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Creative Pep Talk
058 - Danielle Evans
(upbeat music) Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is eight to 10 years old. Now, these episodes were intended to be evergreen, and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do wanna let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes, and ultimately, I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human, and that these don't necessarily represent my best work or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode, or at least go back to around 300, and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. Oh, the holidays are here, you gotta find a unique gift for Uncle Derek and your sister Catherine, and her kids, Jetson, and Jetta, and Jeffrey, and Jacob, and another two Jay kids. There's so much thinking, so much searching. Plus there's the ethical thing, you gotta shop small, just it's a lot, but it doesn't have to be. Uncommon Goods makes all of this simple and straightforward for real. The site is chocked full of unique and interesting gifts that also support small businesses. My fam loves advent calendars. I think Sophie would like the Stitch-a-Day advent calendar, and 12 days of hot sauce is definitely shouting my name. Sorry, that wasn't me, that was the 12 days of hot sauce calendar shouting. Seriously, we had tons of fun browsing the site for ourselves and kids and family to get 15% off your next gift. Go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk. That's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Hey everybody, it's the creative Peptalk podcast with me, Andy J. Miller, the guy who does the podcast, and another thing I do is make art, so that's the thing that we do. And I have just finished doing an interview with Daniel Evans that we're gonna get to in a minute. Before that, I just wanna say thank you to all the people that have been reviewing the podcast on iTunes this week. That you said some really nice sweet things that touched my heart. And also, thanks for the new Patreon backers, and thank you illustrationage.com. You can find the podcast there. They're the syndicate of the podcast, and they're so nice and helpful. So thank you guys, and without further ado, here's the interview. - I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have, and I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro, and that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. - I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine, and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So go check it out Squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. - Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meetup every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're gonna chat through our new Journey of the True Fan series exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meetup. (upbeat music) - Hey, we're recording and I'm here with Daniel Evans. - Hi everyone. - And Brandon Wright. - Hello. - He's my Andy Richter. - I'm just a sidekick today. - That's what he said. I didn't name him my Andy Richter or anything. - So this is the creative pep talk podcast with me, Andy J. Miller. I'm a commercial artist. You know the spiel. Today though, we're sitting in here and we wanted to interview Daniel Evans. She is a food, I don't remember what you call it. - I know, food typographer. - Food typographer. - Essentially. - And it's kind of lettering that's. - Yeah. - But anyway, that's for the technical people. But I wanted to get her in because I recently heard you talk and there were so many interesting things and we have like us, right now I have like a half of a computer screen cutting my vision off with her. Hold on. And I heard you do a talk and you said tons of interesting things and really just for my own personal gain, I wanted to get you on the podcast so I can pry and ask all these questions and get lots of good answers. So that was my-- - So you've really just trapped her in answering all your questions. - We're not even recording. - This is this big elaborate way to say answer everything that I ask you. - There isn't a podcast. - You have no choice. - Yeah. - So I had it on good authority that Andy reamed out everybody who came to my talk in his class because they didn't ask enough questions. - Yes, I see. - Well that's something, if you're listening and you're one of my students, I just wanna tell you off again, for when there's an industry professional doing super awesome stuff and you get to be face-to-face with them, ask them questions like you care about making art. - I should have brought free swag. That was my problem. - What if maybe, what if you give all your students her, maybe not number, but just text her your questions? You'd probably get a better response. - This is my address where I live in your address. You can just say it now and everybody gets a touch. - Or it would be this awkward moment where everybody's just sitting there texting on their phones for like two hours, but man, there's so many questions being answered. That's the way to do it, man. That's the way to connect with today's youth. - Oh yeah, you got it. You're gonna touch with these millennials. I'm gonna give out fruit roll-ups next time. I have three fruit roll-ups in my car for the purpose of whenever I need that. - An emergency fruit roll-up. - In case, yeah, that's gonna help out. - This is the perfect time for fruit roll-up. - I don't even need them, but I've been thinking about like throwing them out to my students to get them to participate. Sometimes they get in a weird zone and it aggravates me. But okay, so before we talk about nothing for an hour, let's start with you just giving us an overview of who you are and what you do. And I want you to feel free to name drop like crazy with your client list. I'm asking you to because I feel like you know, sometimes people ask you like, tell us what you do. And you're like, ah, I draw pictures. And they're like, no, tell us everything. Make it sound good. - We wanna hear the best version of that. - I'll make a bomb sound every time the huge client comes in. (laughing) Boom target, boom seriously. You have some awesome clients, amazing projects, amazing work and help the audience a little bit about that. - Aw, thank you. - Yeah. - Well, my name is Daniel Evans. I'm from Ohio. I live in Columbus right now. And I do what I call food typography or dimensional type. I essentially take food and objects and I render them into lettering of some form. And often they're used for social media. They're used for outdoor signage and store signage. But a lot of it is campaign based. So I'm doing multiple pieces where I'm taking these objects and items, arranging them into letters, propping in different pieces of like bowls or cutting boards or whatever to tell more of a story. And then I'm photographing them. Oftentimes I prefer having help and often retouching my own images. So there's this really broad spectrum of skills that are going into my projects. And I've done work for the likes of Target. - Here it comes. - The Aria and Vegas, Kelloggs, Curios, Purina, the Guardian. - Was Tazza one? - Yeah, Tazza. - Is that a new one? - That actually was a year ago. That was exactly a year ago. It's just Instagram finally has video capabilities that aren't just in a square. So I thought I'd post those and get those out. - I looked really good. - Thank you. - Yeah, so super interesting. And I think that you started doing this before it was like a thing. - Yeah, that's a weird thing. - That's the weird thing about it. - It is now a thing. - So I think she is the thing and I don't think she's gonna say that on this podcast. But she is the thing and everyone else came after her. - Sorry. - You know when we were at the conference and Mikey Burton said that he invented the cross logo? - Yeah. - I wanted to say, I think that maybe I invented the coloring for adults. - Oh, I see. Oh, I invented some-- - What did you invent? - I invented some texture methods, methods of applying texture to graphics that I see all of the-- - That's cooler than all adult coloring books. - All over the place. And I don't know that I would ever be able to prove that. - I can't prove it. It's probably not true. - I know where my inspiration came from and I have a suspicion that everybody else's inspiration came from me. - Yeah. - That's first time in your heart. - That's first time I ever said that in public. - Treasure that all to yourself. - It's all ridiculous and it's fine. We can just, in our own rooms. - Well, if you want to be a trailblazer, right? Somebody's gonna watch what you're doing. - Yeah. - And then we're replicated a thousand times. - Yeah, there you go. - That's the thing. - You're in the little tension inside then, yeah. (laughing) - But no, I mean, it's really cool. And I know that there's definitely part of you that finds it super flattering and really interesting. But yeah, I think that you see that a long time, but how long have you been doing this? - About three years. - About three years, yeah. And there are these really beautiful, ornate things you should go check out our website. Is it just Daniel Evans? - Actually, I have all the URLs now. So, Daniel-Evans.com, Marmalade Blue, any way you could spell it, I own it. (laughing) Foodlettering.com, DimensionalType.com, I think is linked up there too. I have all the things. - Awesome. - You know, Monopoly on everything you could possibly call this thing. - Actually, seriously, I thought of it about a year ago being like, I should buy all this up just in case, and I'm really glad I did. (laughing) - I hope no one goes out and buys this, but you know how there's all these new domain names? - Yeah. - I'm gonna do Andy J. Pizza, that pizza. - That pizza, yeah. That's the first one I was gonna say. I have no idea why I don't have it. - Don't buy it, I haven't bought it yet. (laughing) Anybody. - Excuse me, why I pulled this up? - Put that down. (laughing) So, okay, I would just, you, I think your story is really interesting. I'm related to just this idea of like graduating and having, I don't know, some, you're doing creative work, but it's not really super fulfilling, and you don't feel like you've really found your thing, and you're trying tons of things that everybody else is trying, and you just keep at it, and it gets more and more interesting. So, would you just like give us that story? - Yeah, I'd love to. Well, I got done with school, and I graduated during the housing crisis a few years ago, - Me too. - And there was nothing, there was absolutely nothing. I was competing with people who were like 40 years old, just to work at the Apple Store at the mall, which that's the kind of competition I signed up for. So, laden with student loans, I'm working at restaurants, I'm working in retail, I'm working in more retail, and I'm crying in the car. I had this glorious movie moment of going to the container store, putting in an application to get a new job, coming out to my car, which had a flat tire, and running in the rain to my other job at the mall, just sobbing, it was very cinematic. - What song was playing? - Sorry. (laughing) - I was like, I just gave real, all right. (laughing) - No, I feel you, because I think unlike a lot of people, and I wanted my creative career really bad. Seems like a lot of people just seem like, it just kind of happened, and it was all cool, and everything, but there were lots of moments for me where I was like holding back tears, like, oh gosh, it's not working, or like, you know, whatever, and so I can totally relate to that. I'm an emotional sap. - Yes. - And I get it. - Yes, that was exactly it. - Insurance of fire, by the way, because if I was late one more time, they were gonna fire. - I understand. - It'd been late twice, once for snow storms. So like, you could say something good. - I was also gonna guess maybe everybody hurts by REM, you know? (laughing) - I mean, it's not great running music, but I guess if it's slow enough, like, we should have, you know. - We tend to be an emotional people, so it's like you have the fullness of all this stuff, you know, you realize that part of why you're creative is because you know how to like, pull it all out of yourself, and some function, maybe you can do that by speaking, maybe you can do that with your art, but we tend to be very sensitive and I don't know, like the wounds are pretty much always open with us. - Yeah, and that's definitely a generalization, so we don't need any feedback about how I'm not an emotional person and I'm creative. - Yeah, I'm super tough, dude, man. - That's fine, if you are, that's totally fine, but you know, I think as a generalization, it's true. - Yeah. - All right, so yeah, then what? - Well, after this, I was starting to realize I hadn't done almost any art in a long time, and it was making me grumpy, very cranky all the time. I think at my last talk, I kind of made the audience shake a little 'cause I went grumpus. And I got really hard, like I was jumping into a pole and everyone went, but it's true. - No, listen, Danielle, I don't want, I'm not gonna chastise you, but I will let you know that when someone swears on the podcast, I put in comedy noises, so just be aware. - This is like a, it's gonna have that, so it's fine. - I'm ready. - But be aware, it's gonna happen. - Be aware, I will sound ridiculous. - Yeah, I had some good, honking noises last time. I try to make it safe for the kids, right? - Well, that's good, I was worried I had to give you a