A year and a half ago, I started teaching studio illustration. I decided to include a book component in which my students read assigned texts and each week, we have Tuesday Thinkeries, where we discuss what we’ve read. The conversations are broad and generally veer from the book, but always revolve around creative practice. This [...]
A list from Dieter Rams, in the documentary, Objectified, by Gary Hustwit.: 1. Good design should be innovative. 2. Good design should make a product useful. 3. Good design is aesthetic design. 4. Good design will make a product understandable. 5. Good design is honest. 6. Good design is unobtrusive. 7. Good design is long-lived. [...]
You’re probably wondering – as I would be were I on the other end of the internet – what is up with this title. Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a bookstore, you silly goose. When was the last time you were in an actual bookshop? My last visit was to The Strand, one of the [...]
Last week, I spent four days in Cape Cod (Yarmouth, specifically), a place I haven’t been since I was little. I freaking loved it. This, of course, has basically nothing to do with the topics usually discussed here but the time away did get me thinking about priorities. Simplicity is an ongoing goal (read: battle) [...]
Apropos of nothing, really. I’m currently in the midst of a massive summer purge in which I’m to get rid of clothes, art supplies and crap that is no longer needed; and I’ve stumbled upon two containers of old notes from friends and young loves. Oh my. Paper, in one of its more beautiful metaphors, [...]
For the past year, I’ve been practically begging my students to start their own websites, with emphasis on starting blogs. It’s a marketing tool, I’ve told them. A way to show people who you are and impress them with your mad skills. It occurred to me this week, though, that I’m wrong. That’s not why [...]
One of the most interesting things about the internet, in my mind, is the way in which we are able to so easily share ideas. Over the last few months, I’ve been building up this site and experimenting with ways of spreading thoughts throughout the web. Some methods are more dynamic than others and all [...]
Last week, a friend sent me a link to 12-year-old Adora Svitak’s TEDTalk. And I was thoroughly impressed. In fact, the talk seemed much more eloquent, poignant and focused than many of the talks by the older generation speakers. The world, she says, needs to believe in the possibilities of Utopian ideals as kids do. [...]
1. Know Your Product What are you selling? Are you a designer? What’s your angle? Are you passionate about marketing or business too? Bookbinding? Writing? What is your skill set? What is design to you? Why do you want to be an illustrator? These questions need to be answered before you can build any sort [...]
Lately, several of my illustration students have been asking me questions about their futures. One of the advantages of being in graduate school and teaching is that my experience is closer to the students’ than professors/artists/thinkers who’ve been in the game for a while. In many ways, I’m just a few steps ahead of them, [...]