This week we chat about the difference between creating work that is good, or just good enough, and the three kinds of designers: lazy, complacent, and proactive and figuring out what kind you are.

Show Notes Coming Soon!

Music:

Brandi’s song: “Something Good Can Work” by Two Door Cinema Club

This week we chat about the difference between creating work that is good, or just good enough, and the three kinds of designers: lazy, complacent, and proactive and figuring out what kind you are. 

Brandi’s week:

First off there was Easter. And Brandi has also done her last project before she takes over as president for AIGA, which is Hire-Ed. This is a chance to help students and young professionals get their portfolios reviewed by professionals. She’s also still working on the 100-days project and she’s been doing a lot of digital painting. Which Michelle and I (Joelle) really like despite Brandi thinking it’s lame. And that leads us into Avengers End Game so be prepared for spoilers in this episode. 

Michelle’s week:

Easter is over so lots of recovery from that, Michelle also when to see Avengers End Game, and she also got the opportunity to go to a museum we have here in Santa Fe NM called Meow Wolf. It’s a very abstract kind of creepy undertone art museum. Basically, it’s how Michelle wants to decorate her house but sadly it’s not acceptable.

Takeaways from this episode:

• You can do so much more if you just put a little bit more time into what you are doing
• There will be projects that you can’t put as much creative juice into, but that doesn’t mean those projects can be “crud-y”
• Don’t just say something is good enough when it’s just not good. Good enough should mean, does it work and does it work well?
• Remember that your attitude plays into a lot of this idea
• Not all designers are lazy, some may just be complacent
• Your job as a designer is to solve problems so if you don’t care about solving problems you don’t care about your job
• There are 3 types of designer. Lazy, complacent, or proactive. Figure out which one you are so you can be better
• It’s okay to have more to learn

If you want to read Brandi’s blog post about today’s topic it is blog post# 44, “Stop Making Excuses”.

This quarters book is The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair and you are welcome to read along with us. 

Please rate and review our podcast in iTunes and if you want to support our show please go to Patreon.com/designspeaks we would love it! You can give as much as you want. Every little bit goes to helping us keep this podcast going.

Thank you to Vesperteen for allowing us to use his song Shatter in the Night as our intro and outro music for Design Speaks

This Quarter’s Book:

We are reading and reviewing books on the podcast every quarter!

If you would like to read along, THIS QUARTER, we’ve been reading, The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair.

Want to support us?

Go to Patreon and help support our podcast!

Find us on all forms of social media via @BrandiSea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and you can email us any burning questions you want Brandi to answer on an episode at brandi@brandisea.com.

THANK YOU to the ultra-talented  Vesperteen (Colin Rigsby) for letting us use his (“Shatter in The Night”) track in every episode of Design Speaks.

TRANSCRIPTION

Michelle: 00:01 And I was like, why didn’t they just give us one stairway? And he was like, right. I was like, I want a different experience on going downstairs every single time I’m here. But I was like, Brandi would probably like the fact.

Brandi Sea: 00:13 I was like, that’s amazing! I want to come down all the different ways.

Michelle: 00:16 And I was like, I don’t have time for this. And so I was like, that’s probably something that Brandi would really enjoy is that fact that there’s a million ways.

Brandi Sea: 00:22 It is and you guys would just be annoyed going with me cause I’d be like, wait, I want to go down this other way wait, wait.

Intro: 00:27 Welcome to Design Speaks. This lovely podcast is brought to you by a graphic design geek and a regular human being AKA a non-designer. We’re here to chat about music, pop culture, cool places, and basically whatever we feel is relevant.

Brandi Sea: 00:42 Hey guys, I’m Brandi Sea

Michelle: 00:44 And I’m Michelle

Brandi Sea: 00:45 And you’re listening to episode 98 of Design Speaks.

Michelle: 00:48 On this episode we will be talking about staying encouraged and not becoming a lazy designer.

Brandi Sea: 00:55 Putting in a little effort.

Michelle: 00:56 A little bit.

Brandi Sea: 00:57 Just a little more.

Michelle: 00:58 Maybe a little bit more than a little bit.

Brandi Sea: 01:01 Depending on what little means to you.

Michelle: 01:03 Yeah. Ooh, Ooh. That’s up for interpretation.

Brandi Sea: 01:07 If you love Design Speaks and you want to support it, um, we want you to be able to do that.

Michelle: 01:13 Yes, you can go to Patreon.com/designspeaks and you can become a patrion or maybe a patron. We don’t know what you’re called

Brandi Sea: 01:20 We haven’t figured out what it is so we’ll just say whatever you want to call yourself

Michelle: 01:25 A supporter

Brandi Sea: 01:25 A Supporter! Hey, there we go.

Michelle: 01:27 Of Design Speaks and you can give as little as $1, as much as $50 a month. It’s like up to you. And it’s not

Brandi Sea: 01:34 Or I think, I dunno. I think that you can give like one-time gifts too. I don’t know

Michelle: 01:38 Oh okay. See you. It’s whatever you want. Like you could literally like I’m setting up monthly and give once and then be done. Um, we can’t do this without you and we appreciate all of the support we already do get and any support we get in the future. Um, how have you been?

Brandi Sea: 01:54 Oh my gosh. So many things. Easter, do you want me to, does this mean you want me to talk first? How have you been?

Michelle: 02:01 Yeah, how have you been?

Brandi Sea: 02:02 Have I been? I don’t know. Busy?

Michelle: 02:05 As was always, but yet Easter’s yeah. It’s so funny. I was talking about it at work where like Easter’s over and they’re like really? Like all that work and it’s over like, Oh huh.

Brandi Sea: 02:14 That’s typical for any event though. It’s like so, so, so much purpose. It’s like a wedding.

Michelle: 02:19 Oh my gosh.

Brandi Sea: 02:20 Like you spend like nine to 12 months planning and then it’s over in like six hours and you’re like, oh, but you have nice pictures.

Michelle: 02:28 Yeah, we got some good pictures out of it. So it’s worth it.