dollar or something. - Yeah, okay, and a dollar, and that too. But, yeah, I totally lost your stories in. - No, it's okay, I was really grumpy. - Yes. - Grumpus cush. - Yes. (laughing) - Her life was a cluster cuss. - Yes, exactly. - You can do fantastic, Mr. Fox, yes, I can do that. - I can do that all day. But I was realizing I wasn't telling anyone what I did, and because I wasn't telling anyone what I did, I wasn't seeing any kind of work at all. And so I got this notion in my mind to carry my business cards and my apron at work, and hand them out to people at my register. I would just talk to people and go, oh, you know, I'm a designer, I'm an illustrator, like whatever I thought would appeal to them most to hear about, I would speak to them. And if they would give me the benefit of listening, I would give them a card. Now, the thing was, I hated all of my websites up to this point. One of my friends very kindly labored over one for a mere 300 bucks because he was also broke, and it was just awful, it was like a WordPress thing. So I didn't want to show anyone 'cause I couldn't figure out how to upload anything. - Yeah. - It was like this labyrinth of confusion. So, and web work, which I'm not good at. So I started talking to people, I ended up finding a job working in-house, and it was just the worst experience. Like, I was the sole designer, and for a while, that was a lot of fun. The product was really interesting, I was doing vinyl decals. It was graphic design and illustration, there was a lot of type and a lot of imagery, and I was creating lines for these people, it was really fulfilling and fun, until the daughter showed up and decided that she was in charge because this was Mommy and Daddy's company, and she was a college dropout, she had zero education, minus like three months working as an elementary school teacher. - Sounds like a foolproof plan. - It really was. - Oh gosh. - So, I only lasted around nine months there, and I would have probably stayed longer because I felt I had to have a job lined up, but my husband kept saying, "You know, you're crying "because it's Saturday, because it's almost Sunday, "because you have to go back to work." That's not how this should work. - Yes. - That sounds unhealthy. - Yeah. - So, I decided to quit right out, and basically, we mac and cheesed it for like nine months. It was really rough. We ended up living on 15, no. At the time, it was $12 an hour for two people, and we made it work, which was nuts. So, bake the cuss out of mac and cheese. - It can be good. - Yeah, every kind of vegetable you could throw in there. I made almost everything. When I wasn't making money, I was the most domestic person you could ever find, 'cause I felt like I had to contribute something. I had to contribute something to this relationship. I was just really struggling, but at the same time, I felt freer and more open to pursue work that I wanted. I was interested in lettering. I had been doing it since college, but I hadn't been showing anyone any of it. And so, I started doing some and posting it to this dribble thing. What is that? It did okay. It wasn't great. I was gravitating towards people who were doing excellent work, like Brandon. - I'm always gravitating towards Brandon. - Except right now, there's a giant desk hanging on that. - Yeah, we got a solid six feet from each of us. - It's how you get stuff done in here. - That's right. - Yeah, I guess. - Now, I just wanted to talk about this idea of being broke. I talked a little bit about that with Draplin, and he was talking about how I was a big motivator for him. And I don't know. I think I didn't go to art school, but I know a lot of people who did in America, and a lot of those people were, you know, grew up kind of in privilege. And, you know, it was a privilege to go to art school, or it is, and you're surrounded by a lot of affluent people from affluent backgrounds who don't have a lot of aren't in touch with people that have had money struggles. They get out with a good degree, get a job that's okay, even if they're not super enjoying it, they're making good money. And so for me, early on, I struggled financially because I can't, I don't have a lot of other skills. And so, you know, I don't know. I just wanted to talk about that a little bit. You kind of have a different background. Like you didn't go to art school and-- - I didn't go to art school. My background is basically that my band sort of, having an necessity to design graphics from my band, kind of got my foot in the door to this industry, but as far as financially, for me, it's always been, I mean, like, of course I was broke when I started, but that was the most money I'd ever had at that point. So I thought that was the norm for me. So for me, it was a steady incline from the norm to wherever I am now. So it was like, I was broke, but I didn't have something to compare it to, meaning like, well, a year ago, I wasn't broken. Now I'm broke. So I never had the down. - I'm broke her. - Yeah, yeah, last broke her. - Yeah, I started broke and had a steady incline up. But yeah, so, but I'm from a town where nobody has any money at all. So, you know, as far as comparing myself to other people, like there just wasn't any of that. I think that if you have anything to do at all, if you have a job at all, it's a good thing, you know what I mean? And it's, you know, there's not really like, there wasn't a class war in my town of like, I have a better job than you. It's pretty much, hey, if you're working, you know, because everybody's sort of like used to work at auto plants and stuff like that in Dayton, Ohio. So, yeah, it was sort of a, I dealt with the frustration, but the frustration wasn't compounded by the fact that I had been to a better place. - Right, yes. - I was more excited about every moment that I was in. And, you know, for me, if there was a mac and cheese phase, it was like, hey, we can afford mac and cheese. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? And then later, yeah, maybe later we can afford, I don't know, to actually go to a restaurant. - Oh, we're on craft now. We're living that craft life now. - I remember when we started living that Annie's life. That was huge. - Yeah. - Whoa, it's like moderately good for you. - Wow, yeah, we can buy so much overpriced food in Whole Foods now. - That's not funny. And I have you, I don't know, Danielle, but did you ever feel like early on that you had to do like the fake it till you make it thing? Like, we're not like showing your cards, like not showing that you're broke. Like that was in a thing early on. It's like, you're wanting to come across confident and like, you know what you're doing and all that. And you don't want to be like, I don't know. I early on in my career, I felt like I kept running into those situations. - I felt like in the, well, I didn't come for money either. My family was really broke. It turns out when your parents get divorced and they just kind of fight for 10 years after they're married, no one has any money to put you to school. So you're like putting yourself through school. So I just didn't know any better. Like when this was happening for me, I'm like, oh man, my own place, the height of luxury. There are rats in here and all with people in my basement. These are really nice rats. (both laughing) - Where did you go to school? - Indiana Wesleyan. - Okay, yeah, right. - That's such a weird question. - Okay, if I can sidebar for just a half second. - Yeah, go ahead. - I have a lot of people asking me if I get maligned for being a woman in this industry. And very, I would venture never maybe once barely. More so I get maligned for where I'm from and where I went to school. - I, yeah, you know what? Interesting transition there. I went to school in England and I don't think they're, you know, there's like Brighton Art School and there's the Royal-- - Royal Academy. - Yeah, and so those are, you know, a big deal, but I didn't ever think, no one seemed to ask that question. Like, where did you go to school? And then have a like a clear response. And then so I moved back when I was an adult and I realized this is a thing. - Yeah, it's a cultural experience. - Like if you go to a meeting and everybody looks around and like, oh, where did you go to school? Where did you go to school? I'm lucky enough. I didn't go to a school that was fancy. It wasn't an art school, but it was in England. So it sounds like it's got something. - It sounds so cool. - It sounds terrible. - It didn't really mean anything, but-- - I think we all think it's sort of Hogwarts. - It's one of ours. - That's an magic. - Yeah. - Hagrid was there, but-- - That dude went to Hogwarts. (laughs) - I mean, there was lots of cool things in that. I'm not dissing the school, but I, it kind of shocked me. The two things that shocked me moving back as I'm trying to get my career off the ground. I'm like, 22 is A, how much cash A going to art school gives you within this, within the industry. And then also how, you know, no, we're not under the impression that there's like, gobs and gobs of money out there for artists anyway. Like, at the top of your game, you're still not competing with like, crazy business people, but I feel like our industry is such, I don't know if it's because we're, we all brand ourselves because we're like part of the branding culture that everybody seems like they have tons of money, or they try to, I don't know, it just seems like it's not on the table. - There's a pressure to establish who you are and where you are and where you're doing. And that's, you know, branding, it like, infiltrates every single aspect of it. So brand yourself as if you're making X amount of dollars or if you're successful or whatever. And as an artist, that's a really confusing thing to do because like, I don't want like a yacht or a boat or I don't want to tie a sweater around my shoulders. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I don't want to join a country club. So I don't really know what those status symbols are when you're a creative, you know, who are, who's going against the grain anyway. - I have a theory on this. I would theorize that, well, we have a conundrum anyway being creative peoples because we design everything and therefore everything is designed to someone's experience. And we covet the things we design even though we can't necessarily afford them. So I think that's where a lot of people get kind of caught in that whirlwind and sucked into it. And that's where money goes, if you have any. But I also think that our industry because it is so brand oriented, we often, we often dress the part because that's in fact our personal branding. If you meet a person, you're meeting what they look like should tell you a little bit about their work or how they behave. So people think, well, I don't necessarily like my work but I'm going to be the trendiest person I can be in hopes of being appealing and someone wanting to work with me and then establishing this. That's kind of before the horse. - Right. It's an extension of your brand, the way you show up, the way you look, the way you present yourself. And those can be all kinds of stuff. Like in San Francisco, you see like the tech nerds who they have the same. - Socks and sandals. - Yeah, it's that dude. But it's like they are still the brand. Like if you see Mark Zuckerberg walk up, you don't think the last of them. - You have all the signifiers of your nature, your culture, your market or whatever. - That dude has been coding all day. - Yes, exactly. Yeah. And I think my understanding is that as a 29 year old, I feel like I'm doing pretty good, especially as an artist. I feel confident about that. Feel fine about it. But I compare it to my brother who's just a few years older than me and he's in the financial world and he can crush me and he's not doing, like he's successful and good, I love you Josh and you're doing great. But in other markets, it's easier to make tons of money. - That's because this one is, it's solely your output unless you find passive income streams, it's only what you can do and as much as you will get up in the day and work. So if you can't show up or if you can't do multiple projects at once, you can't do it. - Yeah, and I think it's just like what you were saying about putting all these nice designer items around you and all that stuff. My brother has kind of a regular person's job, makes lots of money, doesn't have any pressure to look a certain way or have a certain type of house in terms with how that relates to the work that he does. - Right. - So yeah, it's just really interesting and something that the reason I bring it up is because I think we have a lot of listeners that are just starting out and there's all kinds of weird pressures on them. And so I keep wanting to have these conversations with professionals that are no longer in that zone but they're comfortable talking about that. So thank you for doing that. - I think it's an interesting concept because no one wants to talk about specifics and money but there's definitely jobs that part of the job is looking the part. And I know that's what you're saying and it's almost like making, I don't know, $30,000 a year at working in retail, that person's gonna look a lot cooler than I'm gonna look because I work in my office all day. - Right, yeah. - So there's this different host. - Yeah, it's on. - Yeah, I'm looking at all those things. - Totally. And I'm looking actually, I was driving through town yesterday and I saw this guy in a suit and I'm