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63824peace · 5 years

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Wednesday, 2nd of november 2005

I am not a maiden--I am a man. Yet I am an Otome-za, one born beneath the astrological sign of the Virgin.

I only bear this trait because I was born on August 24. If I had been born a few days later, I would have been born under the Lion. When I was a boy I would lie that I was a Leo. Obviously, Leo sounded better than Virgo. My boyhood friends used to say, "Hide-chan, you're a Leo? Lucky!" They envied my lie.

Kids think that Leo is cooler than livestock constellations such as Taurus the Bull, Aries the Ram, and Capricorn the Goat. They likewise prefer Leo to smaller animal constellations like Pisces the Fish, Cancer the Crab, and Scorpio the Scorpion.

I don't care about that stuff anymore. After all, I'm forty years old. Today I think that an Otome-za is just as fine as anything else under the heavens.

I turned on the television news this morning and noticed a program called Today's Horoscope. This really irritated me. I don't want someone else to decide my day's future so early in the morning.

For me it's not an issue of belief or disbelief. I simply don't want to hear anything like, "Virgos should expect such-and-such things to happen." It will haunt me throughout the day.

I usually take a bathroom break or busy myself otherwise whenever Today's Horoscope starts. I don't mind hearing my fortune if my star is in a good position, but I feel terrible all day if the outlook is dour.

I was too slow this morning. I heard my horoscope.

According to the program, Virgo currently holds the fourth position among the twelve zodiacal signs. That's certainly not bad-but neither is it particularly good. I would have been quite nervous had I needed to deliver our "sons" to Aoyama today.

However, I received the advice, "You should eat ramen today." So I walked to the restaurant Gogyo in Tokyo's Nishi Azabu district. I hadn't been there in a while. I ordered a jumbo-sized ramen in scorched soy sauce, with a bowl of rice and chashao topping.

I can't deny that today's horoscope floated through my mind. I thought that Fortune might smile upon me if I ate ramen. After all, that's what my horoscope recommended.

I ate with high hopes for good tidings. Then I splashed and stained my shirt with soup from my scorched soy sauce ramen.

Is this supposed to be a sign of good luck?

I bought a copy of Yusaku Matsuda: the Complete Collection at the bookstore. The book used to sell only online, so it's a pretty rare find. Now they're reprinting it to sell in stores.

Mr. Yusaku Matsuda is greater than an actor or a celebrity idol... he is one of my generation's heroes. I esteem him as highly as Steve McQueen. I was attracted to more than just his performance and his looks. I admired his whole way of life.

I wonder if we'll ever see an actor like him again. The thought occurs to me every time I turn a page, see his picture, or read his words.

He flew from this world so young... he was only thirty-nine years old. I suddenly realized that I'm already older than him.

We held our second brainstorming session for the new project.

...what? Shinta and the prospective future director are absent.

Okamura apologized. "They've been working hard these days."

So what did yesterday's parting words even mean?! My thoughts clicked to the fact that the Virgin holds the fourth zodiacal slot.

I had no choice then but to enter the glass room with Okamura and Murashu, and Murashu isn't even involved with the project. At that point only four people (including myself) knew the project's details. I started explaining the outline to Murashu.

Now five people know about it. I'll limit my number of confidantes to these five only. It's better to involve only a few people. When we create a game, we must protect the core idea above everything else.

We conversed for about an hour. The project has an original concept as well as a deep technical side. We naturally focused our conversation on the technical aspects. We need to develop the concept and the technological feasibility independent of each other. I'll test the concept along with the actual program once our missing team members return.

By the end, our meeting had turned from a brainstorming session into a presentation of the idea to Murashu. I asked his opinion, and he said, "Looks interesting." His eyes sparkled.

In my experience, mediocre projects are usually accepted and admired during their drafting stages. Really original projects receive a lot of skeptical criticism. The Metal Gear Solid games and Boktai were ripped to pieces at first.

Maybe this project won't turn out so well after all.

Something good happened while I ate ramen. Ms. Ayumi Kinoshita visited my office to cover a story for GS Satellite. They will publish the story in mid-November.

We haven't seen each other since TGS a little over a month ago. She has changed her hair style since then--she's adopted a more boyish look.

I think that she's prettier like this.

I had her experience the TOBIDAC!D version of herself that will fly out toward our audience.

Let me illustrate the 3D mechanism for HIDEOBLOG's readers. It looks like this without TOBIDAC!D attached.

She gave me her autograph at TGS.

I have mentioned my admiration for Da Vinci on various occasions recently. I know I've mentioned it during interviews and in articles that I've written. The gallery at the Hills has hosted the Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibition since September, and they have Da Vinci's Codex Leicester.

The Mori Arts Center has the authentic Codex Leicester (owned by Mr. Bill Gates) on display. This marks the book's first visit to Japan.