Brandi Sea: 02:31 It, was an event of a lifetime.

Michelle: 02:32 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 02:33 Yeah. It looked great though. I loved, um, I meant to take pictures. I hope someone to get took pictures that you can get them for me of the the ceiling with the balloons.

Michelle: 02:41 Oh, that looks so cool. I’m sure someone did

Brandi Sea: 02:44 You need to find one for me. That is your job right now.

Michelle: 02:46 So at the church and I work at, we ended up decorating, um, for Easter, which I don’t know if we do that every year.

Brandi Sea: 02:54 You do

Michelle: 02:54 I just don’t notice it.

Brandi Sea: 02:55 I don’t think it was quite to that extent.

Michelle: 02:57 Yeah. So we found these like literally the six to maybe like eight feet in diameter. Um,

Brandi Sea: 03:05 Rubber balloons

Michelle: 03:06 Rubber latex balloons, like the whole foyer,

Brandi Sea: 03:08 Pastel

Michelle: 03:08 Kind of

Brandi Sea: 03:10 Really pretty. They were like these colors.

Michelle: 03:11 Yes. They smelled like latex. And I was like, hopefully, nobody’s allergic.

Brandi Sea: 03:16 People are like passing out in church

Michelle: 03:17 Which I found out someone’s mom is like severely allergic. And I was like, well let’s see how this goes.

Brandi Sea: 03:23 Well they’re not going to eat them.

Michelle: 03:24 I know, but I was like, this is the smell bothered them because that would bother me

Brandi Sea: 03:27 Like the powder.

Michelle: 03:28 Yeah. But it was a really, really cool, um, little setup and it didn’t, it didn’t last long. Those balloons started deflating by Sunday. They were going down a lot.

Brandi Sea: 03:37 Yeah. Kenny was like, I don’t know that these are, cause we went, we went Friday I think to church

Michelle: 03:42 So did I!

Brandi Sea: 03:43 Oh, no. Maybe, no, we went Saturday, but he was there Friday filming and he was like, I don’t think these are going to last until Sunday. I was like, they better.

Michelle: 03:51 I know they went down a lot in size.

Brandi Sea: 03:53 Yeah. So there was Easter. Um, I don’t remember. Did I talk about Hire-Ed? No, I don’t think I did so Hire-Ed. Um, so I told you that I decided to accept the position of president for AIGA, um,

Michelle: 04:06 Yes

Brandi Sea: 04:06 The board. I’ve been the education director for over two years and my main event for education director is an event that we call Hire-Ed, which is um, it’s hire dash Ed. So it’s like a play on words

Michelle: 04:19 Higher education. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Brandi Sea: 04:20 So you get hired

Michelle: 04:22 Hired

Brandi Sea: 04:23 It’s to get your portfolio seen and reviewed by professionals. Um, so students and young professionals can bring in their work and there’s usually one or two to each person reviewer to portfolio bringer. And we have like a speaker and like continental breakfast and like stuff. So, um, I did my last one as education director and it went really well. We did it at CNM, which is our community college. Um, and yeah, I did that also. Uh, um, we decided to start, um, doing our books quarterly. I just wanted to bring that up real quick. We’re going to be talking, we’re going to review the Jordan Rainer book sometime soon.

Michelle: 05:06 Very, very, very soon.

Brandi Sea: 05:08 And the new book that we got is called the Secret Lives of Color.

Michelle: 05:13 I think I’m really, I’m going to be reading sections of this book. I think it looks really interesting. It kind of looks like a book that I need to just like go to every so often and not right in or they called Kassia St Clair.

Michelle: 05:26 Okay. Ooo, dang that’s like a royal like she belongs in Game of Throne

Brandi Sea: 05:29 I know and she, I think she is British actually. Um, so basically it’s a book about like the history of colors

Michelle: 05:36 Which is super cool.

Brandi Sea: 05:37 So we’ll figure out how we’re going to do it, but we’re probably, Michelle and I and Joelle are probably all going to do it together.

Michelle: 05:42 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 05:42 So, um, we’re going to be doing that. But um, I’ve been working on the 100- day project thanks to Emily, um, I’ve been doing a lot of like digital painting.

Michelle: 05:52 I really like that. Honestly. I think

Brandi Sea: 05:54 Really and I think it’s, I feel like it’s lame

Michelle: 05:56 I feel you feel like you’re, you’re being lazy. But I really, really like it

Brandi Sea: 06:01 Because I’m not putting any process into it. I’m just like sitting and

Michelle: 06:04 You’re just doing

Brandi Sea: 06:05 Doing it.

Michelle: 06:06 Occasionally you just need to just to do this isn’t something that you’re going to be putting on a billboard or putting like on a book cover. I mean maybe you didn’t make it into book cover, I don’t know.

Brandi Sea: 06:15 Maybe

Michelle: 06:16 But like it’s really

Brandi Sea: 06:17 You like them?

Michelle: 06:17 I love them. I loved the egg one. That one was really cool.

Brandi Sea: 06:21 That one was my least favorite.

Michelle: 06:22 Really?! I loved it!

Brandi Sea: 06:22 I almost didn’t do that cause I was like, this is so ugly. What is this?

Michelle: 06:25 Oh, also that scenery one that you did? I’m, look, I’m on your egg one right now. Um, the, the one, the picture from San Francisco, which um, by the way, you put Dan Francisco.

Brandi Sea: 06:38 Oh Great.

Michelle: 06:40 Um, we took all the time doing this thing, but I love that it showed your process or like your process

Brandi Sea: 06:46 My time lapse.

Michelle: 06:47 Your time lapse, yeah. Which is kind of your process for this specific type of project. So I really, I really did enjoy seeing that. So I

Brandi Sea: 06:56 It’s teaching me not to overwork cause

Michelle: 06:58 Right.

Brandi Sea: 06:59 Because if I put too many strokes down it over blends the colors and it just looks like a blob just like it. It works very much like a real painting, which I also have to kind of step back, which is why a lot of my stuff is like one stroke.