like, man, look at this dude. He's got the suit, he's got the shoes, he's got this briefcase thing, like he's probably going to a super nice shiny car and all that stuff. And I have this suspicion that it's possible I make more money than that dude but there's no way that I could look as legit and rich as that guy looks because part of his job is to walk into that meeting and impress this guy into exude wealth. I don't know that us as artists really have any need to exude wealth necessarily, we just have a need to exude taste and to exude vibe and brand. - Yeah, I think that that's true. I guess I've just seen a lot of talk on Twitter about when you show your big studio in Brooklyn that has decked out in Herman Miller and all those things and it's like, well, but you make like 100 grand a year, like that's a lot of, like that's expensive stuff for someone in that zone, you know? So I don't know. - And a hundred grand looks a lot different for a creative versus a financial guy. - Well, not too much that you're gonna pay for your health care and you're gonna pay extra tax 'cause you're self-employed and there's all kinds of, you know, so I don't know. I don't wanna be a dead horse here but I just feel like it's a discussion that for the young people's sake. - For the youth. - For the youth that we should be having a little bit more openly because I think for me as a 22 year old, that was just like blowing my mind. Like, how are these people making enough money to be doing all of these things and keeping up these appearances? And I don't know. So it's good, it's good, I think, for students and all people. - Right. And it looks different in terms of your family situation. If your single 100 grand is crazy money, if you were married or married with children, yeah. - With children. - Three children, I can't even imagine. That's not enough. So it's just, it really depends on what your situation is and in truth, something I like to tell people is when you're starting out and you're getting ready to put together a studio, so to speak, don't invest in your space. Do not invest in your space that is such a money suck. And part of how I even stumbled upon this back to the path. - Yeah, yes, there you go, good. - Is the fact that I was working over my trash can next to my desk. Like, if I was working, I was literally boxing my husband out of his easel and he couldn't work. - Yeah. - Like, hey, could you move that? - No, no, no. - I mean, I gotta get in there and I'm like, I can't. You know, I need to get this out tomorrow. So it's just funny realizing that working out of this came from needing to be resourceful. It came from not really being able to afford art supplies for not wanting to let people see how desperate I was. Like, I could tell looking back in the way I was communicating with people, I was so desperate. And it was kind of subtle, but I know. - I do too, I was in that zone, right? I think like 22, 23, I was like, okay, I've graduated. Like, you know, it's getting real. And I'm trying, you know, I have enough self-awareness not to act like a complete moron, but sure I did sometimes. - I could tell especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas because two of my biggest loan payments, I was paying back like 250 bucks a month on one of these loans. I mean, it was on Christmas and Thanksgiving. It fell several years Christmas and Thanksgiving. And I was just like, - Yeah, so go back to, sorry, I like totally derailed you, but go back to where we left on. - Yeah, that's all right. Essentially I was struggling to get anything I could find. I mean, I was at one point trying to woo a couple agencies here in town because I thought what I need is a solid nine to five consistent job because I'm so tired of doing this. I'm tired of trying to hustle. It's obviously not working. People don't know who I am. And I'm having all of this like intense inner dialogue and I'm struggling. I'm struggling. I'm crying on the floor all the time. I ended up breaking out the rash. I love the crying stories. By the way, I almost, I don't know if I actually cried, but I almost cried on stage in my last talk. So I'm a crier. I love when you're talking about all these crying fits. - I'll see you later. - We don't cry. - We were feeling feels. - We need more feelings in the design in the illustration world. That's another thing. - No, it was, it was just difficult. And I remember at one point I had a, I had something working out. I was doing a logo for a company. And it was one of the first ones where I offered a logo mark instead of some sort of an image. And I thought, if I'm going to make this a reality where I want to do lettering, I need to do all lettering and whatever I present to people, it just needs to be that. It can be paper cut. It can be vector. It can be anything I want it to be. It could be a stationary. It could be part of some sort of branding pattern, but it just needs to be this. - This is a thing that we talk about on the show all the time, something that keeps coming up. But even in my students' portfolios that, I often think, okay, they're still not understanding this. Show them the thing that you want to do. Show them your proficiency in it. And give it, and give those things out, whatever it is you're looking to get more of. - I think people want to be paid to do the work that they love, which is fair, everyone wants that, but they don't want to do that work until they're paid. Like they assume the monetary aspect will inspire them that much more to get it done. When in reality, if you're not used to it, it will be the thing that chokes you because you go, oh my God, someone's paying me like, you know, whatever it was, like $500 to make this logo, which is nothing by the way, and I don't work. - $500 for a logo. - And I think the other thing that happens is this, the fear of missing out thing, this is what you see in lots of young people's portfolios is they have everything under the sun because they're so desperate and they're so worried that they're going to miss a $300 logo or they're going to miss this or that or whatever, but you're actually killing your chances by watering everything down. - Right. - And that's what I think you're actually, you're missing out on way more by saying that you can do everything rather than speak to a specific group of people and say, this is exactly what I do. - I think a good identifier for that is kind of figure out what you have your own motor to do. And you're just the thing that you will always be doing, you'll always be pushing yourself to do. And like, if you're distracted and if you're procrastinating on something, what do you do while you're procrastinating on something, what is that thing that you love to do, that's sort of the thing that needs to eventually emerge. And, you know, there's the economical thing or just like, you gotta do a lot at first to make ends meet but you don't want to do a lot. But I think what happens is the longer you do a lot, you forget what it is. And for me, you know, I start, you know, like one day, I was just like, I really only like doing these band teas guys. Like I only want to do that. I never want to do a website again. I definitely don't want to do like a pamphlet or like a website. I really like just doing band teas. So my goal became over the course of a few years. Like never do anything but this. And then logos. - Another just side note, because I always, I'm always trying to like make sure I'm talking to the young people. - Young people, I'm only 29, all right? - Yeah, they're also in their 20s. - I know, you're both in your 20s. - I'm like 57, but-- - You condescending instructor. - I know, I'm just saying, I just want to say because when I was younger, I heard that and I heard, okay, I need to turn down every job that's not what I want. It's like, no, you still have to pay your bills. - Yeah. - Pay your bills. - You just don't have to show it. - You don't have to show it. - You don't have to show everything. And then I, at the time, I think you were doing that packaging work and you'd done a project. Was this in that time? - Yeah, it was in my talk. There was a point where I did a project and I was really excited about it. Initially, I had some great ideas. It was for a nonprofit in Africa. They were trying to empower women to grow coffee, sell it, and then make money so that they could stay off the street. - Sinister stuff. - Yeah, really dark, dark rose. (laughing) - Okay. - The dad jokes are alive and well this morning, you're welcome. I am a professional dad. - All right, so funny. - But I'm working on this and they go, I present an idea to them and I go, hey, I think you guys should use stamps. And this was right around the beginning of the stamp thing, but I went, this is economical for you. This makes sense. You guys don't want to have to buy a bunch of bags, just buy brown paper bags, print them as you need them, and then they're hand done, it's beautiful, and the women have to sign it anyway, 'cause you want it written when it was roasted by whom. So this makes perfect sense. And they're like, yeah, we can't afford that or we don't want to do it. - Yeah. - What it really was. - It would be cheaper, probably. - It would have. They're like, we just want stickers. - Just give us the thing. - And so it was awful. I mean, I was so disheartened by their choice and I did what I could to make it work still, but it just, it didn't. It was not as effective. - So now what you wanted it to be, and it wasn't work that you wanted to do more of. - Right. But I thought to myself, you know, I'm fairly certain that people are gently messing with their portfolios. Like they're tweaking and adjusting things that they don't like or that they wish the client hadn't gone with to present the fullness of their own ideas, which makes sense. At first, I thought that was really dishonest, but then looking at it, I went, well, how are people going to know how I think and what my techniques can really look like if I'm not willing to tweak and adjust things, even when a client is wrong and won't listen to me? - I think it's healthy to look at it like a day job. So for me, I look at the work that I don't want to put on my portfolio. It's sort of like the day job, and then sometimes I get to do the stuff that I really, really like to do. That's the stuff that gets on the portfolio, of course. But that stuff that you just kind of have to hustle through, sometimes that you just look at that as your day job, and then someday you'll be able to quit your day job. But eventually, just keep that thing going in the background as a base layer so that you know you'll have enough money to continue to do this stuff. There's this overlap that's going to happen. - I think the other thing that happens season to season is you move through your career is that the thing that was your day job, that you end up kicking to the curb because you're doing all of your play time stuff that you love, and then soon that's less fulfilling than it was, and that becomes your day job, and you start introducing another thing. It just becomes a cycle rather than you finally get to do everything you love all the time. Just real quick, it's Bob Gill, right? No, Bob Gill? - No. - So he's like, I think he was like one of the original founding members of Pentagram. - Oh, okay. - Bob Gill, is that right? - That's right. - I can't remember if I'm saying it right. I can't remember-- - It's still early. - Bob Gill, yeah, still early. - Let's call him Bob Gill. - Bob Gill, I was listening to an interview with him with Debbie Millman Design Matters, and he said he did an album cover. I think it was for George Harrison. I'm like, yeah, really fuzzy right now, but it was like the brick wall, and I think George Harrison's like, take one brick out of the wall. And he was like, that's super cheesy. I don't wanna do that. And he's like, take it out. And it's like, you know, it's your beat also. He just did it. But then when they put it in like one of the big design annuals, he just put the brick back in. (laughing) Like, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I think that, yeah. I never thought of that. - Yeah, that would be great. - That's hilarious, yeah. - Exactly. - This is the thing I wish I would have done for these people. - Yes, exactly. - I actually just did that yesterday. I submitted an image that ended up not making it to the final, and it was bastardized and ruined. - Yeah. - And so I just fixed it and stuck it in an annual and they love it. - I think that's the best thing to know too about, you know, portfolios. And this is kind of another tangent. But like, our best work, well for me, my best work isn't necessarily my portfolio. My best work is the stuff that got rejected, in my opinion. - A lot of times. So, if you're working with somebody fantastic, sometimes I think that they can make it better. - Yeah. - I have had that happen. - And that's an amazing relationship. That's the goal is that relationship. But I wonder, you know, there's all these-- - Not always. - There's all these things that you sign that sort of like, there's this weird line of what can I show and all this stuff. But man, I wish I could show a lot of the rejected work. And, you know, I wish I could like flag stuff on my hard drive of this is the really good stuff. So, maybe I'll make a moniker of my favorite work and see if that other designer gets more work than I get based off that work. - I have actually thought of doing that for myself, making a tumbler and calling it Marmaduke Blue and just ripping