Episode Transcription. Throwback Episode 98
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, Brandy
would probably lie
all the different way. And I was like, I don’t have time for this. And so I was like, that’s probably something that Brandy would really
enjoy is that you guys would just be annoyed going with me. Cause I’d be like, wait, I want to go down this other way. Wait, welcome to design speeds. This lovely podcast is brought to you by a graphic design geek and a regular human being.
We’re here to chat about music, pop culture, cool places, or basically whatever we feel is
relevant.
Hey guys, I’m Brandy and I’m Michelle. And you’re listening to episode 98 of design speak.
On this episode, we will be talking about staying encouraged and not becoming a lazy
designer. Putting in a little effort or a
little bit, just a little more, maybe a little bit more than a little bit,
depending on what little means to you.
Yeah. Ooh, Ooh. That’s up for interpretation.
If you love design speaks and you want to support it, um, we want you. To
be able to do that. Yes. You can go to patrion.com/design speaks and you can become a Patrion or maybe a Patrion. We don’t know what you’re having. I’ve
figured out what it is. So we’ll just say whatever you want to call yourself a supporter.
Hey, there
we go. Design speaks and you can give as little as $1 as much as $50 a month. It’s like up
to you. No, I think, I don’t know. I think that you can give like one time gifts.
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.
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?
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, how have you been?
How have I been? I don’t know.
Yeah, I was always, but yeah. Easter’s yeah. It’s so funny. I was talking about it at work where like Easter is over and they’re like, really like all that work and it’s over like,
it’s typical for any event though. It’s like, yeah. So, so, so much prep, it’s like a wedding it’s like, you spend like nine to 12 months planning and then it’s over like six hours and you’re like, Oh, but you have nice pictures.
Yeah. You got some good pictures out of it. So
it’s worth it. The event of a lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. Great though. I loved, um, I meant to take pictures. I hope someone took, uh, took pictures so you can get them for me of the, the ceiling with the balloons.
Oh, that looks so cool. I’m sure someone did one for me.
So that is your job
right now.
So at the church that I work at, we end up decorating, um, for Easter, which I don’t know if we do that every year. I just don’t notice it. I don’t think it was quite to that extent. So we found these like, literally, like. Six to maybe like eight feet in diameter. Um, rubber, rubber, like latex balloons, like the whole foyer kind of emailed.
Yes. They smelled like latex. And I was like, hopefully nobody’s allergic. People are like passing out. I found out someone’s mom is like severely allergic and I was like, well, let’s see. See how this goes, I’m going to eat them. I know, but I was like this, the smell bothered them because that would bother me like that powder.
Yeah. But it was really, really cool. Um, little, little setup and it didn’t, it didn’t last long. Those balloons started deflating AF by Sunday they were going down a lot.
Kenny was like, I don’t know that these are cause we went, we went Friday. I think so. Did I? Yeah. I don’t know. 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 know they went down a lot
in size. Yeah. So there was Easter. Um, I don’t remember. Did I talk about higher ed? No, I don’t think I did so higher ed. Um, so I told you that I decided to accept the position of president for AIG. Um, 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 higher ed, which is, um, It’s higher dash ed.
So it’s like a play
on your education. Yeah. So you get hired how Euro
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, um, 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 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.
Very, very, very soon. And the new book that we got is called the secret lives of color. 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 read in order called
Cassius St.
Claire. Okay.
Ooh, dang. That’s like a Royal, like she belongs in game of Thrones. No,
and I think she is British actually. Um, so basically it’s a book about like the history of colors, which, um, so. We’ll figure out how we’re going to do it, but we’re probably Michelle and I, and Joel are probably all going to do it together.
So we’re going to be doing that. But, um, I’ve been working on the hundred day project. Thanks, Emily. Um, I’ve been doing a lot. Yeah. Like digital painting.
I really like that. Honestly, I feel it. And I think it’s, I feel like it’s. I feel like you feel like you’re being lazy, but I really, really like it.
I’m not putting any process into it.
I’m just like sitting and just
doing it 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 do make it into a book of her. I don’t know, but like, It’s really like them. I love them. I loved the egg one.
That one was my least favorite. I almost didn’t do that. Cause I was like, this is so ugly. What is
this also scenery one that you did? I’m looking 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, um, we took all the time doing this thing, but I love that it showed your process or like your.