Michelle: 07:11 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 07:11 Because I tend to want to just keep going and keep going and keep going

Michelle: 07:13 That’s my problem. And then you messed it up

Brandi Sea: 07:15 And then it mess it up. Yeah. And so the cool thing about doing my 100-day project and creating some doing lettering I’m doing basically anything I create contributes to the hundred days. So if I do lettering or if I do a word map or something, it’s like this is what I did today for my hundred day. If I do anything extra on top of that, it’s probably these digital paintings.

Michelle: 07:34 Love it.

Brandi Sea: 07:35 But the cool thing you had it is like, oh I over blended that undo, undo,

Michelle: 07:39 Undo, undo. Which is not something that you’re usually all about. But this works out.

Brandi Sea: 07:43 Well, it’s also not something I usually do for painting. If I’m painting, I like let it dry and then I just repaint the whole thing white and start over.

Michelle: 07:50 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 07:51 So, that’s been fun

Michelle: 07:51 Gosh

Brandi Sea: 07:53 Um, End Game

Michelle: 07:54 End Game.

Brandi Sea: 07:55 This is spoilers.

Michelle: 07:57 There will be, there will be spoilers. So

Brandi Sea: 07:59 Because hopefully by the time this episode comes out you guys will have seen this.

Michelle: 08:03 So Avengers End Game, we both just saw it last night because that’s when it came out was a Thursday

Brandi Sea: 08:10 We are recording on April 26.

Michelle: 08:12 Um, and yeah, there’s been a few weeks since we’ve said this, but I’m also going off of five hours of sleep cause I saw it at 9:30 at night and it’s a three hour and two-minute movie. Um, I have not seen, I’ll say from my point of view, I have not seen all of the movies.

Brandi Sea: 08:28 So it’s good as usual. We both have different points of view. Michelle is on the, like every, average person. Like I didn’t

Michelle: 08:35 I don’t have time to watch all these movies and I’m not. And honestly, there’s some of them like I don’t want to see Ant-Man. Maybe I do

Brandi Sea: 08:42 I don’t know if we can be friends, they’re so good

Michelle: 08:44 I just don’t care. And so it’s kind of like Harry Potter, like whatever. You don’t,

Brandi Sea: 08:48 I mean, I’ve seen them all.

Michelle: 08:49 You’ve seen them all, but you don’t know them all. Like I know the language and you don’t, I, I don’t know your, your, uh, universe Avengers, Marvel language, at least I know it’s Marvel. That’s a good thing

Brandi Sea: 09:01 That, that’s, that’s part of it.

Michelle: 09:03 Um, but I really, really enjoyed the movie through and through. I, they spelled it out for me, so I didn’t have to ask them any questions to the person that was there with. So that’s, that’s it for me. Like

Brandi Sea: 09:15 That’s all your spoilers?

Michelle: 09:16 Well, or

Brandi Sea: 09:16 That’s just like your start

Michelle: 09:17 That’s just my start.

Brandi Sea: 09:18 Okay. So my start is, um, I’ve seen, Kenny was debating me on how many times we’ve seen each of the previous leading up to 22 movies. Um, I feel like we’ve seen most of them three times or more.

Michelle: 09:31 Okay.

Brandi Sea: 09:32 So leading up to this, the past two months, maybe like eight weeks, we’ve been bingeing the whole 22 with our kids. Um, so we know these movies very well. I know these movies really well. I

Michelle: 09:46 You also read the comics

Brandi Sea: 09:48 I read comics growing up and so I know them to to like my heart like not just in my mind they’re in my heart.

Michelle: 09:56 They’re part of your who you are.

Brandi Sea: 09:58 Yeah. So I think that they did a really good job with um, man, the discipline, it must have taken them from a creative standpoint to have the foresight for there to be this good of an end to that many different plot lines. Blows my mind.

Michelle: 10:20 Which is why I think in the, they really did kind of have to do what they did to me within the first two hours is like bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. And the third hour is to me got a lot more substance-y and like I was able to like focus on certain things that are happening that, that were happening but also remember things that had happened in the past. Like Captain Marvel saying, I’m not going to be here for a while. There’s a lot of things going on, on different planets and then looking, remembering she’s going to show up somewhere and I just need to know when she’s going to show up.

Brandi Sea: 10:50 Yeah. And you didn’t see Captain Marvel.

Michelle: 10:52 I didn’t see Captain Marvel, so I don’t know her. I don’t know her story. I love Brie Larson. I loved her and Scott Pilgrim.

Brandi Sea: 10:59 Totally different. Totally different. Um, so I think my, I didn’t have any critiques, um, personally, um, they, I don’t think that I basically feel like they could do no wrong for me in this movie. I think that they did a great job. Um like you said like kind of bullet pointing it for the person who maybe doesn’t remember them all or didn’t have time or just hasn’t seen them, but also, um, and I disagree with you on like that it was bullet points for like three quarters, two quarters, two thirds, not three, two thirds to the math, two thirds of the movie. I think like the first third was a good like foundation building. And I think that the second part was, was more substance-y for me, um, because it added lots of extra things into things that already existed. So it was like adding more to the universe for me.

Michelle: 11:50 And to me it was like the the reason the second hour was like bullet-pointy was because it was like, okay, now we’re all going to band together and go get the stones from the past and um, you’re, you’re going to go here. Okay. And then so that person goes here and that person goes here and that person goes here and that person dies. And then they all come back and it’s like, okay, like to me, I saw that in bullet points of just being like, all right. So they went and did their thing and even though it was like a collective work, they each separately went and did their thing. So

Brandi Sea: 12:18 Yeah. And as far as like the ending goes, there was definitely, I, I caught the hint. Um, again, remember this is a spoiler. If you know, if

Michelle: 12:28 Spoiler alert

Brandi Sea: 12:28 If something hasn’t been spoiled, spoiled already

Michelle: 12:30 Spoiler alert

Brandi Sea: 12:31 This is like official spoilers, spoilers coming. Um, I got the hint that it was going to be Iron Man that was going to die and sacrifice himself when he met his dad in the elevator and his dad said like, his biggest regret was, you know, putting himself over the collective good. And I was like, Dang, I knew going to be Tony or Captain America and now I know it’s Tony

Michelle: 12:54 Foreshadowing. So you had to prepare your heart.