the hell off of myself or doing something like that. - I know there's a few people that have done it, but it hasn't become a thing yet. But if I feel like if I had more time, I would have done that too. But I think it just all goes back to showing the work you want to do and yeah, I think that's awesome. So-- - And I think, well, to Brandon's original point about having a day job and making money, I like to tell people that I get paid in three different ways. I get paid in like monetary capital, social capital and emotional capital. And all of those have their own kind of hang ups and advantages. But I find that with the monetary capital, it's how you keep your business going. So you absolutely have to have some. But often it means you're bent over a table a little bit, kind of getting taken by someone else. And that sucks. But oftentimes, it has to be. And then you've got the social capital where someone can, if a budget is kind of fuzzy, often I'll be like, hey, let's find a way to plump this up with something about myself or maybe an article or a shout out on your social, that would be great. Like, you know, something like that. And then you have the emotional stuff, which is obviously the warm, fuzzy feelings, but they're not often jobs that will substantiate and sustain a business. - Yes. - So I think if you can look at it and parse it out in terms of like, how much of this am I making? How much of that am I making? And what do I need to feel like a human being at the end of the day? I think that can help a lot. - If there's like a independent shop nearby that wants to do something cool and you're like, okay, they can't pay you your regular fee, but you get lots of creative freedom, then it's, you know, something you take and you kind of just measure up these things, you know? - I looked at that as like, you know, I've tried to justify how I'm being fulfilled. And like, you know, my number one goal is, is to make as much money as I can. And it like, it has to be the goal. It seemed like that always made the most sense because if I make the most money I can, I can have the life that I want and I've had the life that I want, then my wife. And when we have kids, my kids are happy and my grandkids are happy. And I create this life and this world and this property and this whole thing that is the life that I've always envisioned myself having. So I am dedicated to this vision I had for my life, you know? But the other fulfillment, social fulfillment, I'm terrible at, I hide out, I isolate myself in a cave. So what I, my usually way of just, but I am the guy who works all day every day with his head down in his desk and completely isolated. And at the end of the day, I'm happy for the amount of work that I invoice for. But the day I'm stressed, I mean, I am drained every single day. And emotionally, I'm a wreck every single day. And this is just this version of me that I turn on when I'm around other people. But my justification is the big picture. And it's always the big picture. And the big picture for me is I'm an artist for a living. And I know that if I wasn't able to hustle through every day, I wouldn't be able to say I'm an artist for a living. So for me, I've always said, do whatever you got to do to remain an artist for a living so that you don't have to, I know Barista's always get, get a bad rap, but I don't know what other job to say. But that just seems like the first job someone would get if things aren't going so well. - The most glorified form of food service. And it's actually like a half step down from what this is, which would be a service deal, creative services. - Right, right, yeah. - So if I can not be a Barista, you know what I mean? If I can stay an artist for a living and actually be an artist for them, I act like an artist, not try to dress like an artist, not do any of that stuff. If I know that I actually am an artist for a living. - This is what I do, that's what I get paid for. - Then my big picture is good. But the day I just had, oh, that's a wreck. My social life, that's a wreck. My big friend list, that's dwindling. You know what I mean? And that's a bummer. - You got me though, I'm a new friend. - We're gonna pound it through the mixing board too. - Yeah, actually I think it's funny because I was talking with my dad this week. And, you know, I grew up in a family that had plenty of money, really, you know, and it's not a bragging thing. I didn't make that money, which is my dad is a business guy. - One time Jerry Seinfeld said his kid said to him, "Daddy, are we rich?" And Jerry says, "You're not rich, I'm rich." (laughing) - Exactly, yeah, exactly. But I think it changes your worldview so that, you know, you said that you came from a place that didn't, there wasn't a lot of money around, but so you go into the world thinking, "I gotta make money." And so I think I go into graduating thinking these big existential questions, 'cause I'm not, I'm like, "Money is just, it's around." You know, you find it, but it wasn't around. - No. - No. - They're lying, you're like, "Nope, nope, nope." - Turns out there are a lot of money. - That was a lot of money. - That was a lot of money, yes. - So yeah, but it's interesting 'cause I think, you know, that color, your childhood colors, your vision of it. - But I had a great childhood, so that's the weird thing with me is that my life was amazing. I had that perfect, like riding your bikes to your friend's house, small town. I know everybody went to the person I was sitting beside in kindergarten was the person I was sitting beside in graduation, that great life. Yeah, one small town called New Lebanon, Ohio, I loved it. And if you go through New Lebanon, Ohio, today, you may think, "Wow, what a dump or something like that." But for me, that was life. That was all I knew, that was my bubble, and it was great, and I loved it, so. But yeah, money was just, you know, I had a skewed view 'cause the people we viewed as wealthy in our town in comparison to, like, Columbus or, you know, the rest of the world weren't wealthy at all, but I don't know if that applies to that, to what we're talking about. - Not as bad or it's interesting. - I actually, I had a terrible childhood. (laughs) - Let's get it all out, all right. - Creative therapy with Andy Miller. - Yeah, I'll forget about the creative work. Let's just talk about your problems. - But that fueled me a lot, because when I got out of school, I'm like, I cannot move back home. This is impossible for me, like, not even an option. So how do I make this work? - Yep. - So in having all of these issues, you know, I'm like, well, I managed to get married, that's awesome. So now, someone else that can help me out, like. (laughs) - You've got one box jacket. - I know. So someone that can at least guarantee you have to rent, oh, thank God, like, you know, we're struggling, we're struggling, I'm getting rashi, like, I'm sitting in an oatmeal bath. This is like a pinnacle, well, I guess what do we call this? Like, the valley of my sadness, something poetic like that. - Yes, yes, the desert. - And I'm just, you know, sobbing, and my husband's like sprinkling oatmeal on me to get my rash to go down. And I'm just like, this won't get better, I'm so stressed out that I am breaking out everywhere and I can't sleep. And that means when I go to job interviews, I'm having like three minutes of dead air trying to think up what words I wanted to say. - Yeah. - And this is terrible, I don't know what to do. Also, we're skipping Christmas, like this sucks. - Yeah. - And I went, do you think it's ever gonna get patter? And he's like, I, you know, I think so. And I'm like, did you tell me when? But of course, it's like, can you tell me when? He's like, uh, uh, no. (laughs) And so, he allows me at this point, I tell him, I just wanna do something that makes you happy. And he's like, well, what will make you happy? And I went, you know, I don't want the pressure of trying to find work right now. I just wanna pursue something that I love. And so we kind of set up this loose deadline of like, hey, you know, take around six months to figure something out. If it means you get to go to coffee once a week, or like once a week or like every two weeks, something like that, just to get out of the house. If that's like the lifestyle you can handle right now. - Yeah. - Or the fact that you will be making everything in this household, like I baked bread. - Yeah. - For years. - Yeah. - Like trying to survive and make sandwiches. Like, I mean, just whatever we could do, we were opening the oven to like get the place hot. Like just stupid things like that. He's like, if you're willing to do that, then you can pursue this at whatever cost. - I have a lot of like, compassion and empathy for that because, and I feel like there are a lot of people that design to illustration or the design to art spectrum is a wide gambit of people. There are a lot of people that, especially, and this is, you know, just me guessing, but it seems like the people that are over at the design spectrum, there's a lot of those people that could have been bankers, could have been all kinds of things. - Right. - And so their life just doesn't, I'm not judging them, but I have compassion for the people that just couldn't do anything else. Or they, you know, they were so desperate to do this creative thing. Like I have learned that if I don't wake up in the morning and make something, then I'm not gonna have a good day. I need to make stuff. So I definitely have tons of empathy and compassion. I had that same, yeah, went through it. - Yeah, I mean, it was difficult. And, but the nice thing was not feeling this burden of being a financial provider. That was really wonderful. And I feel like if you can find someone that will foster that need in you, even just for a short period of time or you to figure things out, that's so beneficial. It's such a sound foundation to start from, I think. - I mean, it's a powerful question to ask yourself, what do you do if money's not an object? If there's no requirement to make money, if, you know, say you win a lottery, you win $100 million, you're not gonna sit around all day. So what are you actually gonna do? What are you, you know, there's gonna be something that you have to have some goal for the day, a reason to wake up. So what's that gonna be? And it sounds like in your situation, your husband gave you the opportunity to just be like, what do you do? - Yeah. - And if money's not an object, what do you do? And that's a powerful thing, 'cause it gets to the heart of what we actually like to do. And it sounds like for you, it was, let's, let's take this oatmeal and make a word out of it. - Yeah, yeah, actually, exactly. So we started, I started reading a lot. When he would come home and ask what I did all day, I would be like, well, I didn't make any money, but I fielded a couple inquiries. I, you know, read several articles, and this is what I learned about it, about business. And so I started like finding ways to say, hey, I'm bringing value to my day, even if I'm not making money. Like I'm educating myself, I'm making contacts, I made a meeting for coffee and I needed to borrow five bucks from you, that good thing. Eventually, I sat down with one of my friends and was explaining to her that I was frustrated because my work was starting to get interesting, but it wasn't really anything of note. So my, I had entered FPO with some sort of invitation for a bridal shower that I did, and it didn't get in, and I was frustrated, and I fought the urge to go cry in the corner, and I thought, well, wait a second, let's like draw outside of myself and observe everyone who did well in this competition. What did they do? And as I was looking at them, I saw Clark Orr with his lickable wallpaper, which was brilliant. I saw this company, they did a book of ethics for a corporation in the Netherlands, and it had a weight in the spine. So you could literally feel the gravity of their values, you know, when you picked it up. And so I'm sitting here looking at this, and I went, oh my God, people are engaging their viewers in a multi-sensory way. So, wait a second, visual art doesn't have to, you don't have to stop there? (beatboxing) 'Cause, oop, where'd you try? (all laughing) - So I just wanna stop you there because that's another thing that I had to go through, and I feel like the people that end up doing interesting things go through, and I see it in stand-up comedians, they spend all this time at the club obsessing over what makes these people, I wanna be one of those people, what do they do? How do they do that? And it's fine that you start off like not knowing how to translate that into your own thing, but just soaking it up and just being obsessive about, what is it that they're doing that's working? - I learned it was advantageous for anyone to be slightly off-kilter from the norm, from the stereotype, like for example, again, people are assuming that you get out of school, you become a designer, you become an illustrator, and that means that either you sit at a computer and you make logos, or you paint pretty pictures, and that's it, and there's such a broad expression and spectrum for people to produce work within that no one is taking advantage of, and so this was one of those things where I went, oh my, like, I found it, I found-- - You don't wanna do another call? - No, I don't wanna do that. - I can't just do it, doesn't it? - Okay. - They don't make it funnier. (laughing) - We'll do unnecessary censorship for you too. - Oh, thank