The event was probably precipitated by the influence of the popular novel The Da Vinci Code. Still, the chance to see the Codex doesn't come along often. I can't pass this up. I may never see it again in my whole life if I don't go now.

I want to see it no matter what the cost.

The exhibition will remain open until November 13. For weeks I have said to myself, "The exhibition is just next door, so I can see it any time I please." Then today I reflected on my actual situation. I realized that I wouldn't have much time to see it, due to responsibilities like next week's business trip to Korea. Today is my last chance.

"I'm in a tight spot!"

I panicked.

"Well, all right... it looks like I don't have anything left to do... I only need to walk over and see it now."

I saw Murashu right when I thought this. It occurred to me that we had gone shopping together earlier, and that I've set aside today to spend with him.

Perhaps Murashu ranks fourth in my own destiny like I rank fourth in the Zodiac. The zodiacal fourth rank is neither particularly good nor bad, so Murashu shouldn't bring bad luck... though he certainly won't bring much good fortune either.

Fortunately the exhibition stays open until 10 P.M. during November. I can make it in time even if I leave at this late hour. They probably extended the hours so that people can access the panoramic viewing platform. It's the time of the season for stargazing.

Murashu and I headed to the Da Vinci Exhibition.

The exhibition hall was more crowded than one might expect at this hour. Half of the folks were couples trying to enjoy the shadows for a bit of romance. The other people were legitimate Da Vinci fans.

The real Da Vinci fans came alone, age or sex regardless. They emanated a sort of frenzied, vibrant air from their bodies.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the handholding couples. The guys are likely preoccupied with thoughts like, "I'll hook up with her tonight for sure!"

I couldn't entirely accept the serious art fanatics' company either. They're a tough bunch. They tended to stick in one place, right in front of the exhibition displays. They hogged the informational areas. They wouldn't give up their places easily. And still... as a Da Vinci lover myself, I felt a strange and deep affection for them when I saw their obstinate passion.

I momentarily fell under the illusion that I was in the Ueno Art Museum rather than the Hills.

I saw the actual Codex Leicester. It's definitely five centuries old. Strong light would damage the materials, so they are kept under soft light for fixed intervals only.

People formed a wall in front of the manuscript while it was lighted. The light snapped off after a fixed amount of time, and then it clicked on again. The process repeated over and over.

The total display consisted of eighteen sheets of paper pressed individually between panes of glass, so that a total of thirty-six leaves were displayed. Each sheet of paper was dimly lit within an individual booth, and then it returned to darkness. The light and darkness alternated at irregular intervals.

Visitors flitted to the lighted booths like moths making shadows out of a light bulb's midsummer gloam. It was pretty difficult to see the pages in sequence.

The exhibition conditions also required reduced humidity and temperature, so it was quite cold. A man needed patience and fortitude to see everything. Once in a while, though, if I stood in front of a darkened booth, the light would turn on as though greeting my presence. Occasionally the intervals of light corresponded with my movement. It must have been coincidental, but I still felt as though I had touched Da Vinci in those moments.

I bought a booklet featuring a replica of the Codex Leicester. I also bought various goods relating to the Vitruvian Man. I love that drawing.

I took my newly purchased replica of the Codex Leicester in hand after I returned to the office. "Perhaps there is something in here written about Hideo," I mused.

I looked among the mirrored script and rough sketches, but of course I found nothing. I couldn't have found what I looked for, and I knew that. I just have this strange delusion sometimes.

I become enamored by handwriting's charm when I look through the Codex Leicester and Yusaku Matsuda: the Complete Collection. Characters penned by hand have distinct expressions. Perhaps those expressions embody characteristics of the person who set the characters in ink... his perception, strength, peculiar idiosyncrasies, emotions, and even his facial expressions. The script evokes an awareness of more than silent words. We can see the visual presence of the ideas behind the writing, and we can hear the sounds behind the words.

Kadokawa Press published a complementary book for the whole MGS mythos in 2004 titled Metal Gear Solid Naked. I wrote the book's preface in my own handwriting. That was head editor Mr. Yano's idea.

I initially protested the suggestion since my handwriting is so awful. Writing by hand makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Encountering the Codex Leicester makes me think now that Mr. Yano had the right idea.

The 21st century will use digital writing preserved on personal computers as its standard archiving medium. The letters appear as they should; they're impervious to fluctuations in light and temperature; and they won't deteriorate in time.

They are practically eternal records… yet they lack charm.

Da Vinci wrote in mirrored characters... he wrote completely backwards. Even though we can't read them easily, the pressure of a pen stroke and the gaps between lines and letters give us a sense of the words' spirits. Da Vinci lives in each drawn character.

As an example of my larger point, suppose that HIDEOBLOG were to go on display after five centuries. I feel disappointed just imagining it... the sentences will line up too perfectly.

Nothing can match the impact of handwritten diaries and articles.