Brandi Sea: 12:55 Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I, I kind of took solace in the fact that the way he decided that he would only, you know, do this time travel thing was if he could still keep his family. And I was like, okay, that that gives it a little bit, it’s a little less heart wrenching knowing that he didn’t just like lose everything. And I also kind of, um, I had a really good idea of what was going on cause I knew going in that both, um, Captain America’s character and Ironman characters, this was going to be the last for them. This was their last for them

Michelle: 13:29 Their contracts are over.

Brandi Sea: 13:29 Yeah. So I was like, okay, how are they gonna get, get Captain America out of here? Once I realized that Tony was going to be the one to die, so I was like, okay. Thinking that through thinking that through. And then when I saw, um, when I saw Captain America stare at, um, oh my gosh, my brain just went away.

Michelle: 13:48 The love of his life

Brandi Sea: 13:50 Agent Carter.

Michelle: 13:50 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 13:51 Um, when he saw her through the window and stayed there, like, it wasn’t like he saw her and was like, oh, hey, yeah, I remember she’s still alive and Bam out the door. He goes to do his mission. He like stood there and stayed there and I was like, he’s going to have to come back. He’s going to come back to her and this is going to be how he goes.

Michelle: 14:10 What do you think about, um, him possibly, what do you think about the whole Banner and um, Black Widow?

Brandi Sea: 14:19 That was rough, dude.

Michelle: 14:20 There were no happy endings, but they were all happy endings

Brandi Sea: 14:24 There, I mean, the ultimate ending was happy for the world, but as the Avengers, I don’t think that there was a lot of happiness going around.

Michelle: 14:34 It was

Brandi Sea: 14:34 To be honest.

Michelle: 14:35 And you know what, you felt that in the crowd at the end of the, at the end of the movie, you felt that because it was just like solemn the entire

Brandi Sea: 14:43 Or sobs

Michelle: 14:44 Surround sound of sobs.

Brandi Sea: 14:46 Yeah.

Michelle: 14:46 You’re just like, okay, everyone’s crying.

Brandi Sea: 14:48 Yeah. Like not just like sniffles. It started, I told before we started the podcast like it started with sniffles, including mine. This is where you guys know I’m not heartless. I cried the whole time. So, um, creatively I think that the writing was awesome. I think that they, they really merged all the different, you know because they all have different feels. From, from Guardians to Captain America to Iron Man to Ant-Man. Like I was like, how are they going to bring all these things together? And you know, they did it in, in an, in, uh, the first one, Infinity War.

Michelle: 15:22 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 15:23 But I was like, if everybody comes back, that’s like everybody.

Michelle: 15:27 I am excited to see more Spiderman.

Brandi Sea: 15:30 Oh, he’s amazing.

Michelle: 15:31 I love, I think Tom. I love Tom Holland. Right? Tom Holland. I think he’s like a really great Spiderman.

Brandi Sea: 15:38 He’s the best Spiderman in my opinion.

Michelle: 15:40 Well mine is Into the Spider-verse, Spiderman.

Brandi Sea: 15:44 Well, so so

Michelle: 15:45 It’s different. Mine is All of those

Brandi Sea: 15:47 Sony, Sony, and Disney had to make a deal to let Spiderman be in on the Marvel universe for these movies because he’s such a key part of the Avengers.

Michelle: 15:54 Right.

Brandi Sea: 15:55 But as between between a Miles Morales and this one, I do love Miles Morales, but I really like this actor as this Spiderman and he’s actually a gymnast.

Michelle: 16:05 Oh yeah.

Brandi Sea: 16:06 In real life.

Michelle: 16:07 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 16:07 Like that’s part of the reason that they hired him.

Michelle: 16:09 He’s so, yeah, it’s so fun.

Brandi Sea: 16:11 So anyways

Michelle: 16:12 Watch him

Brandi Sea: 16:12 I think that it ended really well. I loved it. I loved every bit of it. Um, Kenny had like one small, cause, you know, he has in his head all the time. He had like one small thing that I won’t talk about. Um, cause I don’t want anybody to think it wasn’t a perfect movie.

Michelle: 16:26 Okay.

Brandi Sea: 16:27 I totally went to bed last night and I was like, it was perfect. And he’s like, there was this one thing. And I’m like,

Michelle: 16:31 No, it was,

Brandi Sea: 16:32 It was perfect. And he was like, no, I’m not saying it wasn’t perfect. I’m just, and I’m like, no, no, no.

Michelle: 16:37 Leave me alone.

Brandi Sea: 16:38 So that’s, so that’s End Game.

Michelle: 16:39 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 16:40 I think that, um, in regards to, uh, Bruce Banner and Scarlett Johansson’s character, Black Widow, Natalie, I think there’s going to be some sort of followup where they try to go get her from the soul realm.

Michelle: 16:53 Right. they have to.

Brandi Sea: 16:54 PS.

Michelle: 16:54 I feel like it’s just, it was sad.

Brandi Sea: 16:56 And they also have an upcoming Black Widow movie, so either it’s a prequel where it’s not Scarlet Johannson or it’s them going to try and find her

Michelle: 17:04 Find her. Yeah. So

Brandi Sea: 17:05 I don’t know.

Michelle: 17:05 We’ll see.

Brandi Sea: 17:06 But then it wouldn’t be her, it would be them trying to find her. So it’s not really about her anyway. We’re going to go off on a long time, much longer.

Michelle: 17:13 It’s like, okay, we get, this is our episode today, but no, it’s good. Um, yesterday was just a really crazy big day for me, which I will talk to. Well, it’s just like a fun day, but the Avengers was a huge part of it and but first, let’s play your song.