you. - I'm gonna block out every other word so people think you're just like a sailor, yeah. - I kinda am though, that's all right, but I was just like, you know, this is a great idea, how do I harness this, and so I'm sitting down a coffee with one of my friends, my good friend who's a teacher, and so she's creative, but not in a traditional sense, and so I'm trying to explain to her without all of this, like, engaging, multiple essential experiences, love about this very jargon heavy kind of explanation, what I want, and I look at her, and I'm like, well, Mel, good design is like a cup of coffee, it's not consuming a beverage, you're having an experience, you know, you've got the heat on your hands from the cup, you've got the aromas in the air, you've got a great texture, you're having a good time, and it's less about drinking something to survive, you wanna thrive and enjoy this moment, and that's what I want for my work, and her being very literal was like, "Well, why don't you make something out of coffee?" And I went, "Well, okay, yeah, that's a great idea," and so I started looking it up online, and I saw that there was like nothing, there was no one had really done this, there were like one-offs here and there, but it was just very like, I don't know, I felt like it hadn't applied a designer's touch. It seemed like if I think back to even like the 90s, I can imagine like coffee beans in like a little row, with just like, you know, one line weight, kind of just a word, but nothing designer. But it would always say coffee, it would always be redundant in a way, because it would describe the thing it is, and that's gonna help both, yeah. That's completely ridiculous. It's like, why would you write pen, you know, or ink? Why would you just do that and make a career doing that? So you're just, I wanted to pause you real quick and talk about what you were talking about, design, 'cause I think that's a really interesting thing. It reminded me of, do you know Frank Chimero? - Yeah. - There's a lot of ways of saying that name, and he says himself, he doesn't even really know, which one's right, so. - 'Cause that never told him that Jack told him. So it's, yeah, it's up in the air, so say it however you'd like, but he did a great talk, "Shape of Design," and he talks about that one of the chief, or one of the best things design can do is this idea of delighting. - Yes. - It's an interesting job that you can have. Like, our job is to delight somebody, and he's talking about how its potential for misuse is almost none, because almost nothing bad can happen if you're delighting people. - Right. - You know, it's not about, it's not just about persuading, it's not just about, you know, the interaction or the transaction, like you're talking about, there's something about having that human quality, connecting on like a human level, and delighting somebody in that same way that a cup of coffee does. So I think, yeah, it's really interesting. - Oh, thank you. - Yep. - Yeah, it was really where I got started thinking about this, and realizing that most of the work I was seeing was just kind of a one-off novelty thing where people would take a bunch of food and they'd throw it on a board, and they'd be like, "Hey, if you'd squint a little bit, "until your head to the side, it looks like, "Hey, it's amazing, right?" - Yeah. - Amazing. And I thought, "Well, that's so silly." Like, why has no one, why has no one played with this further, or adapted this to something that is elegant and interesting, and so I started searching. I decided that, you know, this was an open avenue enough that I could pursue it. For me, it was really important to maintain integrity with my work, and I think that's part of why I did so poorly in school, honestly. I was too worried about taking too much influence from other people, and so my work just looked terrible all the time. - That's always a bad thing. That's not my tell students, like, at least in this stage, it's okay if it looks like your favorite people. At least it's good. - Like, start just trying to make it good, just like that Paul Rand thing is. Don't worry about being original, just try to be good. - Right, you learn all your principles. You learn all your principles just by doing work anyway. So you learn how to use, you know, what your workflow is, how you get all that stuff done. It's all valuable time spent. - Like, learn all the rules first, and then you can learn to break 'em, but you can't just play with no rules right from the get guy. - Right, yeah. - It just looks ridiculous. - Which is what I was trying to do, and it's awful. (laughing) - One of the reasons I think no one had tried to do that yet is because they were spending time trying to figure out how they can make their Photoshop brush do that. (laughing) - Yeah, and it's true. - Yeah, and it's true. - Here Dan Yell is being like, I have a bag of coffee, you idiots. - Yes. - I'm gonna go out onto the floor and write the word. And like, yeah, but how does it, we make the beans trail off with the Photoshop brush? - I think one of the things that happens at art school too that is kind of bad is that you end up getting these situations where people are making design for designers, about design, and you get so in your head and in your niche and market. - It's so pedantic, yeah. - That you're not doing anything human. - Right. - And that's what I think people respond to your work is like, people love food. - Yes. - It is a human thing that we all know. - It's a shared experience, yeah. - It's a real thing. It's not just an art thing. - Yeah. - And that's something that I'm always trying to get students to think about too, is like, what's like you just as a person? - Yeah. - Other than you as an illustrator. You can show all these fancy tricks that you can do that all your art school friends think are really cool, but your grandma is not into it. You need to connect to her. You need to connect to these to real people, otherwise they're not gonna hire you 'cause they need you to talk to real people. - Right. - Yeah. - Exactly. I think we do end up in a loop, almost like a self-fulfilling trail of logic. - Yeah. - We're like, hey, you know, who's my audience? Well, me. - Yeah. - But the thing is, is that we are meant to, as you're saying, like, speak across genres and across audiences. We're really supposed to be transient beings. And if we're not doing that, then we're not doing it correctly to some effect. - And at least, if you're gonna say, okay, I'm gonna start with me, I start with what I know, don't start with the design side of you. - Oh my gosh, no. - You get so entrenched in that 'cause it's hard. And early on, you probably need to get obsessed and all that, but at some point you gotta step away and be like, I'm also a person who just likes being a person and likes the things that people like. Yeah, I think that's totally true. - I can always tell when someone has just graduated from school or is just starting out because they sound like a robot. - Yes. - They're like, so fellow artists, how about those deadlines? - Yeah, like. (laughing) - In design world, it's just Helvetica, right? No? Yeah, I've talked about that for a few years. And I can do it. And there was, I think you all, everybody goes through that season, so you understand it, you can relate to it, but. - And you can have empathy for it. - Yeah, and you can have it totally. Yeah, so anyway, as you were saying. - Yeah, but I find that it's, oh man, what was I saying? You were just talking about, this is when you're getting to go home and make some stuff out of coffee. - Oh yeah, I'm getting ready to go home and make. - Coffee, yeah. - You're right. So I decide I'm gonna do this thing. The beauty of moving and shifting to something that was being done live is that I didn't have to find it on my hard drive over and over again and lament that there are still copies of this terrible file that I constructed forever in my computer. That was the worst. Coming across things and being ashamed. And I realized that I could play. I could effectively sketch while I was working. So when I start throwing down objects and things, I'm typically just testing it at first with my hands trying to figure out how it works and how I can push it and, you know, if it will stay, if it will degenerate, how things play out, it's so funny. When I was in school again, I was really terrible because I was a sh*t painter, I was a sh*t illustrator. I could sculpt okay. Like, I was not a great interior designer. I couldn't draw a straight line. Just all of these things that I thought were weaknesses. They actually play out really wonderfully in this whole, you know, live construction because I still have to think about edges. I still have to think about light. I have to think about color distribution and triangulation and harmonies. I have to think about value, which is easier for me than thinking about color, contrast and texture. Texture, which was something I could do really well, but that was about it. Yeah, and one of the things I noticed in your talk and I asked a question you ended up talking about this more is I think what's really important as you're trying to find whatever your thing is, is being not completely self-aware. You're not like a metaphysical, you know, Buddha or anything, but, you know, I'm cautious. Like, I don't think that us in this room have everything figured out, but you found one way of making a good creative career and it's not the only way, but there's some really interesting things that we can take away from that. And I think one of them is, even as you're saying, okay, I could sketch while I'm making, and that's you noticing things that you like to do that work for you and it's not like you had, I think it's important to like deconstruct the story. It's a great story because there is this like aha moment, which is fantastic, but it's built upon lots of other things that just before it clicked of you noticing. - I like to sketch and make at the same time. I like to do this at the same time. I'm good at texture. And you're building up this like information that you're noticing about yourself and it all comes together eventually. - I've noticed people look at these experiences and they say, oh, I just need to find my combinative aha experience. And that doesn't really exist. It's really a series of small decisions that you made over time that allow you to hit this point of the quote aha. - So really it's just an opportunity that you said yes to. After saying yes to all of these other things. Like once I felt okay with observing my peers and celebrating their victories and not feeling dashed by them every time someone got a new job or got the cool client, once I learned that I wanted to share my work and I had work I was proud of, once I allowed myself to have fun. I mean, those are such small things that everyone can decide to do every single project. And for whatever reason, sometimes we choose not to do that. And I think that's really where our hang ups kind of reside. - Well, there's the thing of unlearning so much. So I think that there, you know, when you get out of art school, you're looking for whatever that path is. And I think that everyone has to accept that. I mean, you get out of art school, number one, you're entitled to nothing at all. And number two, the most successful career that you're probably going to have is one that's based on some original path that you came up with. - Yeah, and that's the thing I always, this is one of my phrases of the answer isn't on the internet. - Yeah, it's not out there yet. And one of the things I think you notice is you get these students and these, I just keep going back to students 'cause I'm like in teacher mode right now. And I'm deep within like this class and I'm in that zone. And I'm just thinking, what really confuses them is they see pieces of them out there, right? And you recognize it, but there are things that seem like contradictions. And I'm like, they're not contradictions. The connection is you, your stuff just isn't out there yet. And eventually it will be out there, but you can't look for it out there 'cause it's not gonna, you're not gonna find it. You're gonna find pieces, but you're going to have to figure out how to connect those seemingly contradictory things. - Yeah, well, I don't think there's any such thing as direct inspiration. It's only indirect, it's only abstract, it's only to take a piece from that, a piece from that, a piece from that, because if you try to be directly inspired by one person, you have a skewed view of what that one person's life actually is. You don't know what the stuff they do that they don't like. You don't know how long it took them to decide to start doing it that way. The direct inspiration is always gonna lead you down a bad path, so you have to realize that inspiration is more like a buffet, and there isn't one perfect plate to create. You just sort of have to like pick what, be true to your heart, and if you want the pretzels and the mac and cheese and the chicken wings, you're gonna get that. Even though everybody you look up to only get steak or whatever, I don't know. - Yeah, like if you like Olive Garden, like Megaloo. - Megaloo. - Like, you know, another interesting thing, I wanna say something controversial, and I wanna see what you're gonna say, 'cause you have a lot more experiences with me than I do, but-- - Is it about Kanye West running for president? Ah, no, but we can talk about that. - No, we'll stick to your thing, go ahead. - But, you