I hope that someone in the future invents a device that can create something akin to handwriting. It should be a digital device that operates like an analog device. It could change the color, shape, and size of the script according to measurements of the writer's emotional and physical condition. I would want this new machine to record the writer's sensations and physical environment in addition to letters.

At night I swam in the gym.

Back at home, I wrote my blog while listening to L'Arc-en-Ciel's album Awake and Hyde's single Countdown.

The day that my horoscope called "fourth rank" concluded without incident. It wasn't that bad, all in all.

Tonight I conversed with Da Vinci, five centuries gone. I sensed that I heard his voice speaking to me....

"Hideo, you don't need to be recognized and fully appreciated just yet. A day will come when you are truly understood. Continue writing HIDEOBLOG until then.

"Come on... it doesn't even need to be handwritten...."

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edwardlando · 6 years

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The Perfect Painting

“You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally”

― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I think the most powerful thing an entrepreneur can do to move toward success is to improve his or herself.

Just like startups, we too have to be iterated on over and over. We have to throw away what doesn’t work and refine what is working. And in both cases this is very hard and requires consistent, unrelinquishing commitment.

Every year at this time people draft a list of “resolutions,” promises they make to themselves about how they will act differently in the coming year in the hopes of changing their lives.

Promises they almost inevitably end up breaking.

We all do this.

Why is it that we break promises to ourselves?

I think it comes from lack of self-awareness.

We have two selves: who we actually are and who we wish we were. The real self, and the ideal self. And ambition is the tension between these two.

When we think about who we will be tomorrow, 6 months or a year from now, our human imperfections are abstracted away. We’re not tired, or lazy, or impatient, or jealous or scared as we are today, right now. In this simulation it’s very easy to imagine that we’ll do all the right things. (And by the way, we often do know what the right thing is! The hard part is doing it when the time comes.)

Setting goals that only our ideal selves can reach is dangerous because by failing to live up to them we lose trust in ourselves and our ability to improve our condition.

If you’ve already tried 10 times to quit smoking, lose weight, wake up early, be more patient with your family, save more money, or whatever it is and always end up falling back into the pit, you disrespect yourself and your promise over and over to the point that you don’t believe in trying anymore.

To avoid this, we should set imperfect goals.

Well, goals that take in account who we really are and not who we wish we were. Hedge fund manager (and modern philosopher) Ray Dalio talks a lot about hyper-transparency and self-awareness in Principles, and he’s built his company and success around this modus operandi.

Self-awareness allows you to trick yourself into doing the right thing. By anticipating ahead of time what your weaknesses will have you fall for, you can set up a game or situation so that you will not be faced with that trap.

Yes, you are the architect of the game. And the game is your life.

Ulysses did that when he put wax in his men’s ears and asked them to tie him to his mast in approach of the Sirens.

No one can resist the Sirens. Not even Ray Dalio. But some people just become better at making sure they never have to fall into their trap.

So if eating ice cream in the middle of the night is your demon, don’t have ice cream in the house. I promise you will be too cold and tired to go outside into the cold and buy some (although the on-demand economy is your enemy here…)

Or in my case waking up early is still something I am fighting to do.

Well, to make it happen I can go to bed earlier. I can wake up and go to sleep at the same time at least during week days to get alter my circadian rhythm and start getting tired at 11pm.

I can also create things to look forward to in the morning, whether that be the thrill or reading or writing over steaming coffee while the world still sleeps, making a fresh, healthful breakfast, or maybe going on a run along the water at sunrise while listening to my favorite playlist.

Combining a “painful” task (or what feels like one today) with a reward (or a shower of rewards) has been incredibly effective for me. I have learned to crave my berry protein shake after each work out.

Another way to “trick” yourself is to become aware that the best way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with something else. Whenever you feel the impulse to do that thing you’re trying to do, it’s much harder to suppress that urge entirely than to quell it in some other fashion.

Or as illustrated in the graph below, it’s easier to go from A to B than it is to go from A to C. This graph was used by HBS Professor Alison Brooks to make a point about public speaking: many people who are nervous tell themselves to calm down while instead it would be much easier and more realistic for them to translate that nervousness into excitement.

From HBS Professor Alison Brooks’s paper: “Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement”

So for example if you get hungry in the afternoons and have a bad snacking habit, you can indulge that habit but make healthy smoothies or eat another real meal instead of going for the chips.

Another very helpful trick in my case has been to re-frame my perception of certain tasks.

I used to absolutely despise any administrative matters: paying bills, doing taxes or dealing with the government in any way, returning an item, going to the doctor, checking my bank statements. I hated these things to the point that any physical letter I received elicited fear in me. Fear because I was afraid of what was inside them but also of what would happen as a consequence of my taking 2 months to deal with what should have taken 1 hour. Paying something, mailing something, check books. Who the hell still uses paper? Who the hell has a check book? Why do people keep bothering me and wasting my precious time?

