Graphic Designer & Calligrapher
This talk is one of the best TED talks I have ever watched. Immediately it touched my emotion in a deep level. Because of what the guy who the speaker is talking about went through. Because if something drastic was to happen to a person because of someone else how hard do you think it would be to forgive the attacker?
Have a great weekend everyone
I know that I am not the only designer that has experienced a similar way of thinking. Because from doing something so much you immediately know how to solve a problem based on a process. well you do not want to keep the mentality that this job is easy. The reason is eventually you will realize that it is not easy.
The things that are easy to you may seem difficult to some other person who has more experience than you. With wanting to have something that is easy or that you do not find difficult it takes serious discipline. The skateboarders that you see who can do tricks easy with no problems you did not spend the days of them falling over and over to learn a trick. The same thing applies to having your mind tuned to be able to think faster and more creatively.
You have to develop first confidence and belief in yourself. We think if I do good work everything else will fall into place. When honestly that will not happen. No one will care that you do good work. You also may even have people who do not think that you did the work. Because you may have met other designers who try and brag about so many things.
The situation is as if you do not know who to believe anymore. Which is a sad thing especially for designers. Because when you meet someone who is a designer you’d think they’d have the same mentality with certain aspects as you do. But its a very simple process to spot a liar to someone who is actually genuine with what they talk about. I am not sure if you feel the same way about liars its something that absolutely disgusts me.
The way that my parents raised me was to be honest. Being honest is something I tend to always lean towards doing more than most. Because it frees you from many things that in other words would carry way to much weight on you. Each day I learn that I am a work in progress to become a more efficient and confident designer. Reading books, newsletters, listening to podcasts have me moving more steadily in the right direction.
Listening to podcasts and getting into the right frame of mind will help you on your journey to make being a designer a bit easier for you. There’s no need to be a scaredy cat when it comes to talking with people. Get up off of your ass or wherever you are right now and talk with something.
One of the best tutorials I have seen on how to actually digitize your hand lettering.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Ever since I started learning calligraphy by myself I never really thought of it in such a large way. Because when you start teaching yourself something you begin to do it out of love. Then further down the road you start to realize what it can become. I have built a good following on instagram and made some good friends as well there.
One person recently told me to make a quote I did recently into a shirt. I was thinking “Josten why did you not already do this!”. My thoughts are I’m doing something for free to help inspire others as well as showing my commitment.
Here is how one of the shirts is going to be printed
There is a lot of hand lettering online and everywhere you can imagine. There is also some that is pristine and almost does not look hand done and I tend to always want to keep that aspect of my calligraphy work. Therefore showing the little imperfection brings out the human aspect of it and a more organic feel.
Some other things I have been trying to do a bit more was to test out incorporating a hand lettered aspect of a logo. Since I’ve been doing calligraphy for over a year everyday why the hell not?
Here is one recent project that I started
The project is going to be based off of people who Ride the Rails. If you are not familiar with the term its people who ride freight trains. I’m debating whether or not to base it off of a beer company or clothing. But more or less its a fun project. Still have to clean things up a bit with it.
Being a creative person takes courage. You may think “oh its not hard to be creative what’s so scary about it?”. Well day after day I have to continue pushing myself to not be afraid. Because you can put out a piece of work and have no idea of what your audience is going to think. You also may have gotten caught up in the followers and likes game.
Followers and likes do not show you being creative and whatever else you may think. One thing to think about daily is that what you are doing there is someone that is going to be doing exactly what you are doing but they will be better. Just think of the days when you continued to dream about what you wanted to do versus taking action.
You cannot be scared of other peoples opinion in regards to your creativity. People are going to have an opinion so what its not that big of a deal. A great example is people who are not confident fully in themselves and think of everything negative that could happen. I will be honest with you all I still have days when I do not feel like doing a calligraphy piece or working on a logo.
But you know what I made a personal commitment to myself that I am not going to quit or just give up. More and more seeking information is what I have focused on doing. The podcasts and books I have been reading helped me a lot. You know investing in yourself helps you to become a more confident person and to strengthen your belief of your work. I want you to personally know your work may be shit right now but your willingness to not give up is what will separate you from those who want the easy way out.
Get up and believe in yourself you are not a loser and your work is not crap it will get to the level you want it to be. The only way for it to improve is to fully dedicate yourself to improving. Those who lack courage tend to just live a life of what if’s. For example you may say what if I did this to this piece or what if I told people I planned on selling my artwork or what if I tried this.
Stop questioning every little thing and just go and do it. Being a creative individual requires trust, courage and belief in yourself and you can do it. If things are not happening as fast as you’d like them to be keep working and improving your belief and courage. Because being a creative person we can be pretty hard on ourselves for no reason.
Recently I came across the subject of 3d audio. I was pretty suspicious at first as to what it actually could be. But I will say it is crazy how it will trick our brains to actually believe its happening right in front of us. There is one video that you are in an interrogation room and let me tell you its pretty intense to sit through. Me personally I was not able to make it all the way through. At some points I started to tense up and my brain said “OK that’s enough of this”.
Now lets see if you can sit through the interrogation 3d audio video and remember you have to shut your eyes and listen for this video
This was a Creative Mornings talk that I came across the other morning and I must say it was a breath of fresh air. Throughout the whole talk I enjoyed every bit of it. One of the many things I enjoyed was the personality of the talk.
I’m going to be using many things that Marc mentioned such as using the toothbrush principle and various others.
I over the past week decided to print a couple versions of my calligraphy work that I done with a brush pen. The chase the vision I did that with Tombow brush pens and the wolf poster I used a pentel brush pen. These are vectored versions of the original work.
The reason I decided to vector my calligraphy work is mainly because I just felt it was starting to go to waste and I needed to get it out there and share it. Also I will improve my photoshop/illustrator skills in the meantime.
These posters are hanging in my bedroom office to inspire and remind me to focus. Believe it or not there is a great feeling when you have your own work hanging in your office.
Recently I finished reading Austin Kleon’s book show your work. I must say that I was impressed by it. The way that Austin writes is so enjoyable. Also reading it does not take a long time which is great for those who like to read books quickly.
There are some things that Austin mentioned such as sharing process in your work online and also doing what I am doing now by writing this book review is a good thing to do. Sharing process allows people to understand your way of thinking and various things more than you just posting a completed project. Because its easy to just show a completed project people are more interested in how you reached the final version of your project.
Here are the 10 tips that are on the back of the book if you don’t care to read the book (which I highly recommend you do).
At first I did research on Austins book show your work just to see what others were saying. Then I thought I may not even need to buy it because he gave these 10 tips away. Well do yourself a favor and don’t sell yourself short. Invest in yourself and get this book.
After watching this I became more interested in what VR will become in the future. I am still not willing to spend the amount of money an Oculus headset costs though.