Brandi Sea: 17:26 Okay. Yes. Uh, so my song is by Two Door Cinema Club. It came up in this, um, a playlist on Spotify that I found called indie sunshine that I actually really like. This song was on there. I don’t know how old it is. I think it’s probably not new, but it’s called Something Good Can Work.

Brandi Sea: 17:43 What do you think?

Michelle: 18:54 I’ve heard a song like it before. Who was it by?

Brandi Sea: 18:57 Two Door cinema club?

Michelle: 18:59 Maybe it’s just because I’ve heard of Two Doors Cinema Club. Um, but I like it. It’s, it’s a little, it’s a little summer-y.

Brandi Sea: 19:06 It is. It’s it’s sunshiny.

Michelle: 19:09 T’is the season.

Brandi Sea: 19:09 Yeah. So, um, actually this song I just realized, I obviously pick this way before we figured out what we were going to talk about today and I’ll let you talk about your week first, but it’s going to be applicable. The lyrics that I loved are um, you got to step up your game to make it to the top. So go got a little competition. Now you’re going to find it hard to cope. Let’s make it happen. We’re going to show the world that something good can work and it can work for you

Michelle: 19:31 Dang. Dang. If you don’t remember. We’re talking about not making excuses and encouraging you

Brandi Sea: 19:37 And trying harder

Michelle: 19:38 Not be lazy and try harder. So

Brandi Sea: 19:40 Yeah. And not worry about other people like and cause there’s going to be competition, which I love because I still have to fight so hard not to look around at what everybody else is doing.

Michelle: 19:49 Oh, for sure.

Brandi Sea: 19:50 Especially with this hundred-day project, I’m like, everybody else is hundred-day projects are so much cooler.

Michelle: 19:56 But somebody’s probably thinking of that about your’s

Brandi Sea: 19:57 I know, and it’s like, it’s so dumb. But yeah

Michelle: 19:59 I think the same thing. Like I keep, I have like goals in mind of where I want to go and what I want to do and things that I want to learn. But like I have to focus as to where I am now and pursue

Brandi Sea: 20:10 Yeah, cause otherwise, you can’t get there if you don’t, whoa. Sorry. My daughter is texting me.

Michelle: 20:15 Whoa. Hello daughter. You just need to put your phone on dnd?

Brandi Sea: 20:19 I did, but she’s like, she gets pushed through.

Michelle: 20:21 She gets pushed through cause she’s daughter

Brandi Sea: 20:21 She’s daughter.

Michelle: 20:22 Yep.

Brandi Sea: 20:22 Yeah

Michelle: 20:22 Makes sense.

Brandi Sea: 20:23 So anyway, tell me about your week.

Michelle: 20:25 So recovery from Easter, it’s done, it’s over. Um, and then got to see Avengers last night, which was really cool. But yesterday also got to go to a museum in Santa Fe. There’s also one I think in Las Vegas, Nevada and maybe one

Brandi Sea: 20:40 Denver?

Michelle: 20:40 Denver. I think

Brandi Sea: 20:41 Or they’re making one in Denver? Something like that.

Michelle: 20:43 There’s one either opening or it’s open in Denver. Meow Wolf. It’s a really, really abstract kind of underlying creepy type of museum themed. Um, but it’s so much fun.

Brandi Sea: 20:56 It’s really hard to describe Meow Wolf.

Michelle: 20:57 Yeah, I had a blast. It’s like Meow Wolf is like how I want to decorate my house but it’s not acceptable. And like

Brandi Sea: 21:04 Is that true?

Michelle: 21:06 It’s so weird.

Brandi Sea: 21:08 Like black and neon?

Michelle: 21:08 If you look at my, I wish I had pictures of my bedroom as a teenager cause it’s kind of just kind of what mia, it was random weird stuff. It was abstract. It all had meaning to me. Um, but like to no one else. But

Brandi Sea: 21:23 Your mom’s like, do I need to be worried about you?

Michelle: 21:25 Like, no, it’s fine. I’m fine. Mom, just depressed. Um, so but I had tons of fun because there’s a lot of fun things that you can do. Like there’s a bunch of musical instruments in different places and just weird rooms. It’s all cut up into different rooms and they, they utilize every corner. One thing that Kenny and I really agreed on cause I went with your husband because we work together, um, is that there are so many different ways to get downstairs. And I was like, why didn’t they just give us one stairway? And he was like, right. I was like, I don’t want a different experience on going downstairs every single time I’m here. But I was like, Brandi would probably the fact

Brandi Sea: 22:01 I was like, that’s amazing! I want to come down to all the different ways.

Michelle: 22:06 And I was like, I don’t have time for this. Give me one stairway.

Brandi Sea: 22:10 Oh my gosh.

Michelle: 22:11 And so like we both refuse to go down the random stairwells. We just wanted to go down the way we came up. And so I was like, that’s probably something that Brandi would really enjoy is that there’s a million ways

Brandi Sea: 22:21 And you guys would just be annoyed going with me cause I’d be like, wait, I want to go down this other, wait, wait, I haven’t gone down this way yet.

Michelle: 22:27 Yeah. So that’s the only thing I don’t think I experienced is going down the stairs all the different ways. Cause I wanted, I wanted to go down the stairs the way that I came up and I wanted to go through into the different portals almost through the ways that, like it said to, I didn’t want to end up there by accident.

Brandi Sea: 22:45 It’s like Alice in Wonderland.

Michelle: 22:46 Yeah, it was. It was you. You’ll love it. You will love it. And I loved it too. I need to go back.

Brandi Sea: 22:51 You were like, just go by yourself on a weekday. I’m like, I don’t want to go by myself

Michelle: 22:54 You really should. You really should.

Brandi Sea: 22:57 So one last tiny thing and then I wanted to add why this, what made me think of this was you said that I would love all those staircases and I took this test on Adobe, um, this quiz and I put it on my Instagram for everybody to take and you need to take it my

Michelle: 23:10 I have not

Brandi Sea: 23:11 It’s my creativetype.com and it’s like this, it’s just a fun little creative personality test. And I came back as the innovator, which is perfect. Makes perfect sense. It’s like you’re always trying to find a new way, trying to find some, a new idea, a new interesting thing. And that’s exactly me those stairs.