Those were my thoughts and they harmed me. I paid late fees, forgot to renew things and in general wasted more time than I would have taking care of these things in the first place.

I learned my lesson.

Now when I get hit with these administrative tasks I deal with them on the spot no matter how much I wish I could do that other more interesting thing I was doing before I got interrupted.

The reason I used to ignore these is that I thought they were a waste of my time.

And that makes sense.

There are after all only two types of tasks: pleasure seeking and pain avoiding. We start off at neutral, or 0 on the thermometer indicator if you will, and pleasure seeking tasks can take us above that neutral level to those warmer temperatures: we focus on doing the work we love, we go for dinner with friends, we watch a movie.

In comparison, doing laundry, going to the DMV or applying for insurance is not going to take us above 0. These chores will just ensure that we won’t get to the negative numbers.

It’s much less exciting because the very best outcome is being back at 0. The upside is so boringly limited. It’s what we dreadfully call “being a grown up.”

If you’re a novelist lost in your beautiful world, would you rather write another few pages of your masterpiece or call AT&T about your excessive phone bill?

You get the point.

What has saved me has been to reconsider my perception of these tasks. These pain avoiding activities are not only about getting back to zero. They’re about making sure that we don’t lose all the positives. Quite literally, they allow us by completing to avoid what is otherwise certain pain. The rest of the skyscraper will collapse if we do not take care of these foundations even though they might be invisible, beneath the ground.

I have taken on the habit of listing daily goals as bullets, many of which are pain avoiding tasks. And I take just as much if not more pleasure and pride in getting those done than the things that come naturally to me. Tearing through the the boring, unpleasant stuff feels like a great accomplishment, a triumph over myself.

Consider two oversimplified types of people: the “creative” and the “operator.” These two actually come up quite often in the world of startup founders. (Using masculine pronoun here for convenience.)

The creative didn’t get good grades in all subjects, only those that he found interesting. He might have written brilliant stories but always made spelling mistakes and had messy handwriting. He was often late, lost his homework all the time, and continues to be a little messy today and still doesn’t check his bank account like his mom asks him to.

In contrast, the operator is the person who gets shit done. He never wrote “The Catcher in the Rye” but wrote high quality albeit slightly dry analyses of literary passages as required and did just as well in math and science classes. An all around excellent, balanced student without mad genius in any category.

The creative and the operator would not do as well working individually. The creative would end up broke, writing poems or drawing in an apartment with no heating because he forgot to pay the bill last month, and the operator would be doing fairly well in a corporate job and yet feeling that he could do more but not quite knowing where to start.

It would be silly for the creative to try to become the operator and vice versa. Because of nature and nurture, they are not wired the same way.

As Ray Dalio explains, being successful in your job and life is about focusing on your strengths and turning them into killer weapons and overcoming your limitations by surrounding yourself with people who will help you with those and make sure they don’t get in your way.

Finding complementary partners works in business, love, friendship and pretty much everywhere.

I do think that for our own personal esteem, it is still important to become competent even at those things we dread so that we stop fearing them and at least understand what is going on when someone else takes care of them.

In drafting goals for improvement, I try to keep both of these in mind: I can trick myself into becoming better at the things I don’t like by setting up the game in a way that doesn’t make me fall for usual temptations, and I can partner with people who are complementary to me and concentrate on sharpening what already comes naturally.

In both of these, becoming more self-aware by asking ourselves and our close ones what we are good and bad at is the key to making promises that we will keep.

Perhaps food for family dinner discussions.

Happy New Year :)

Thank you for reading.

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#Productivity #Life Lessons #New Year #New Year Resolutions #Goals

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raystart · 6 years

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Firing Your Most Lucrative Client, and Eight Other Crazy Career Changes That Were Ultimately Great Moves

When you launched your creative career, you may have pictured a series of razor-sharp lines leading from one position to the next—a sequence of steps moving irreversibly onward and upward. For most of us, that career path is less like a staircase and more like a hiking trail, twisting and turning organically, and even branching out unexpectedly.

No doubt, change can be terrifying, but sometimes it’s a little less terrifying than the prospect of staying on the same path you’ve been on for years. The next time you’re considering a new direction, keep stories from these nine creative leaders in mind.

Carve out time for yourself. Kim Knoll and Kyle Eertmoed, partners, Knoed, Chicago, IL

Last year was Knoed’s fifth year in business and one of our most humbling. As a husband-and-wife agency of two, we’ve always prided ourselves on our ability to juggle a lot. And we appeared to have it all—a steady stream of work, good clients, prestigious awards, and active involvement in the creative community.

But behind the scenes, we were slowly suffocating ourselves, working weekends, eating dinners at 10 p.m., and waking up in the middle of the night worried about deadlines. We didn’t realize how much it was affecting us until Kyle (a fit 36-year-old) returned from the doctor with a prescription for blood-pressure medication and a stern warning to make some lifestyle changes.

