Forget Passion, Focus on Process

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.

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F*ck You. Pay Me

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.

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Studio Sweet Studio 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.

Studio Sweet Studio

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.

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“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

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Enter the Dragon: The Old Man Schedule

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”.

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The Seven Deadly Sins That Choke Out Innovation

Even companies serious about innovation can fall victim to their own, well-meaning creative process.

  1. Thinking the answer is in here, rather than out there
  2. Talking about it rather than building it
  3. Executing when we should be exploring
  4. Being smart
  5. Being impatient for the wrong things
  6. Confusing cross-functionality with diverse viewpoints
  7. Believing process will save you

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.

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Why Architects Don't Install Sheetrock

As an agency, studio or freelancer are you an architect, general contractor or subcontractor?  Agency consulting firm Ignition Group explains why it is time to re-evaluate where your company’s true strengths and value to clients are and learn to when to outsource more of the “commoditized” services.

Using a building analogy, professional firms must be the architects.  They can even be the general contractors.  But when they also try to be the subcontractors, they lose their shirt.  Think Frank Lloyd Wright installing the sheet rock.  The value of FLW was his ideas, his imagination, and his vision for the building.  Although there’s certainly a difference between a good job and a poor job of hanging sheetrock, the truth is that millions of people can do it.  There are not millions of Frank Lloyd Wrights.

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The Shape of Design Graphic designer, illustrator, and writer Frank Chimero just announced his first book, The Shape of Design, with a Kickstarter project to fund the effort.  In the book Chimero will provide an “overview the mental state of a successful designer while they go through their creative process”.  In just two short hours the book is nearly funded with over $17,000 of the total $27,000 goal.  Help support the project on Kickstarter and make the book a reality. If you aren’t already, follow Frank Chimero’s excellent blog on Tumblr.

The Shape of Design

Graphic designer, illustrator, and writer Frank Chimero just announced his first book, The Shape of Design, with a Kickstarter project to fund the effort.  In the book Chimero will provide an “overview the mental state of a successful designer while they go through their creative process”.  In just two short hours the book is nearly funded with over $17,000 of the total $27,000 goal.  Help support the project on Kickstarter and make the book a reality.

If you aren’t already, follow Frank Chimero’s excellent blog on Tumblr.

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Signalnoise Source: 10 PSDs, $75

I always love seeing how other designers approach their work, and this chance to see how James White, Signalnoise, creates his complex and beautiful artwork is fascinating.  I’ll be buying this one later today to dig in.

For those of you who have been around digital for quite some time it might remind you of when Joshua Davis sold his Praystation hard drive.  I still have mine sitting around here somewhere.

Reblogged from Cameron Moll

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Tiny Inventions - Creative & Technical Process

Tiny Inventions is a Brooklyn based animation and illustration studio that playfully combines mix-media, photography, physical models, illustration, and After Effects rocket science to create their short films, commercials and music videos.  

If you have ever worked with After Effects I guarantee this behind the scenes video of their entire process will blow your mind.  The methods they use to animate and craft the dimensional videos only using Photoshop and After Effects is incredibly creative.

Check out more of Tiny Inventions’ work. 

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