Michelle: 23:27 That’s kind of, it’s exactly you and also goes right into what we’re talking about today and how we really want to

Brandi Sea: 23:36 How did we get all these things so wrapped up so nicely today.

Michelle: 23:39 It’s weird, but it worked out really great this week. I’ve been really, um, it’s just been on my mind a lot to, to stay encouraged with what we’re doing and not be lazy and not take the easy way out

Brandi Sea: 23:51 And what brought this on? If I may ask

Michelle: 23:55 So it was kind of like a hard situation. Um, at work I, we have a lot of stuff going on always. Um, and one of my friends who’s on the design team had, um, a really good idea for another person on the design team and she was kind of told, she definitely kind of, she was told, um, I don’t have time for that. So if you want to do it, like I don’t have time for this idea because it’s going to involve a lot of printing and cutting. And so if you want to do it like by all means, and I looked at that and I was like, what? Like why wouldn’t you like s one present that nicer and two like kind of give more than you just gave to the project that you’re given. Because obviously, not everything you do at this type of job is going to go into your portfolio. Um, but I do think that at the, where you are and what you’re doing is still a representation of what you can do and what you will do for, I don’t know, just the position you’re in at the moment. And, and I, I have a hard time seeing crappy content go out, whether it’s like for a slide or for a brochure or for, um, uh, like a graphic on Instagram or whatever. Like I have a hard time seeing that stuff go out.

Brandi Sea: 25:19 Right, well, because that’s the face of the company, which is the church.

Michelle: 25:23 Yeah. And so like, even if it is something as small as a slide, um, I, I think that it needs to be represented better and it’s, let’s say if for whatever reason it comes back and it’s like, man, who made this? Oh, well it was so and so, that’s, it reflects poorly on you and your team. And so, um, I was just really thrown off by that kind of reaction of being like, I don’t have time for that. So like go ahead if you want. And I was like, man

Brandi Sea: 25:52 Yeah, that just seems lazy.

Michelle: 25:54 Yeah, you probably have a lot on your plate, but this is not going to take that long to do. She presented all of the like here let’s, this is a really good idea and I see it like looking really cool like this and I can help you. And I really liked that. Like, go get ’em attitude coming from her. And it encouraged me and showed me that like man, we can do so much more if we just put 20 minutes more extra effort, 20 minutes to an hour or whatever it’s going to, whatever it’s going to take to make it kind of like this doesn’t suck.

Brandi Sea: 26:25 Yeah.

Michelle: 26:26 So that’s kind of where my heart is and like where I’m coming from today with this subject, I know that you did write a blog post on it three years ago

Brandi Sea: 26:35 Three years ago, yeah gosh

Michelle: 26:37 So, three years ago this was on your heart.

Brandi Sea: 26:39 So, I do have some thoughts like, so I will say like as a designer and as a, as a director of a team and as a person who wasn’t always a director of a team as a, um, what I would say was like a very entry level just out of college, um, designer, um, you’re often given, you know, you, you can be given any range of projects and you give your team any range of projects and some require more what I would call creative energy.

Michelle: 27:05 Yes.

Brandi Sea: 27:06 And some require more you being the screwdriver and just being the tool to make a thing. Um, and sometimes you have so many that you kind of have to go, okay, which, you know, I only have so much creative juice, which one of these, which of these 10 things am I going to dedicate that to? And kind of the other stuff you, you don’t put as much into. Now all that doesn’t mean that the things that don’t take as much creative juice that are just you being a screwdriver, um, that doesn’t mean that those should or will have to look crud-y.

Michelle: 27:46 Right.

Brandi Sea: 27:46 Um, so I think that, um, there comes a point where you have to realize that, um, we’ve talked, we’ve talked before about like knowing when to stop, like knowing when the design is done or you know, not overworking it and you know, deciding, okay, I just need to be done with this

Michelle: 28:05 Moving on.

Brandi Sea: 28:05 But the the extreme of that, um, you know, I’m thinking now in, in regards to this conversation, this isn’t actually part of my blog posts is just something I thought about. Um, I think that finding, you know, that there’s, there’s this spectrum, of one end being, I don’t know how to stop. I will just keep, keep, keep like we talked about with painting or whatever, like keep messing with it, keep adjusting, keep moving, keep doing this. Then on the other end, there’s like this other extreme of I’m just going to put some, throw it together and it’s gone.

Michelle: 28:37 And it is what it is

Brandi Sea: 28:38 And it is what it is

Michelle: 28:39 And it’s out of my life

Brandi Sea: 28:39 But the middle of that is like working to a point where, you know, it’s good enough. Um, and I wrote down this note while you were, while you were talking, like saying it’s good enough when it’s actually just not good, is not okay because “good enough” means it works, it communicates well, it’s appealing to the correct audience. Um, it’s readable, it’s legible. Um, they’ll do the same thing, but I should have used the word legible. It’s legible. Um, you know, like all those things mean it’s good enough. Good enough should mean does it work and does it work well?

Michelle: 29:18 Right.

Brandi Sea: 29:19 Good enough. Like it’s good enough by itself is just

Michelle: 29:22 That’s at

Brandi Sea: 29:22 There’s something there

Michelle: 29:23 that’s a different depth. That’s a definition that’s altogether different than what you’re saying for that. Sorry.

Brandi Sea: 29:30 That’s okay. I didn’t bring water up all I’ve had is coffee this morning. That’s not true. I had some water. So does that, I think that that’s kind of the key to part of this is that like saying that, well, it’s good enough and I have other more important things to work on. That might be true. Does, does it, does it communicate? Okay, Yeah. But does it also appeal to your audience? Does it, it should still follow the rules of every design. Like does it communicate well and does it appeal to your audience and does it solve your problem? If it doesn’t do all three of those things, then you have to fix something.

Michelle: 30:05 Then it’s not good enough.

Brandi Sea: 30:06 And whether you have time or not is like, okay, then you’re going to have to just take some of the creative energy you were going to put into this other thing for this small moment and put a little more effort into this thing.