Leading into 2017, we shifted our perspective away from what we thought we were supposed to do to what we needed to do. After four years of leading the Chicago chapter of CreativeMornings (a monthly lecture series), we handed the reins to a new organizer. We said goodbye to a lucrative catalog client and the thousands of dollars that came with it. We even suggested that one of our favorite clients hire another illustrator to take over our work.

Flash forward six months: Freeing up that space has allowed us to do more of what we love, with some downtime built in. We brought in two new clients with branding needs, and one of our favorite long-time clients agreed to a monthly retainer—a move that would have been impossible with our previous workload. And the new arrangement with the illustrator is working out great. For the first time in years, we were able to take a three-week vacation, renting a campervan from Denver to San Diego and hiking in national parks all along the way. It was heaven.

In the end, we’ve learned that adding “health” and “happiness” to our client roster is important, and sometimes making a big shift is worth it—even if it’s a little scary in the beginning.

Listen to your own voice. Glen Hilzinger, SVP, integrated group creative director, Leo Burnett, Detroit

Four years of design school taught me one thing: I wasn’t a good designer. Or at least, not as good as I wanted to be. Though my design work was generally well received by others, I was never happy with it. I was my toughest critic.

After a few years at a small design shop, I found myself doing much of my own copywriting. And I found myself enjoying it more than design. Scraping together some writing samples, I landed a junior copywriter job at J. Walter Thompson. My first assignment? A radio spot. Yes, the quintessential copywriter’s assignment. Never mind that I’d never written one before. It was, I felt, the perfect opportunity to prove to myself why I gave up my life as a designer.

Sooner than I would have liked, it was time to present to the executive creative director, a middle-aged man whose three-piece suits underscored his austere, prickly manner. As I stepped into his stark corner office with several other writers, he gestured to a small table that sat beneath a signed portrait of Pat Buchanan hanging on otherwise blank walls. When my turn came, I gave it everything I had, character voices and all. I finished presenting my script, anxious for a reaction. Quietly, the ECD reached across the table, grabbed the script from my hands and slowly wiped his butt with it. Without so much as a smirk, he handed it back to me saying to the group, “Next.”

Surprisingly, even though my first radio script had just been summarily reduced to toilet paper, I wasn’t crushed. Instead, I was eager to get started on a new one.

And that’s when I knew I was meant to be a copywriter. I enjoyed the craft of writing enough that it didn’t matter how tough the critic was.

Honor the work—even if it means butting heads with the client. Jonden Jackson, co-owner, senior designer, Forefathers Group, Tulsa

For nearly two years, our small agency had tried every method possible when handling clients’ requests for design revisions. From an open-door policy that allowed any revision they wanted (worst idea ever) to additional hourly billing (never fun), all the way down to a limited number of revisions allowed for the project. And guess what? It rarely, if ever, improved project results.

Finally, in the Summer of 2016, we wrote The Declaration—an eBook that we share with all of our clients before we begin working together, which explains our design process and our decision to refuse any revisions that don’t serve the greater good of the project.

It was a risky move, to be certain, but it was one we fully believed in. Forefathers was built on the idea of taking big risks to get to where we want to be, and it was important for us to keep taking big risks to continue growing and learning. And that means pushing our own boundaries to get the best results for our clients.

The Declaration has completely transformed how we work, and has helped bring order to the results-driven design that we pride ourselves on.

We firmly believe that guiding clients to think in terms of results and urging them to ask themselves, “Will this revision improve a user’s experience with my business?” gets them more deeply involved in the design process and helps them start thinking more like their customers.

Be willing to walk away from something good, for the chance to launch something even better. Claudia de Almeida, principal and creative director, o Banquinho (The Tiny Bank) San Francisco

In 2013, I finally landed my dream job: WIRED Magazine. I honestly thought I would be there for 10 years; after all, the content was amazing, and the opportunity to do great design felt limitless. It was immensely gratifying to bring stories to life with the help of editors, writers, photographers, illustrators, type designers, and letterers—being an art director felt like coaching an all-star team.

But things don’t always goes as you plan. I stayed at WIRED for close to two years and made wonderful friends and work that I am proud of. But when you work for a company, there are things that you cannot control. Change is often good, but sometimes it can be disruptive; ultimately you need to decide if you’re still having fun and doing your best work. I decided to move on.

The demanding deadlines at WIRED made it nearly impossible to plan my next step, so I just left, and figured I would find my way. My good friend Carl de Torres told me to establish myself as a brain + hands: “Let people know you’re a contractor, consultant and a maker.” When you work for yourself, people often assume that you’re just a pair of hands. So I teamed up with my WIRED colleague and pal, Margaret Swart, and we launched a studio as a way to protect ourselves.

