here is hazel
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I came across this list called Tips for Learning, which was originally published in the YCN Student Awards Annual. The title sounds rather dry but it’s actually quite helpful and includes things like tip no. 5 – “Remember that ‘common sense’ is a cultural construction” and tip no. 6 – “Have conversations with people who aren’t like you”. Each tip is accompanied by rad illustrations done by the fantastic Dan Woodger.
My favourite has to be tip no. 8 – Keen is better than cool:
Cool doesn’t care. It doesn’t get involved. Cool is unflappable and unemotional. Keen cares. Keen is passionate and nerdy. Keen will laugh and cry and own one’s emotions. Keen rules the world. Care about what you do and you’ll see the difference.
Feigned passion destroys morale; your own and other’s. My advice: if you really don’t care about it – any of it – you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. Find a new job or a new project that you’re passionate about. Money follows passion because eventually and with practice, you’ll get really good at doing whatever it is you love.
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Advice to Sink in Slowly is an ongoing series of posters designed by graduates for the purpose of passing on advice and inspiration to first year students.
Although illustrators and designers are the people creating these posters, a lot of the posters also apply to those outside of art school, such as “Eat Breakfast”, “Remember to Breathe”, and “Casual Sex is Overrated”.
One of my favorites is Frank Chimero’s advice zine which you can print out to keep in your pocket for when you’re in doubt.
(via Brain Pickings)
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Do What You Love is a photo and video series featuring women who do what they love for a living.
Anna Bond is an talented illustrator and paper goods designer who started her own stationary company, Rifle Paper Co., with her husband Nathan. She also has a great blog where she writes about her life and her inspirations.
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Less is More
I’m sure we’ve all heard this adage before. And I’m sure we’ve all nodded our heads in unison and vowed to uphold this trite maxim multiple times (and then failed to do so in the end). But recently, I’ve begun to realize—really realize—the importance of ‘less’ in my creative life.
Illustration by Carolyn SewellThe pursuit of ‘less’ is not just a matter of being more productive; it’s also about honing one’s creative ability and reducing the urge to imitate another designer’s work.
Aaron Heth, a recent design school graduate, says about taking inspiration from the internet:
“To a degree, these things help with our creative juices, but they mostly have the bad habit of distracting us. Seeing too much can simply overload you and lead you in to making decisions that aren’t right for a particular brief.”
Picasso’s words are also relevant here:
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
Essentially he’s indicating that most artists have a tendency to recycle a previous artists’ work which, in the end, produce cookie-cutter results. But a great artist will take much of the same elements to a whole new level and make it his own. I believe it’s often the case with designers also.
As Frank Chimero points out in his semi-sort of comic, we need to “kill [our] timid notion of creativity” and make “allogical [illogical?] connections”.
THE GOAL: Stop using boring clichés! Be creative! Don’t be a good designer, be a great designer!
Since it’s impossible to produce original bodies of work when you spend most of your hours drooling over other people’s masterpieces, in order to achieve my goal, I need to refrain from visiting so many ‘inspiration’ sites/galleries/blogs and reduce other forms of distraction.
So far, I’ve diminished my Twitter following to 45, my Tumblr follow list from over 100 down to 80, and my Google Reader subscriptions from almost 300 down to 150 (I’m working on it).In addition, I think I’m going to take more showers.