Michelle: 30:16 And if you do it, if you just kind of bite the bullet and just do it, it shouldn’t take you long.

Brandi Sea: 30:23 It depends. I mean, and it can, and um, you know, in the instance of like, well it may be you really don’t have time, but your friend offered to help this person and then they should have, you know, been like,

Michelle: 30:36 Reciprocated

Brandi Sea: 30:36 Okay, you know what? Thank you

Michelle: 30:38 Yeah

Brandi Sea: 30:39 I don’t have time, but if you’d like to help me with that, that would be awesome.

Michelle: 30:43 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 30:43 And so I think the other part of it is his attitude go plays into a lot of what we talk about on this show, to be honest.

Michelle: 30:50 Oh, for sure. And that’s honestly a big part of how I take things out, especially, I mean in life, but at work as well. And that’s what really threw me off in this. So it’s like I don’t want to go into this episode saying you shouldn’t be lazy. I want to encourage you to follow your ideas or ask for help if you need it. Um,

Brandi Sea: 31:10 Oh I do! Like, don’t be lazy.

Michelle: 31:12 Yeah. Like we’ll like

Brandi Sea: 31:13 It’s so it’s, so I feel like it takes just as much energy to be lazy.

Michelle: 31:19 It really does. And what I told, and I’m not going to go into specifics, but you know, that like the alternative to what I told you was going to take just as long, if not longer to do than what we actually did for this project

Brandi Sea: 31:30 Right. The perception of certain executions of ideas, um, when the reality is something else, um, deserves a good look. Um, when one option and if there’s two options being given and one option sounds easier, but if you actually look at what will go into it, especially if you don’t have help and you’re doing that option on your own, you have to be able to step back from it and go, okay, which one of these is actually going to take longer? And you know, there, there’s, there’s definitely ego that often plays into creatives and to designers because um, and I’ll be the first to say that sometimes I don’t like things just because they weren’t my idea.

Michelle: 32:10 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 32:10 And that’s not always the case. And I have learned how to step away from that a lot since I became, you know, a director and stuff because sometimes you direct other people’s ideas and you just help them craft their ideas

Michelle: 32:22 Even though you kind of just want to change it

Brandi Sea: 32:24 Even though you may be, ha, thank you, have a better solution. Um, but we often, even if someone goes, hey, I have this idea and I’ll totally help you do it, but I also need you to help me put it together. And it’s unfortunate. And like I said, I fall into this too. My first instinct is I want to go, yeah, that’s not the best idea in my mind. I go because I have a better one. Or because it’s not mine. Even if that I don’t have a better idea, it’s just, it wasn’t my idea. And so then you immediately start going into excuses as to like

Michelle: 32:59 And the root of it is pride

Brandi Sea: 32:59 Here’s why it’s not gonna work and here’s why it’s not going to work and here’s what, it’s not going to work ultimately. Cause it wasn’t my idea.

Michelle: 33:04 Exactly. Exactly.

Brandi Sea: 33:06 So the blog posts I wrote, I don’t remember what number it is. Did you write it down?

Michelle: 33:09 It’s number 44 Stop Making Excuses.

Brandi Sea: 33:11 Yeah. So speaking to excuse that just worked out well. Um, so the blog post is called “Stop Making Excuses: Look for solutions, do research and learn”. So basically, um, my, my idea is that not only are there, cause I don’t think that all they, all designers with all these excuses are lazy. I think some are complacent. Um, I think that there’s a difference between just not wanting to do it and only caring to a point.

Michelle: 33:39 I agree .wholeheartedly. I agree.

Brandi Sea: 33:42 Yeah. So, um, and I honestly think that the majority of designers aren’t lazy. I think the majority of them just don’t care that much. They care like just enough. And then after that, it’s like, well, why should I care more? It’s done. And I don’t need to do anything else.

Michelle: 33:56 Which to me is really annoying because it’s a bad attitude.

Brandi Sea: 34:02 It is. It is. And it’s not okay, but I feel like it’s like lazy is low. The low, low complacence here in the like lukewarm middle. And then there’s the proactive designer that actually cares to put effort into things. Um,

Michelle: 34:17 Yeah. If I think, I don’t know if I am, if I’m looking at a video and it’s something that I’ve either been asked to just review or, or I or I’m like, if it’s been something I’ve been asked to review or something that I’ve made, I have a hard time letting it go if there’s something I don’t like about it, I need to tell the person that matters. That’s like, “Hey, this shot is a little weird or that’s a weird audio sound. Did you mean to do that?” Like if it’s something weird I needed addressed because I don’t want this going out to the masses without it being as good as we could have possibly done it

Brandi Sea: 34:57 In the time that you had

Michelle: 34:57 In the time that we’ve been given. I think it’s really important. And so is this the same that goes with this specific thing

Brandi Sea: 35:03 Right.

Michelle: 35:03 Um, you wrote in your blog posts, “There’s nothing worse than a creative who doesn’t care about his craft and making excuses about why they aren’t better.” So thank you for that.

Brandi Sea: 35:13 (laughing) I was like, I didn’t, I told you we were talking about like real basic what we might want to talk about today and I was like lazy, lazy. I feel like I’ve written about that sometime and some of these, some of these things that I wrote are, you know, they’re timeless concepts for how to be better designers.

Michelle: 35:27 And that’s so true. There’s nothing worse than that within the like designer realm, within the creative realm. It just somebody who just doesn’t care about something that they say they do for a living.

Brandi Sea: 35:39 Right. And, um, I have, there’s, there’s just a few other points before we wrap this up that I wanted to hit on. Like, um, there’s, there’s not caring and there’s also saying like, I don’t know, and not, and not trying to learn, um, in the, in the age that we live in, it’s so easy to find answers to things.