I now do all kinds of projects. From consulting to magazine redesigns, logos, type audits, teaching, and sometimes in house work with agencies and companies. I definitely have a long-term plan for my career, but I’ve learned to be flexible.

You don’t need to rush to get to your ultimate goal (and truth is, that goal might change, because life is unpredictable).

For now, I’m most interested in making great stuff. Using the skills I learned from all the amazing people I had the opportunity to work with; eventually, I’ll get where I am going. I think of my career very much like a design project: It’s a process, and you need to learn to love the process.

Pour your passion into self-initiated projects. Claire Dawson, co-founder, creative director, Underline Studio, Toronto

Back in 2014, our studio was doing well—we had great clients, challenging projects, and a solid team—but we felt a lack of energy and enthusiasm. Creatively, we needed more experimentation and more collaboration.

We realized the solution wasn’t about changing anything, but simply adding to our work through more self-initiated projects.

For our first project, we designed team posters for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, debuting one as each country played its first game. Everyone in the studio participated, designing 16 different posters that were sold online and at an event in a Toronto bar where we celebrated the end of the campaign. Sales of the posters covered some of our costs, but, more importantly, the project energized the studio in a big way. We had no intention of influencing future work or connecting with new clients, but somehow we did.

Months after the campaign launched, Google’s head of marketing in Canada reached out to us, told us he loved the posters, and asked us to design a lookbook celebrating the creators of Youtube—the first of several projects we’ve completed for the brand.

We continued the initiative with two more poster series, and then we decided to make an impact in a more meaningful way: We designed a newspaper series to commemorate the victims of massacres that took place during the civil war in El Salvador, the original home of my co-founder. A corresponding Kickstarter campaign successfully raised $16,000 for Pro-Búsqueda, a Salvadoran human rights group that searches for children who disappeared during the conflicts, from 1979 to 1992. It’s been a wonderful way to collaborate with poets, writers, artists and photographers to support a cause we believe in—and we’re just getting started.

Showcase the type of work that you really want to do—and get rid of everything else. Justin Mezzell, UI/UX designer, Pluralsight, Salt Lake City

A few years out of school at the University of Central Florida, and fresh off a failed startup in New York, I returned to Orlando and found myself feeling directionless. Although I’d dabbled in illustration while putting myself through college—doing work for friends, family and the occasional church or nonprofit—I had no real experience within the larger design community. I was fortunate enough to land a gig at a small agency focused on branding and more traditional marketing initiatives, but the job wasn’t terribly inspiring. I found myself returning to the blank Illustrator canvas in the crevices between work and the demands of daily life, but I wasn’t sure how to pivot to another career path.

Things started to fall into place when I realized that being unknown meant I could become whoever I wanted to be. If no one was going to ask me to produce the work I wanted to do, I’d do it myself and hope the clients followed.

I created a new portfolio with a focus on illustration, and removed the work that I didn’t want to do anymore (mostly print, branding, and marketing collateral). Every morning, I woke up and produced new work before heading to my day job; that pattern helped me establish a new rhythm.

Over time, the requests began rolling in. A trickle of inquiries eventually became a steady flow, allowing me to leave my day job and dive into the world of freelance illustration with both feet. As time went on, I had the opportunity to apply my illustration skills to UI design, and I fell in love with the interdisciplinary approach that combines illustration, layout, brand, and traditional design principles. That eventually led to a full-time gig at Code School (now Pluralsight) and a healthy dose of freelance illustration on the side.

If the people around you aren’t on the same page, turn the page. Matt Wegerer, owner, creative director, Whiskey Design, Kansas City, MO

I love the creative industry. We get to cook with art, commerce, data, bravery, and showmanship, and watch it congeal into a crazy pile of weirdness and (hopefully) success.

But after a few years as a senior art director at a small agency, my excitement was waning. The reason? I’d been busting my ass to produce work that was unique, attention-getting and smart, but too often I would hear, “What if this scares the client?” or, “How could we ever pull this off?” or the dreaded, “I don’t feel that this represents our agency’s core values.”

I saw dozens of great ideas smothered by a mound of fear, laziness, and a peculiar need to worship a list of words on a wall—none of which said, “Do great work.”

Moments like this made me go on my own in 2009. Yes, that 2009—the one with the Great Recession making everything shitty. I knew I had enough freelance work to keep me busy for a year—a year where I could work on exciting projects with smart and ballsy clients. Don’t get me wrong; it was scary. I was giving up a solid paycheck in the middle of the worst financial crises in 50 years. But at the end of the day, I was more sickened by the idea of another year of unsatisfying work than the possibility of failure.

That one year has now stretched into eight. Whiskey Design’s roster of clients is diverse, and every day our clients challenge us to make amazing stuff. And, maybe most important, we’ve become a shop where other crazy-ass designers want to be. Now I work side by side with a small collection of creatives whom I would take into battle against anyone. And at the end of the day, I hope they all know that mediocre excuses for mediocre work will never have a home at Whiskey, as long as blood and bourbon are pumping through my veins.

