering

I need to really kind of get some specific ideas of what success is.

So, I think you can maybe expect to see some,

some interesting thoughts coming from me once I figure that out.

[LAUGH] Hi.

>> [INAUDIBLE]

>> Yeah.

The question was, the progress that I've seen in my, technically, in my lettering,

has it been because of workshops that I've gone to or has it been self taught?

I was very lucky to go to a super conceptual art school,

really thought about where design lives in the world.

And I was actually in the fine arts department so

I have a lot of fine art thinking in my life.

And so there were some classes.

I snuck into a class that I wasn't supposed to take.

It was called Hand Lettering and I did not have the prerequisites for it but

somehow I got into this class and

I just didn't tell anyone that I was not supposed to be there.

And the teacher is this guy named Joel Holland.

He's awesome and he lives in Brooklyn so, like, we're neighbors.

He impacted me so much because up until that point I was making weird fine art.

It was like super, super random, super punk, like really grungy.

And I saw the work he was doing and

I was like, he can afford to live drawing just letters.

And that's all I wanna do.

I might not have to do all of the other bizarre illustration stuff to do it so

I had some really effective classes when I was in college but

then when I graduated with this super conceptual like degree.

I didn't have a lot of technical skills, and so a lot of is self taught.

I taught myself the basics of typography like from scratch.

Yeah, books, YouTube is really awesome.

There's so many great calligraphy tutorials on YouTube.

And if you have that natural drive, you'll find these for sure.

Hey.

>> So, [INAUDIBLE]

stop that, like [INAUDIBLE]

this, this person [INAUDIBLE]

like, you know,

it feels weird to kind of be

in a community [INAUDIBLE] >> Mm-hm.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Oh, that's such a good question.

So his question was, how do you, if you're working alone and

you're a creative person and no one around you is really doing what you're interested

in, how do you associate yourself with a community or build a community?

Even if you don't necessarily like the work of what's happening around you?

And, so I'm working on this right now.

I I really love the work that I love and so

I also really like to latch onto the people who make the work that I love and

I'm trying to find the beauty in things that aren't necessarily beautiful to me,

because they're beautiful to the people that make them.

And so my my goal is to figure out why the people that are making these things

make them because I have this weird natural compulsion to make letter forms.

But like someone else totally doesn't like there are people,

some people just totally don't even care and totally don't even look at it but yet

if they can respect what I can do then I can respect what they do.

And if you're living in a, a city or

a place where there aren't many creative people around the internet is so

incredible for it, and following and talking to people.

Twitter is like my lifeline during the day, when I'm working,

to other illustrators and lettering artists who are doing what I do.

So interacting online will help you interact in the physical world as well,

because when you go to things like this.

And you meet people that you've talked to online,

you'll have like a personal connect that will,

will filter through the Twitter conversations that you have after that.

So I definitely have friends that I only see maybe once a year at things like

this and yet,

I feel like that personality affects me because I talk to them constantly online

yeah I really think that conferences like this are super valuable to that.

Great I think I have time for one more all right.

Anyone hey.

[INAUDIBLE]

>> Cool, yeah. Totally.

So, he asked, when I said that I kind of pick and

choose agencies that I work for, what are the qualities that I look for?

And, ultimately I'm really, like, crafts driven and

I really respect people who love crafts.

And you can just tell.

Like, in the advertising world,

it can be difficult sometimes to make something really beautiful.

The art directors really want to make something beautiful and

everyone on the team wants to make something beautiful, but it's advertising.

There's a lot of research that goes into it.

And so, for me, I look for people who have successfully convinced their clients to

make something truly unique and really gorgeous.

And like if I've seen the work before that's really cool too.

And most of the times when agencies come to me it's like a dream come true,

because they've probably done something really awesome.

But if they're and this is just me personally.

Like if they're selling cigarettes I'm probably not gonna be like yeah,

I'm gonna work with them.

You know, and that's just a personal thing for me.

You have to figure out,

like, it's totally, I'm certain that some people would be like,

I'm not gonna work with Etsy, even though they're like my dream client.

So, it's different for everyone, really.

Yeah, all right cool.

Well, thank you so much for sticking with me for this.

[APPLAUSE]