Michelle: 35:58 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 35:59 Um, now not all of those, not all the problems that you might like in this particular instance that you dealt with. This wasn’t something you could Google, like, how do I fix this problem? But in so many areas, there’s been a lot of times where I’ve, I’ve been working with designers and it’s like, okay, well how about you do this thing? Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never done that. I don’t know how to do that. It’s like, okay, so now I’m dealing with my five year old. How do you think you can solve that problem? Like, I mean, really, what do you mean you don’t know? That’s fine if you say you don’t know. But then go, oh yeah, I don’t know. I never thought about that. I’ll try and see if I can figure that out. That’s a grownup thing to say.

Michelle: 36:39 And that’s, I think that’s just a big deal, a big part of what I’ve dealt with this past week or so of just realizing that like, okay, maybe this person isn’t quite there maturity wise, maybe they’re really just bogged down. Like I really am trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I do have a hard time with just that mentality overall and I don’t want it to stick around.

Brandi Sea: 37:00 Right. And I mean, let’s, as designers, um, if you are complacent, you aren’t going to last very long in this business because if you don’t care about solving problems, you’re literally not doing your job. Our job as graphic designers is to solve problems visually communicating answers. And if you don’t know how to solve problems and if you don’t care about finding answers to problems, then you literally don’t care about your job.

Michelle: 37:28 Yup.

Brandi Sea: 37:28 I mean that might sound harsh.

Michelle: 37:30 No, no, that’s very

Brandi Sea: 37:31 Actually what we do is solve problems.

Michelle: 37:33 The definition of what you do. Like if you, if you tell somebody, if somebody is like, Hey, what do you do as a graphic designer? That should be your initial answer. I solve problems. And then you can explain how, but that’s what you do

Brandi Sea: 37:46 Right. I solve word problems visually.

Michelle: 37:49 Yes.

Brandi Sea: 37:50 That’s what we do. So if, if you, you know, you either you basically fit into one of these categories, you’re either lazy or complacent, you’re or you’re proactive. And the proactive designer is always learning, always moving. Like it’s so funny, I, my Design Tip Tuesday this week on my Instagram TV, which is where they’re starting to live now. PS, they’re not an on YouTube anymore. It takes too much time.

Michelle: 38:11 Yeah.

Brandi Sea: 38:12 But my Instagram TV I talked about, um, like learning and not just sitting down and deciding like, oh, I went to design school. I know everything. Or I watch 10 million youtube videos on how to be a graphic designer. I can sit back and take clients and just know everything. It’s not, that’s not how it works.

Michelle: 38:28 Nope.

Brandi Sea: 38:29 Like, I literally this week was learning something new about how to do something that talk about on the next episode, but like

Michelle: 38:36 We’re always learning

Brandi Sea: 38:37 Always trying to learn something. So, um, I hope, I hope that this was actually encouraging. Did that seem encouraging or was I just super harsh? Cause I didn’t even read half the stuff that I could have read.

Michelle: 38:48 I think you’re like a solid 50/50 of being like please and you’d be like, no, do it. And I’m like, but please don’t be

Brandi Sea: 38:54 Which is funny cause you’re the one with all the fire, to begin with. Like man, this was so frustrating and I was like, but you got to see this side and then we’d like flip flop.

Michelle: 39:02 Yeah. Well and like I think that’s just me who I am. Like I am so fired up about specific things, but I also recognize how it feels to like come at me fiery and me just being like, oh I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. And it’s like, or like I just don’t feel like I want to do it because I’m not being encouraged. Um, which happened recently at work as well, but we don’t have to talk about that right now.

Brandi Sea: 39:25 So encouraging goes a long way. But you also should try and figure out which one of these designers you are so you can know how to be better at it.

Michelle: 39:31 It’s very serious. We need, I want to encourage you, but it is a very serious deal. Like you need to take what you do seriously. You need to take how you do it–seriously. That’s, that’s as mean as I can get.

Brandi Sea: 39:45 I don’t think that’s true but on this podcast

Michelle: 39:47 For now about this, because I’m in the same place where I need to be constantly learning. I don’t know a lot. Like I’m still on the tip of the iceberg of how much I’ve tapped into my creative side and what I can do. Like it’s the tip of the iceberg,

Brandi Sea: 40:03 I feel like I am too.

Michelle: 40:05 Like if you feel like that, imagine how I feel. Like whoa, I’ve got a lot to learn.

Brandi Sea: 40:10 Yeah. So if that tells you guys anything, if you are just, you know, new to this, if you’ve been doing it for two or three years, like I’ve been doing this for like 17 years now and I still feel like I have a lot to learn so,

Michelle: 40:22 And that’s okay.

Brandi Sea: 40:23 That shouldn’t be like a, Oh my gosh, I’m so behind. That should be an encouragement that like it’s okay to always be learning. That doesn’t mean that you’re not doing your job.

Michelle: 40:33 Exactly. Love it. Um,

Brandi Sea: 40:35 Michelle, where can people find us?

Michelle: 40:36 People can find us on all forms of social media via @brandisea. Go ahead and spell your name.

Brandi Sea: 40:42 B. R. A. N. D. I. S. E. A.

Michelle: 40:45 You can give us your feedback or you can hit us up on via email brandi@brandisea.com. You can also follow us on design speaks podcast on Instagram and we haven’t talked about this in a hot second. Um, our playlist on Spotify, if you

Brandi Sea: 41:02 It’s so long, I keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

Michelle: 41:05 So much fun. We’ve got some good songs on there. Its design speaks music on Spotify. If you are ever wondering what song we played this episode or in previous episodes, and if you get any value from this show, it would be amazing if you gave us a review and five stars or whatever. How many stars do you want to give us

Brandi Sea: 41:24 All of the star

Michelle: 41:25 All of the stars

Brandi Sea: 41:25 Not whatever. We want all the stars

Michelle: 41:29 I prefer 5 but want to give us like four I guess, whatever. Just do that on iTunes. Or you can share an episode with a friend. Just spread the word and a huge thanks to Vesperteen for allowing us to use his song shatter in the night for our podcast. Once again, check out the show notes for links and info. Thank you, Joelle. As always, the wonderful, lovely Joelle on all our design speaks episodes.