Team up with a partner who complements your strengths. Eli Horn, partner, Fivethousand Fingers, Montreal

I’d always wanted to work for myself. I started freelancing in school and tried to keep it up following graduation. My design studies included a business class, but for a young designer more inclined towards painting than entrepreneurship, I had no clear path to starting out on my own.

It took me a year to realize how arduous and lonely freelancing can be; while I managed to get gigs, learning how to maintain client relationships and ensuring that I got paid was a full-time job, in addition to doing design work I was proud of.

Lexane Rousseau, a friend I’d met while studying at Vancouver’s Capilano University, had similar sentiments as she went in and out of agency positions and pursued her own freelance work. Eventually, we started bringing one another into our projects, and learned how to collaborate; when there is no hierarchy or defined positions, it’s up to each person to check their ego, discover how to give and take criticism, and make sure the work is fun and inspiring.

After a few false starts, quickly abandoned names (and business cards), and misguided positioning (limiting ourselves to progressive clients didn’t quite pay the bills), we picked a direction, stuck with it, and began to work together in earnest. The benefits were immediate: Representing ourselves as a larger entity instilled more trust in potential clients, and our individual strengths and weaknesses were balanced—Lexane now focuses on strategy, communications and client relationships while I excel in web development and more technical work. Most significantly, stresses and successes were shared, and we gained a moral support not possible when working alone.

We’re constantly adjusting our direction to pursue new goals, but that evolution from two freelancers to one design studio is well behind us. It was a gradual change, but the most consequential of my career.

Recognize when it’s time to move on to the next big thing. Emily Sander, advertising department chair, SCAD, Savannah, GA

After more than a decade of hustling through the halls of advertising agencies, working my way up from a junior copywriter to a creative director, there was one question I couldn’t shake: Now what? Armed with a desire to do something more meaningful with my life, I left the world of Brooklyn brownstones for the world of academia in Savannah, Georgia. My new clients were college students, and my new challenge was to help them realize their future.

My focus shifted from creating brand stories to instructing others on how to do the same—a task that proved to be surprisingly difficult.

For so many years, I was caught up in the sheer act of doing, and I never stopped to consider how one actually does.

When I recognized that my ability (or inability) to break through to my young audience could reverberate through our industry for years, I gained a deeper appreciation for every teacher I’d ever had. So I started with the 30,000-foot perspective of a creative director, and tried to see the work from 30,000 feet higher. I spent hours reading materials about the processes I had unwittingly employed for years. I formulated my own charts and graphs and templates to breakdown the lessons I’d learned while sweating every detail of million-dollar ad campaigns. But compared to the seasoned professors who had crafted lectures and moved about the world of academia with precise choreography, I was deeply behind in a new role that left little room for failure.

I scrambled to keep up. I lectured, graded, learned, advised, wrote, and analyzed. On the last day of class, a student approached me, and, reaffirmed my decision, with the smallest gesture: He simply thanked me for leaving NYC to become a teacher. Looking at him, I saw what I had been missing from the most successful campaigns and client meetings. I experienced my direct impact on one person’s life—not his buying habits, hashtag sharing, or general viewing pleasure, but something much more meaningful.

#startups #text #startup #advice #busieness #howto #news #tech #love

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johncarney-blog1 · 7 years

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UnBearable: The Unbelievable Awfulness Of The Berenstain Bears

(Note: This originally ran in the Fall 2012 issue of Scooter, the now-defunct parents magazine published by the New York Observer. Scooter’s website no longer works, so I’m putting this up here.)

Late last October, I found myself looking for a children’s book about Thanksgiving, something to introduce my two-and-half year old daughter to the approaching holiday. Owing to a surprising dearth of children’s literature about this cherished autumn feast, I wound up with The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks.

Here’s what happens in the book: Papa Bear has been doing work for a local farmer, who pays with a live turkey. Sister Bear adopts the turkey as a pet and refuses to eat turkey at Thanksgiving. The family relents and eats fish for Thanksgiving instead.

Give Thanks is part of the Berenstain’s “Living Light” series, a subdivision of Berenstain country in which lessons about God are imparted. I have no idea why the Berenstain God approves the eating of fish but not turkey on Thanksgiving. But I do know that the last thing a parent of a toddler needs is literary and faith-based encouragement for picky eating.

After just a few doses of that finicky Sister Bear’s behavior, my daughter arrived at her grandparents’ home for Thanksgiving with a driving passion against eating turkey. To her, the main point of the holiday appeared to be about avoiding the consumption of turkey, as it was for Sister Bear. For all I know, her two-year-old theology thought God hated turkey eaters. Thanks, Berenstains!