know, so I've had a fair share of people, like, and I'm not very sensitive to this, and I try to show a lot of compassion, but I had a few people really rip me off, like, young people, where they're like, directly drawing what I'm drawing. And that's the only time that I ever feel compelled that I needed it, and I always write them an email, and I always say, I try to be like, look, you just need to like, cast your net wider, and you're gonna figure it out, 'cause you have some skill, you got some craft, great. But, you know, even when it's really obvious, either for me or someone ripping off somebody else, I think I can still, there's part of me that I can be like, I kind of like what they did with that. Like, when you're talking about, once your version of what they're doing is still skewed by yourself, still going through your hand, and you change it, and obviously, the best work doesn't happen that way. I'm not saying it does, but I wonder, like, there's been times where I'd be trying to like explore this territory, and then I would see someone else take it right out of my hands and kill it. Like, you destroyed it so much better than me. Like, well, I'm saying it. - But it's a shortcut. - I don't know. - Here's my, here's my-- - It's a shortcut. - It's a shortcut. - It's a shortcut. - It's dishonest. - It's cheap. - It's dishonest, and I want to see something that comes from you that's from you. I want to see something that, you know, I want to know that Danielle's story is wrapped up in everything that she makes, and that this is, you know, this is a culmination of what she's been through, and this is the thing that makes her happy now, so that she doesn't have to take the oatmeal bass and her tears, you know. - Yeah, I'm not telling people to go out. - I'm not telling them to go rip me off, go rip Danielle off, it'll be awesome, and you can just beat us at our own game. I just mean, I just think it's an interesting point that even when someone does go to rip somebody off, they end up inadvertently putting themselves in it, and especially when you're a student, which, when you're a student, you need to learn how to just do the craft, I don't know. It's still worthwhile going through that process because, you know, even back to the Renaissance days of, you know, they would just directly copy the masters. - Right, and I had a class like that in school. I had an illustration master class where we were told you can do whatever you want from anyone within, you know, society of illustrators' tome, just do not claim it as your own word. - Yes, yes. - And so with the caveat of, it cannot be said that, hey, look at this idea, I just burst forth out of nowhere. That makes me upset. - Yes, that's bad. - And further, I am all for people experimenting and trying, and in some cases, even like, I get people calling me about church barbecues and things that they can't afford me, nor would I do this for them. - Exactly, yes. - Oh, please happily, I'll tell you what to do. - Yes. - We'll happily help you. But when it comes to a professional, in a professional situation where we're vying for clients, even if it's worse work, that is so uncool. And that's where I have no patience. - I think there's another problem though, and I know that this podcast is for a lot of creatives, but the people that really need to listen to this are the creative directors, the art directors. The art directors are the ones who are often flipping through, well, I'm so analog. Flipping through communication, arts, design, annual. Yeah, right, nobody's looking at that. Flipping through Pinterest or whatever. They're going through whatever inspiration sites they see, and they're saying, hey, Billy, do something like this. Done. But Billy is not going to cross the art director. The art director isn't being creative, they're not doing their job. So for you art director, you need to get more creative and get bigger with your ideas than just say, hey, Billy, do this thing that's here. Here's this attachment to an email, recreate that. Because now what happens is Billy actually ended up ripping off Danielle. But is it Billy's fault or is it the art director's fault? Is Billy too scared to stand up to the art director? He needs to keep his job because he's only in mac and cheese. So there's this whole cycle of how the rip-offs actually happen. Yeah, and I guess for me it's like, A, that's always going to happen, there's no stopping it. B, as you go throughout your career, you become more and more original every year, and that's part of the process. So in the lines fuzzy too. And so I guess I just don't, A, I don't like shame. I don't like people being shamed. I'm sensitive to that because I think it can be really detrimental, especially to young people that, what if that guy's going to go on to be amazing? Totally. Instead of, so when someone directly rips me off, I never outs them in public, I write them an email, encourage them, I'm just like, don't do that. Because I did that and it comes from inside me. But I had another point. I'm getting ripped off so hard right now. Are you doing me too? By too. I've got two people, I'm just going to, I'm just going to, I shouldn't say. I'm not going to say their name, but basically what happened is, I worked so hard understanding this brand and understanding every single facet of this brand and where the heart of this whole thing is coming from. And I created stuff. I created the whole brand development, all this stuff based on it. And it was so, I'm still doing it. I'll be doing it for years. But then I see people with these Instagram feeds who have like tens of thousands of followers who are just recreating my stuff. And they have all the, it's insane to me. And I don't know, I can't tell 100% if they're wrong in what they're doing or if I just get to be the person that they're ripping off. 'Cause we all know what the flattery, what's the phrase? Coping is the- Imitation is the- Imitation is the- Imitation is the serious form of flattery. We know that, but it doesn't, that doesn't feel too good when you're- Yeah, that's an outdated statement. They didn't have Instagram and dribble and likes. When that, yeah. I think there is something to be said though. I've noted that I also am experiencing this and a handful of these people that are doing this are professionals trying to make this their thing. And that's really weird because my brand is about authenticity. So if they're being authentic and being authentic, that's just creepy, strange. But I find that when people have a following on Instagram that is just immense and they have no other platform or relationships or anything else across these various social platforms, something is wrong because they are able to produce a pretty picture, but they have no thoughts. They have no personality. They have nothing driving them and no substance that they're willing to share anywhere else. So if that is the case, that is indicative to me that this person is flat. And that's- We'll go ahead. All three of us are at this odd age where we don't necessarily view our Instagram likes as the end all be all of our success. However, if you go back six or seven years younger than all of us, and I know I'm just slightly older than you guys, but let's not talk about it. So if we go six or seven years younger than you guys, then those people, the only thing that matters is the amount of Instagram followers or Twitter followers or likes or whatever. And that is the way they quantify their success. That's a broad stroke, but I think there's a lot of truth in it in terms of that's the world. They grew up in that world even more than we did. And they might even be better at it than us. And that's fine too, but not to beat a dead horse again, but I just think we've hit on a topic that's so interesting and there's so much to talk about. And it doesn't get talked about in nuanced ways. So I think it's a good thing to touch on. One thing that I always think I have friends that will send me like, oh, look at this guy, he's ripping you off. And I'll be like, here's the thing though, because I know how dedicated I am and how much of an authentic expression this thing is for me and how much I had to pay to get here. I know that I have this very well-rounded, deep thing that I'm doing. And if they can eventually get there, then that's fine. But if they continue to do this way, I don't have anything to worry about, longevity-wise. And the other thing, Chuck Anderson, he said that I thought was really good is like to all these people that are constantly complaining about everybody ripping them off and all that. It's like, we'll learn how to do some stuff that they can't figure out. - Yeah, that's good. - Embrace the challenge. Like, if you are the leader of the pack, prove it. And I think, okay, that's another thing to keep you motivated. And so it's interesting. And one last thing is I love this because Steve Jobs is such a good example of this where he said, yeah, this is early on when they ripped off Xerox with the computer. And he's saying, we've always shamelessly took stole ideas. That's always been a thing for us at Apple. And then later on, when Android comes along and steals the iPhone, he says that he's gonna do like a nuclear bomb on them. And it's like, yeah, it's one of those things where like early on, you're saying, and everybody's saying that early on, you have to learn, you're like studying everybody. And Sam Weber, who does the Your Dreams by Nightmares podcast always says, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. And I always think that I think, you know, we all have to start off learning from each other, making mistakes. And once, but once it's your stuff that's being ripped, all of a sudden it's personal and you're like, you get the venom and I get the venom too, but anyway. - It's very interesting because if anything, it's these kinds of things have pushed me into other items that are, you know, just commonplace. Like I've done shoes and plants. And I've wrapped some really cool projects that probably won't be out until March or February, of course, but they're just like, I'm proud. - Powerful. - I'm proud, they're next level. So that's it. - But that's it. That's the thing is that, you know, as if you are the leader of the pack, then prove it. You know what I mean? I'm not saying to you. - Yeah, I know. - I'm talking to myself as much as I am brand and everybody, I'm just saying that if, you know, if you really have that depth, then use that depth and show them what the difference is between something that's patched on and something that comes from your heart and comes from your experience. - Right. - I think what's hitting me, like my honest opinion about this is that once here I am now starting to sort of run out of steam a little bit, like I've exhausted all of my portfolio has just got way too many pieces in it. And as I start to run out of steam, I see these people coming up who are sort of doing my thing with more passion behind it and with more intensity than I have now just because I've been doing it for so long. So when I see their portfolios, I'm just like, I think maybe in the back of my mind it's like, you probably have the passion that I have when I was 22 years old and now you're, you know, like, so I hear them coming and maybe I'm trying to find the intensity inside of me to be like, all right, find whatever it is to do the next thing. So that something new that's gonna push you through the next five of 10 years. - That thing can be a motivator. - Yeah. - I gotta get on my game. - Totally. - So I'm always optimistic and positive, so I know that I'm like-- - It is called the creative. - Oh no, but I'm talking about it. - I'm just, you know, I know that, I don't know. I'm just always, yeah, trying to be-- - No, it's good, it's good. I think you're totally in the right here for sure. I think that, and I think that at the end of the day when we face these plagiarism problems, we have to know that we've got to find a positive way out of it because in order to be creative, we can't, we're not driven as much by negativity. That could be a motivator, but we're not gonna be driven as much by negativity as we are positivity. So if we can get ourselves to a positive place, if we can try to be understanding, try to put ourselves in their shoes, and try to understand how much they look up to us, I think that's a valuable thing to understand their perspective and kind of understand how to handle it. But at the end of the day, we do gotta get ourselves to a positive place because being mad about it is only gonna hinder our creativity and that doesn't help. - Exactly. - The anger and all that. That runs out really quick, that motivation. - I mean, it's great for working out. - Yeah, to do it exactly. - Right, it's only 45 minutes. (laughing) - But, you know, and I wanna just clarify, I guess my problem is that often these new graduates get put through the ringer in the same way that someone like Urban Outfitters would. And I'm like, that's not the same. They're young people learning, making mistakes, like if you get the industry giants shaming this kid is pretty, it's internet bullying. - Yeah, that's what it is. - Exactly, it's overkill. - I have a question though. What do you think about professionals? Like our age ripping each other off? (laughing) - I don't know. - Specifically now, don't say specifically. - Yeah, I don't know, that, I don't know. - Yeah. - That's different, that is different. But I guess in the spectrum, I think it's in between those two things. I think, I'm not saying that you shouldn't deal with it. - Right. - I'm just saying that there are positive ways of dealing with it that are loving and affirming to the creative industry. And there are ones that are maybe not your best or whatever, I don't know. - Right, but I do agree that you can't ruin someone's life or blacklist someone at 22. That's so unkind. - Exactly, exactly. - I think it needs to be done privately. If you're gonna do it, it needs to be done privately. I think that the kind of odd comments on Twitter or something, they're always gonna be bad. That goes for any relationship, that's never good. - I see Draplin dealing with it a lot. Draplin's dealt with it, so. I think when you have a distinct style, it's very, very easy to be like, there's no one else you could have got this from, but by me. I think with your issue, Danielle, is that they're gonna go to Pinterest and see it. It may not know the name attached to it. - Well, that's not a real issue. - Yeah, it may not realize that, oh, this is this one girl that came up with this whole thing, as opposed to just typing in whatever engine's seeing it. So it's, I think the more face that's put to it, the harder it's gonna be to rip them off, you know? - Yeah. I think the other thing for you that is interesting is that having spurred on such a massive thing is, and you get to decide that's not me, but you know, you've maybe created an industry rather than a style. And yeah, you should be, I'm not, no, no, no. - That's weird, no, it's a weird conversation. - And I'm not even saying that that doesn't mean you shouldn't be credited or, you know, paid for it. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying it's kind of like someone coming along and starting hip hop. It's like, you know, you can't get mad that there's other hip hop axons. - Right, you know, I understand, it's a weird place because, you know, I look at it and I'm like, well, these ideas existed before me. They weren't fully actualized. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And they'll exist when I don't wanna do them anymore. So what does this mean? Like I, my husband and I constantly have these conversations where I'm like, this has gotten so far-- - I've removed from me that it's almost not my work anymore. And that part makes it not fun. That part sucks joy out of it. So for me, it's really a question of like, how can I reclaim and take things in the way that I still like to use them and feel joy and fun out of them? So that's like my, that's actually my current struggle. - I think a good thing that you're doing and that you're saying, Brandon, is, how do you tell your story? Like maybe even it'd be interesting if you get the serif guys to do like a really interesting video where you tell the story because that's part of it. I think if you're the person telling the story and you tell this authentic, this is how this all unraveled, all of a sudden you're getting it out there and it's, I don't know. Anyway, it's interesting. And I hope you're comfortable talking about all this. - But let it be known that Daniel Evans is the mother of food typography. - So all of you out there. - It's being said here today, but it should have been said a few years ago too. (laughing) - Oh gosh. - Oh, it's so funny. Gosh, that's such a weird like discussion. You guys are like in my head in my heart right now. - I'm sorry, but I feel like these are the things that I keep, so this week actually, I had all this anxiety about the stuff I'm working on and worrying, we all have worries about everything that we do from every corner. - We want it to be sustainable. - Everything, yeah. There's all kinds of, whether it's money or art or whatever it is, there are things that we don't talk about. And you know what I did this week? I called someone who is one of my close friends slash kind of secret mentor on. - Yeah, you don't tell them. - Save, you don't tell them. You don't tell them. And I just thought, you know what, I'm gonna call them and talk to them about it because it's not something I would go out of my way to talk to other people about, but I'm gonna do it because I need to work through this. And I did it and I felt so amazing afterwards. And so I just feel like these things we should be, let's try to talk about them for everybody's sake because I think, you know, I've met people that are legitimately suffering alone through these things because creativity is so personal and there's so much of yourself into it. - And now it's so public. - And it's so public that it's good to talk about all this stuff. I don't know if we have to do it in public like we are about, we are, so whatever. - It's taking on a whole new thing now, this podcast. Like we're really getting to the heart of the magic. - Here's how I feel about this truly, is that if your brand is authentically you, as much as possible, then you shouldn't have to neglect the parts of this story that are uncomfortable or less attractive and dealing with people ripping you off. Whatever that means to you is part of that story. Now, how much you choose to share about who this is and where it is and how much you want to shame them, that's another story all the other. - And it's your choice and we're not coming up with the only solution and what we're saying is right and everybody else is wrong, but there are things that I do think we should talk about because there isn't a standard order of practices in terms of how do you release a student into the real world? How do they, what does their portfolio look like and all that good stuff? - Yeah, I tend to like to look at it as a pie recipe and maybe this is because I've always been baking and so therefore, I don't know, I just love eating. But I've found that when you make a pie for a party or something or a cake, you don't say, look at this recipe I came up with, you say, I got a recipe off of Epicurious or I finagled something from this recipe from Bon Appetit. If you take out several, like, and by that I mean, it's not just that the pie is no longer blueberry. It's not that you added some extra cinnamon. That doesn't make it your recipe. - This is my recipe, yeah. If you use alternative flowers, if you're taking out dairy and finding ways to like, finagle and new construction, that's like, yeah, I kind of like-- - And no one bakes a pie without trying a few recipes. - Right, exactly. - That's totally true. - Exactly. And so I try to relate that kind of creative differentiation that way. - That's so good, that's such a good analogy. - Yeah, and I find too, like, T.S. Eliot has this amazing quote which is funny because it's misappropriated to the pie so it's like super ironic. (laughing) But he has this whole rant about this. It's the one where people say, you know, good artist copy, great artist steal, but there's more to it than that. It says like, a mature artist takes their theft and wields it into something wholly different than from once it came. An immature artist basically only ambassadors it, you know, and doesn't make sense of the decisions made. So he makes a differentiation of, you know, language, time, interest as like places where you can take these things. So like if someone's working in a different market than you in a different part of the world, let them have it. You know, if someone is just on Instagram or Pinterest and they're working towards like, you know, bloggers, let them have that if that's not what you want. You know, that makes sense to me as terms of like, where your ownership stops and where someone else's creativity begins or seeing people that have wielded this whole food type thing into something different. Like I love Tommy Perez. He puts papercraft and animation to his, which is incredible. I've seen Joseph Alessio do the same thing. Sean Freeman has a very dark version of this. Craig Ward is almost more of a scientist in the way that he handles it. It's so beautiful. There's so many broad expressions even within these ideas. - Well, if there are so many broad ways that you can take this, you know, I think Andy and I in our last episode are 58, right, with a climbing the mountain part. We had this discussion about, you know, like what do you do when you get there? You know, and it was for us, what do you get to, what do you do when you get to the top of the mountain for us? We realized that it was sort of, you know, we gotta figure out a way to help other people for Andy. This is his podcast, you know, I'm starting a podcast. Like there's things we can do to help other people. So for you, you know, maybe the next step for you, and I'm sure you've thought of this before, is how do you facilitate and encourage this community that you've created. And now, you know, you can, you know, you can see the different ways people are taking your inspiration and doing something bigger with it. So now this is maybe your opportunity to do something bigger with it. And I think that will become a lot more fulfilled when we embrace that community as opposed to fight it. - Right. - So I think, you know, just my advice or my help is there's an opportunity there to, you know, to really like embrace that community that you've created. I've done some workshops, which has been amazing. I'm working on scheduling a few more. I would like to do more intensive ones. I'm talking with a couple of people about a set of videos, not so much for food type, but for like creative business. And I'm working through just a couple blog posts about like, hey, here are people that I think are doing really well with this and have their own voice. So I, yeah, I agree with you. I think that when you can start to celebrate, again, it's almost like this life path. When people think, oh, you are successful, you're creative, you're making money off your gig, they think your problems just vanish. And in reality, all of the things that I worried about it from the beginning, they've just leveled up. So like, you know, being able to celebrate my peers' victories, that's like a, that's just, oh, being able to celebrate my peers' victories doing work that I bid for. - Yeah, yeah. - Whoa. (laughing) - I've been there. - That's sort of thing. And so just realizing like, oh man, this is going to be a continual uphill climb with these exact same roadblocks. And so I can choose to jump over them or I can let them smack me in the field. - I've had that same thing where I've had, here's this thing that I've been working for for years. And I get it and then have people nearby come right up behind me and it's, I've belazed a trail. And you know, it might've been a minor thing. I'm not, I'm not claiming to anything insanely amazing, but I've seen it happen. And my, I think your lizard brain part of your brain, the small part that is, you know, worried about making ends meet has that scarcity mentality of like, there's not enough. And I have to like, you know, grab what I can take. And, but I think when you switch over to the abundance of like, there's more than enough going around, I've got mine already and I'm going to go help other people. Not only is that just better for your heart, probably, it's also better for your career. Honestly, I think Draplin is amazing. I love his work. He's an awesome guy. But a lot of the reason why he gets ripped off is because he goes around the country telling people how he did what he did. And if you don't expect people to go do it, you're probably, you know, obviously there's better ways of doing it than not. But the reason he even is going from strength to strength, the inflection point almost happens when you're willing to say I'm going to celebrate everybody else. And I think part of it is even the generation that we're a part of now, we don't want someone on stage that's like, we don't want Superman on the stage. We want someone who's on the stage that's convincing us, oh, we could do this. Like we can see their humanity in flaws and mistakes and all that. And that's compelling because it means I can do it. Rather than I think, you know, 30 years ago, it was easier for like the hero worship thing to happen. - Yeah. - You know? - I think it's helpful too to know that those people are your, they look up to you so much. So to view them as enemies isn't accurate. So, you know, you need to view them as people that look up to you so much that they're very impressionable and you can, you know, you can be something in their life. And so the, you know, like for Draplin, he means, you know, he knows that the people looking up to him, they've heard of him, they look up to him, they love him. - Yes. - You know, so it's definitely not a situation where you need to go in with your dukes up. You know what I mean? It's sort of like you need to go in to somebody who looks up to you and figure out how to, where to go from here. But I think there's a community there to cultivate if, you know, for you, it's a different situation because you actually have created this whole genre. You know, like Tim Ferriss, for example, he came up with the word life hack. Like he made that up. - Yeah, now it's an industry. - Yeah, now it's an industry. So does Tim Ferriss get annoyed that, you know, other people are in the life hack section of Barnes and Noble. He wanted his own section. - What does he make the friends? - Right, or is he making friends? - Now he has all his friends that-- - Or does he establish-- - Oh, you're just like me. Does he establish an entire conference just based on life hack? - Draplin actually talks about it in his talks about how he shames the people that shame other