Jonathan Moore
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
I am a designer who lives in code, entrepreneur, and an idea incubator driven to make our world a better place.
A few weeks ago I started noticing DKNG’s shots on Dribbble for “Mystery Project 11”, and yesterday they finally posted the full poster for the band Explosions in the Sky. Similar to their Black Key’s poster process they screen captured the entire design process and put together this amazing process video.
Watching this video makes me want to teach myself how to sketch. Right now I struggle with writing barely legible letters.
The DANIELS are back at it again with this creative ad for Weetabix. Watching the spot I was convinced that the dancing bears was simply CG slight of hand, but after watching the making of I’m impressed that they used costumed dancers and puppets.
Check out their Dogboarding short and follow the DANIELS on Tumblr.
“When you have the good fortune to have success in your life that is precisely the time you should reinvent yourself. You should go right back to zero as though nothing had happened and start over. Because you can get real stale. You can fall in love with yourself or get to that danger point when you could ride on that success or try to repeat it.”
— Robert Redford
Wise words. I quickly threw together a desktop image with this quote as a reminder to create, reinvent, repeat. Feel free to download the desktop image at 2560x1440px.
Via Surfstation
“No one cares about your ideas. They only care about what you make.”
Blain Hogan, from his book Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process
Follow Blain on Tumblr
“The greatest thing we can do and offer is to be great listeners and have to have empathy for your culture to understand what is the truth.”
— John Jay, global executive creative director at W+K
One of the most important skills of a designer or creator is empathy. Without it you’ll fail to connect with users and clients in a meaningful way.
Design studio DKNG recently screen captured the entire design process that went into creating a tour poster for The Black Keys. The time-lapsed video shows their steps from sketching to details to the actual silkscreening all set to “Black Bug” a mashup of The Black Keys and Big Boi.
We had been writing a plan and basing decisions on what investors told us they wanted to see.
All that chasing left them living off credit card debt and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So the team made a decision: Stop chasing a funding event and figure out how to make money.
Armed with a working prototype, the team kept hustling. But now they were hustling for customers instead of investors.
**Note to self. Re-read this article.
“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Gustave Flaubert
Great quote I just heard from Jina Bolton’s, Sushi & Robots and Engine Yard, talk on providing order and structure to front-end development in her session on CSS Workflow and SASS at Valio Con 2011. Forget passion, focus on process and the rest will follow.
Find meaning in what you’re doing. Work to improve your industry. Get joy from making a customer’s day. Surround yourself with the kinds of people and environment that keep you engaged. Figure out the details and day-to-day process that keep you stimulated. Focus on how you execute and making continual improvements. Get off on how you sell, not what you sell.
Process is what motivates me and moves me forward. Product launches are fun and full of energy, but it the tweaking and refining of the process and customer experience where you will see the most gains.
Like quality over quantity, put process over passion.
Recently I was asked to write an interview for the new and upcoming Method & Craft site. In roughly 3,500 words we managed to cover my background, “jack of all trades”, starting Style Hatch, design process, overcoming designer insecurities, daily rituals, work environment, and much more.
Excellent presentation by Mike Monteiro co-founder of Mule Design and as a guest his lawyer Gabe Levine (follow him on Tumblr) on getting paid for your work. If you have or ever will do work in exchange for money take the time to watch this 30 minute presentation from Creative Mornings. If you don’t have the time to watch it now, bookmark it and watch later.
Be specific and confident about money. Money is an incredibly nerve wracking thing to talk about. If you are trying to convince somebody to give you money and that you are the right person to give it to when they’re asking how much something costs and the first thing out of your mouth is “uhhmmmm”. You just lost $10,000.
If you know how much something cost stand up confidently and tell them. If you don’t know how much something costs then say “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out and get back to you as soon as possible.” Just be confident.
Here’s my summary from the talk - always use a solid contract, be confident in pricing and negotiations, and hire good advisors.
Studio Sweet Studio is a website and yearly publication that features artists, their work, and their workspace as an interesting dialogue about how environment affects creative work and what it means to have a studio as an extension of your “visual brand” as an artist.
I recently stumbled on Studio Sweet Studio after the founders Meg Lewis & Tuesday Bassen started following Style Hatch on twitter last week. That evening I stayed up going through virtually every post (almost 40) that they have on their two week old site. The studio tours, posts on process, and designer interviews are beautifully done and quite inspiring.
Make sure you bookmark this site and add it to your RSS readers. It’s already made it into the list of sites that I check on a daily basis.
“Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.”
Paul Rand
I’m doing it. No more playing around. I’m manning up. I’m doing the old man schedule.
—Matthew Smith, Squaredeye
Over the last few months I have attempted—unsuccessfully—to switch to a much earlier schedule built around highly productive early mornings, getting the most out of time with my family, and cutting out all of the late nights. I always feel like I accomplish significantly more on the old man schedule, but I need to learn the ability to fight the urge to stay up late just to get “one more thing done”.
Even companies serious about innovation can fall victim to their own, well-meaning creative process.
Taken from Ryan Jacoby, the head of IDEO New York’s practice, talk at NYC/Poly Leading Innovation: Process Is No Substitute. Read the full overview on Co.Design.