Berenstains will infiltrate your life in a number of ways. A well-meaning friend brings a Berenstain Bears book to a birthday party. Your mother in-law visits with a well-worn copy from your spouse’s childhood library. Perhaps you pick up one of the Berenstain books because of the relevance of its theme. This is one of the Berenstain Book Industrial Complex’s tricks: there are hundreds of titles, one for almost any occasion: a Valentine’s Day book, a first-day-at-school book, a budget-cuts-shutting-down-a-school-play-ground book, even a neighborhood-racial-integration book.

Since you are not an imbecile, you are initially put off by the hideous cover. It is sure to feature four or five members of the Berenstain family—all absurdly and insultingly ugly. Mama Bear is wearing a hat or, more commonly, a bonnet—a bonnet!—and a dress that looks like it was smuggled off the grounds of a breakaway post-Mormon polygamist cult. Brother Bear and Sister Bear are identical except for their clothes—blue slacks for Brother, some hideous pink romper for Sister. Papa Bear somehow wears overalls all of the time. Honey Bear, the baby of the family introduced in 2000, seems to be thrown in as an afterthought—which, in fact, she was.

Open the book and the situation is no better. The illustrations would be dull if the colors were not so garish. The bears typically stand around in wooden poses with not a suggestion of dynamism or movement. Their faces bear no indication of thought or emotional presence, unless a grin or grimace counts towards such a thing. Not a hint of charm or whimsy or technique redeems any of the art. The bears are devoid of wit. It’s a wonder anyone would inflict these pictures on a story that someone had actually taken the time to write.

At this point, if you are lucky or particularly wise, you will have set aside the Berenstain Bears. Preferably far from home, somewhere it will never be discovered by your offspring. If you are unlucky or unwise, the book will find its way into the proximity of your child. You will be asked to read the book. This is your last chance. You must refuse to read it. Do anything but read it. Suggest a different book. G oout to the park. Resort to declaring it ice cream time, if you must. But do not read the Berenstain Bears to a child.

Reading the book will reveal that the story is—unbelievably—worse than the art. The art merely betrayed lack of thoughtfulness. But the story is to thought as a black hole is to starlight. Where the art lacked action, the plot is grindingly dull. Where the drawings lacked whimsy, the text reads as if it were written under rigid orders to avoid creativity. There are no jokes that are funny. No surprises that are unexpected. It’s all wooden grins and grimaces.

As a parent, you know what is likely to follow: you will be required to read the book over and over. Your child will demand it at naptime, at bedtime, whenever his or her day becomes just slow enough to remember that some-where in the house there is a book about bears. Time and time again, you will spend precious minutes with your child—time you should rightfully be cherishing—resentfully reading the worst children’s books ever written.

The drudgery stems from the generic characters. As the official Berenstain Bears website puts it, the bears’ names were chosen to “emphasize their archetypical roles in the family.” But that fancy word “archetype” is wishful thinking. They are more like half-conceived types. The bear children are neither childlike or child-ish—they are likeish. Mama and Papa and Honey are likeish too. They are approximations of abstractions. To call the Berenstains anthropomorphized bears insults both humans and bears.

The incessant moral hectoring makes the dull-ness ever more excruciating. Each plot is organized around the relentless pursuit of a life lesson: Don’t be mean to your brother, mind your parents, weary our helmet and kneepads while skateboarding, don’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Fine enough advice, except for the weird turkey thing, but it is rendered tedious by the lack of imagination with which the themes are introduced, explored and resolved. It’s like watching a train wreck that you see coming a mile away—except there is no wreck. Just a train reliably pulling into station after station after station. The Berenstain books are the train spotting of children’s literature.

Most insidious is the Berenstain empire’s cleverness in coopting the otherwise unassailable canon of bear books for children, at whose pinnacle sits A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. The Berenstains are clearly derivative of the three bears encountered by Goldilocks. (Brother Bear was originally called Little Bear—and Sister Bear wasn’t introduced until later.) Don Freeman’s Corduroy tells the sweet tale of a stuffed bear looking for a home. Paddington Bear stows aboard a ship from Peru to London.

But the Berenstain series repudiates this proud tradition’s central tenet: that a book can be wonderful for parents and children. The franchise seems founded upon the almost anti-literary idea that children must be taught early reading through books whose art and narrative make them unbearable to read. Sure, kids may like them—but kids will drink detergent if you leave it in a cup placed on a low table. They aren’t the best judges.

Despite the dreadfulness of these novellas, they have been selling for 50 years, originally blessed by none other than Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. A few of the earliest installments, especially those rewritten in rhyme like the series-launching Big Honey Hunt, are admittedly pleasant reads. Not great, but good enough if you don’t have a Milne or Freeman around. But in short order, the books went terribly wrong. My research into the Berenstain oeuvre confirms that they have been awful for decades.

Perhaps we get the literature we deserve. But surely the delivery of just desserts has constitutional limits, I hope. Because even the most annoying parents among us should be spared these Bears.

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