people, saying, you know, that person that ripped you off, they're the people that, you know, pay for all the field notes. - Right. - Those are the people. Those are the people that are paying for your, you know, not necessarily in this situation, but it's, yeah. I think there's-- - They're the people following you on Twitter, they're the people following you on Dribble and liking the videos and all that stuff. So it's a fuzzy area for sure. - Yeah. - And I never try to go through this and not say, so it's totally cool to come rip Danielle off, you know? I'm not saying that at all, because it's cheap for you. Those people that don't make it their own, it's not gonna be fulfilling. You're gonna, it's gonna be a shortcut and you're not gonna get where you actually wanna go. So all of that's true too, but-- - Yeah, I think it's important too to express that when those sort of things happen, if you are the subject of something like this, you have to realize too that a lot of these people coming up, they haven't put the effort into building this business, the way that you have. And so a lot of them are probably destined for burnout. - Absolutely. - Yeah. Like, truly just not doing this day after day after day for years, like, they just don't understand the ins and outs of this and they might be able to shortcut a lot of it, but it's not sustainable. - Exactly, you see a lot of those, you know, child actors that, you know, start before they're ready to deal with all the pressures of all of these things and a lot of those people burnout, the people that are celebrated right outside of college, oftentimes are, you know, burnout. And yeah, so I try, yeah, I think you're so, your work's so good, you do amazing things, you've, you know, it's so authentic, I just think, don't worry, it would be awesome. - You got this, you're the mother, sorry, I know it's like-- - You guys are so funny. - Bro pro, right now, that's, I don't remember, I heard someone say that and like, yeah, that's me. - Did you say bro pro? - Yeah, he did. - That's awesome, I never heard that. I don't remember, I think it was Mark. - I'm totally, I'm totally a bro pro pro. - I know, I'm doing for that. It's like making people feel better. Anyway, sorry, I know you aren't asking for that. - No, I'm sorry, I didn't appreciate it. - You know, I think I have a sensitivity to this because I graduated in 2008, when did you graduate? - 2009. - 2009, okay, and right at that-- - I didn't graduate, I never graduated. - We were saying ask you. - I graduated from high school in 2001. - This is for college grads only, just stay out of it. I do not have the credentials for this boss grads. - This is for people with a net worth of like negative 30,000. (laughing) - Yeah, and so, you know, when we graduated, I had all of my friends, even friends now that I have in the States that graduated at that time went through the trolling blogs at the time. And so the people that were lucky enough to be celebrated on a blog were also trolled to death. - Right, exactly. - And so I went through that and it, you know, I had a friend who went through it way worse than me, someone who's really that I care about a lot and it destroyed him, took him off the creative path for a long time. And so watching that first hand always made me sincerely empathetic for those people especially, having, you know, had a little people be like, oh, you, oh, it looks like this or looks like that. You know, you had that in that day, you even had people that would like, would go on to like something where they see a Picasso and be like, you're ripping off John Bergeman. Like, what are you, you know, like this crazy, like, twisted backwards thing because they had all these people talking like that. But having seen that first hand, I just think, this is just, you know, this is the best way. We need to like make a healthier community that. - Yeah. - But yeah. What I, one thing I wanted to do is ask you, if there's something that you never get to talk about on these things that you would like to talk about. - Oh, you should have asked me like way before this. - But way before an hour and a half. - You mean really? - Yes. - Yeah, but I find that most people have asked me like, why are you calling this thing food typography or dimensional type? Why are you doing that? Because that's not what it is. Like there was nothing more terrifying than going to the, going to TypeCon in Denver this past year and having a room full of typographers ask what I do. And I'm like, I do lettering out of things. - Knowing everybody in their season, that's you don't, you're not a type of. - We've already established the correct term. We've already established the correct terms for everything and you are not using. - Once you get into the deeper you get into like the niche or the market or whatever, the more lingo there is and the more seriously these people take this lingo, yeah. - Exactly, which is perfectly fair. And I think people should take it seriously. But in the same way as when I chose my moniker for my studio, I decided to go against what was conventional for actually business reasons. I call it food typography, not because it is. It is more so food lettering or like dimensional lettering or object lettering. - Can you explain that a little bit? 'Cause I think general education would be good for everybody. - Well, the difference between typography and lettering is that lettering is like a, for lack of a better word, handcrafted set of characters that often work together and they are a one-time use. - And lettering is usually like kind of like drawing. - Right, it's drawing letter forms. - Whereas typography is more so a system, like a font or a type base that can be used over and over and over again. All the characters are separate from each other unless you have special ligature components, but it's a system of characters. So it's usually made on the computer, in olden days, cart from plates. Like just, it's a different process and it's a different way of thinking. One, the typography aspect is more meticulous because everything has to feel harmonious but has to be legible, whereas with lettering, things are usually more free and careless and given to like the moment. - Yep. - And calligraphy is a different thing as well, which is writing. - All together, yes. - But fancy writing. - Right, exactly. - Because drawing, writing, and then there's font creation. - Right, exactly. And so the reason why I chose food type or food typography is for that reason, it has two given names because someone can type in food type and they know what that is. Someone can type in food typography and still find my work. Whereas lettering when I was coming into this was still a new concept to a lot of people and only people within the design community would know what that was. Whereas a common lay person is like, you make those font words, those typographies. - Yeah. - They get that. - That was me. (laughing) - You got that type? (laughing) - I think most people can use the word font. They feel really smart if you're outside of the design community and then when you get in, it's like a whole rabbit hole. - They don't care. - So it's fine. That's not part of their world. They don't need to know. - Right. - The best way to lettering is the piece that you make with a bunch of letters and you make them all work together. So if you can create one unified piece, yeah, it's a piece of work. - Yes. - Typography is the whole study of everything. It's like, it's a subject in itself. - It's a language. - Yeah, and a font, well, a font's a whole different thing because a font could be talked about like old wood type and like the way, you know, it's a rabbit hole. - It is. But I think that it's important to deviate from the norms in those regards. Like in the same way that when I chose my studio moniker, I purposed a weird name, but I wanted it to sound nice when people said it and I wanted it to be spelled with a bronchophone kind of sensibility. So people from France could know that blue is the feminine version of blue. And it was because I wanted a broader international audience. That was really important to me. And besides Daniel Evans, every version of it was taken by an America's Next Top Model and a budgeting author. So, I mean, I couldn't compete with how basic my name was. So essentially the idea of doing something, even though it would be difficult to spell and I now owe hundreds of dollars in domain names every year, it actually worked my favorite because people thought I was exotic and interesting and that was part of how I got traveling because people wanted me to come places and they thought I was closer. - Yeah, and actually the talk that I gave, a lot of it was about words, understanding the power, the words have lots of power to you and your mind, opening up, you know, how you see the world when you find the right words, but then also how you communicate to others. Like, yeah, being aware of using the right words and why you're using them can be really powerful in terms of your art and business. - And I feel like that's the beautiful thing too about just the subject of lettering is that it is a picture that already has an inherent meaning and a value to it. And so anything else you assign to it is either contrary or complementary to that idea. And I think that is what benefited me as opposed to going in the realm of like regular illustration where it's more pictorial and more image-heavy. So this made a lot more sense to me as well. So I think it's good to encourage people to just kind of continue deviating from their norms, deviating from what they think they should be doing. - And I think, you know, a lot of times you start talking about this and there'll be people that just totally brush it off as semantics. And I actually totally disagree. And I think science actually disagrees. In the terms of what happens in your mind when you have the right word or you have the wrong word or what words you use do have lots of weight. And so when you go out there and you're telling the world this is what I do, it's important to be like, you know, thoughtful about what you do. And yeah. - And it's important to stand on it, especially when people are willing to correct you in public. - And it doesn't matter. Because you know what? - Or at type, yes. - Those people though, aren't the people buying from you or hiring you most of the time? - Yes, most likely. - And so they're not the audience that you're trying to, you know, brand yourself for or whatever. Although the type gone guys are great. - Hey, design community. Hey, design community. Get over your terms. - Suck. Just kidding. - We just draw pretty pictures. Leave it alone. - No, we just decorate, you know. - Oh yeah. Don't, let's not start that. We're gonna go, we're gonna go, I could, let's talk for five hours about that. I could do that. - Totally. - Okay. Okay. So we covered everything. We know everything about you. All of your secret fears, anxieties, stresses. You had a nice therapy session. You got it. - Unintended, yeah. - You can pay for it afterwards. - Yeah, we'll send you the bill for all this. - Yes. - For this broke recession. - Or we might actually, yeah. We might have to pay you for all the stuff we just brought out. So thank you so much. Your story is awesome. I'm sure like, I know for a fact that this is gonna be one of the most popular episodes because I think we hit on a bunch of sensitive topics in the industry and you were very gracious with all these answers in your story. - Yeah, I don't know. Do you have anything else to say, Brandon? You wanna wrap it up? - No, it's great. Another three Columbus creatives hanging out together in a mystery radio studio that we can't talk about. So again, we're grateful to pray this place. - Yes. - And it's really cool that we could all get together be in the same city. We're pretty lucky to live in a city and be able to have a good conversation. - Yeah, and we should definitely do it again. Just a good excuse for all being in the same room. You know, we see each other like once every six months. - Yeah. - You know, we live in the same place. But yeah, so thank you so much. Thanks for being here. - Yeah, thank you so much for having me. - Awesome. (upbeat music) - Hey y'all, one more quick thing. Earlier this year, I rebuilt my website using Squarespace's new fluid engine and I was so pumped about how it turned out that I have been really thrilled to find as many ways to partner with them and tell you about what they can do and bring you discounts as possible. With social media going haywire, I think having a site that feels as unique as your creative work is essential to building trust with your target audience or your clients. I have had several clients point out how cohesive and fresh my site looks lately. And if you wanna check that out and what I was able to do without any code, check out AndyJPizza.com. If you wanna test it out, go to squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out yourself. And when you're ready to launch, use promo code PEPTALK for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks Squarespace for supporting the show and for supporting creative people. (upbeat music) - I did consider Barney a friend and he's still a friend to this day. - The idea of Barney is something that I want to live up to. I love you, you love me. I call it the purple mantra. Barney taught me how to be a man. - Generation Barney, a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us. Listen wherever you get your podcast. (upbeat music)