Blog

• Made with Kare

  Designing for your family members and close friends is the worst. You work for free, they give bad briefs, you take too long, and they have bad taste. 

  I just completed an identity project for my wife, Kari, and it turned out really great; like, suprisingly well. 

  She's started to sew more the past few months, to the point where she wanted to be able to brand the projects she was doing. Her name is Kari, and she came up with a great name for her projects and blog—Made with Kare. 

  

  It was a fantastic name, and I excited agreed to create an identity system she could use for her blog, labels, and packaging. She wanted a lockup of KARE that could be stacked, with the KA over the RE.

  My initial concepts were really bad. 

  It took me about two months to create this logo. I went through ten concepts, three of which I developed pretty extensively. Each time, Kari and I weren't happy with either the ideas or the execution. She was very patient, at one point agreeing to use a logo that I ended up killing.

  

  There was no good way to turn that I into an E.

  After banging my head up against the wall off-and-on for eight weeks, I sketched out this logo. It came together quickly, and we both loved it. 

  

  Kari made my mom a set of placemats recently, with her KARE tags. My mother said that she was excited when she got them, because Kari had made something for her, but was disappointed when she flipped them over and saw that they were store-bought. Then she got confused. "Wait... k-a-r-e? DID she make these?"

  It was great to be able to create something for Kari that she's proud to use. Working with family might be difficult, but when they trust you and give you time, sometimes the results can turn out really well. 

• Version 8

  
  

  

  

  

  

• Blue Collar Design

  Exerpt from a blog post about Brand New Conference 2012

  I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of blue collar graphic design. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I read an interview with Derek Webb, who is not a designer, on The Great Discontent. He talks about the difference in the music industry that’s come about due to the changes in technology. Everyone can make and distribute music now, compared to the relatively few people who could do that years ago. It seems like we’re in a similar space with design. In the music industry that lead to rock stars. We have our own design stars; one of them spoke at Brand New. But what Derek Webb said in his interview was that there’s a living to be made doing what you want to do in the music industry today. You no longer have to be a rock star, you can just work hard and appeal to a small group of people who support you. For him, that has been a very liberating thing.

  I thought about that again last night while Draplin was speaking. He spoke about how the work he does for Nike, a rock star, lasts for a season, while the work he does for his friend’s hot dog cart will last… pretty much forever. One of those jobs paid off his mortgage, and the other made his friend’s mom proud. And now his friend is franchising, and bringing him more work, and he’s making some cash from it. But the things that he cares about aren’t making him tons of money, they’re making him enough to live a really comfortable life.

  Webb said it like this: “If your ego can bear it, there’s a great blue-collar living to be made…” I kind of want to be a Vignelli, and, let’s face it, Draplin’s kind of a star in his own right. But I’m trying to figure out if my ego can take hammering out a solid living for myself and my family doing good, smaller work. I’m still thinking about it.

• Failed Kickstarter

  Last summer I launched plans to start a small shirt company revolving around Charlotte. I had some shirts printed and started up a Kickstarter. Earlier today, that Kickstarter came to a close, falling far short of its goal. 

  I’m not a huge fan of failing, especially in front of my friends. This was mostly in front of internet friends, but internet friends are people, too.  

  I learned a few big things from failing.

  • People who are successful have a lot of good advice. 
    I had a few people who’ve run Kickstarters give me advice, and it was really good advice. I’m really appreciative for the emails they answered, the meals they sat down and ate with me, and the phone calls they answered. 
  • Kickstarter might not be the best use of your time and energy.
    Right after I launched my project, I totalled up how much time I’d spent getting it ready. If I’d been fully funded, I still would have “made” less per hour than I charge for freelance work. 
  • It’s OK to be blunt.
    Part of my strategy was sending free shirts to people in Charlotte who I thought would talk about them and send traffic to my Kickstarter. But I didn’t specifically ask them to do that—I just kind of hinted at it once they mentioned getting my packages. I wish I had been more blunt. 
  • Bloggers really like things that have been featured on other blogs. 
    I actually had a few folks ask if other blogs were covering my Kickstarter. Initially I assumed they wanted an exclusive scoop, but I soon realized the opposite was true. If you ever have something take off and 'go viral,' take that exposure and run with it. Build off of it, and use it as a catalyst to make what you want to make.
  • Failing isn’t that bad. 
    Don’t get me wrong. It’s not fun. But I’m very glad I decided to try to start up this shirt company and run a Kickstarter campaign.   

  I’m not an extremely adventurous person. I don’t enjoy taking risks, and I don’t enjoy when things don’t turn out like I want them to. But I did enjoy this process, even though it was a failure. I learned to embrace a teeny-tiny failure, and I think it’s given me the willingness to fail at bigger things. 

  Thanks for your support. It meant a lot.