Process and 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,
it teaching me not to overwork cause, right. Because if I put too many strokes down it over blends the colors and it just looks like a blob, just like, 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.
Cause I tend to want to just keep going and that’s my
problem. And then you
mess it up and then you mess it up. Yeah. And so the cool thing about doing my a hundred day project and creating, so I’m doing lettering, I’m doing. Um, basically anything I create contributes to the a hundred day. 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 Hunter day.
If I do anything extra on top of that, it’s probably these digital paintings. It, but the cool thing about it is like I over blended that undo. I do, I do,
which is not something that you’re usually all about, but this works out
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. Yeah. So that’s fun. Um, and game and game,
this is spoilers. There will be, there will be spoilers. So
hopefully by the time this episode comes out, you guys will have seen this.
So. Avengers end game. We both just saw it last night because that’s when it came out, was a Thursday recording on
April 26th.
Um, and
while there has been a few weeks since we said this, but I’m also going off of five hours of sleep. Cause I saw it at nine 30 at night and it’s a three hour and two minute movie. Um, I have not seen, I’ll say it from my point of view. I have not seen all of the
movies as usual. We both have different points of view.
Michelle is on the, like every average person. Like I didn’t, I don’t know. I’m
trying to watch all these movies and I’m not in, honestly, there’s some of them, like, I don’t want to see ant man. Maybe I do. I don’t know. I just don’t care. And so it’s kind of like Harry Potter, like whatever you don’t. I mean, I’ve seen them all.
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 universe, Avengers, Marvel language, at least I know it’s Marvel. That’s a good thing that that’s, that’s part of it. Um, but I really, really enjoyed the movie through and through, they spelled it out for me.
So I didn’t have to ask him any questions to the person I was there with. So that’s, that’s it for me, like
all your spoilers, but that’s just like your star. That’s just my star. Okay. So my start is, um, I’ve seen it’s, 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. Okay. 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 also read them, I read comics growing up and so I know them too to like my heart.
Yeah. Like not just in my mind, they’re in my heart who you are. 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. Yeah. That blows
my mind 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. See? 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 awhile. There’s a lot of things going on on different planets.
And then remembering she’s going to show up somewhere and I just need to know when she’s going to show up and you didn’t see captain Marvel. 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 in Scottsville, so
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. Yeah. Two thirds thought three, two thirds,
two
math, two, 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 C for me. Um, because it added lots of extra things into things that already existed. So it was like adding more to the universe.
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 bend 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, 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 school hasn’t been spoiled already, like official spoilers, spoilers coming, um, I got the hint that it was going to be Ironman 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 it was going to be Tony or captain America. And now I know it’s Tony
foreshadowing.
See, to prepare
your heart. 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.
Yeah. 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, 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 book contracts are over. Yeah. So I was like, okay, how are they going to 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. Uh, the love of his life agent Carter. Oh yeah. 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.
What do you think about, um, him possible? What do you think about the whole banner and, um, black widow? That was rough dude. There were no happy endings, but there were all happy endings.
There. I mean, the ultimate ending was happy for the world, but as the vendors, I don’t think that there was a lot of happiness going around.
It was the
honest. 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 or sobs surround sound of sobs. Yeah. You’re just like, okay. Everyone’s
crying. Like not just like sniffles, the, it started. I told Michelle 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, cause they all have different fields 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, in uh, the first one infinity war. Yeah. But I was like, if everybody comes back, that’s like everybody,
I
am excited to see more
Spiderman. Oh, he’s amazing.
I love . I love. Tom Holland, right? Tom Holland. I think he’s like a really great Spider-Man he’s the best
Spider-Man in my opinion.
Well, mine
is into the spider verse writer,
man. Well,
mine is all of
those Sony and Disney had to make a deal to let Spider-Man be in on the Marvel universe for these movies. Cause he’s such a key part of the Avengers. Right. But as. Between between Myles Miralis and this one, I do love miles Morales, but I really like this actor as this spider.
And he’s actually a journalist. Oh yeah. In real life. Like that’s part of the reason that like they have, I heard him he’s so yeah. It’s so fun. Anyways, Jim. 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. I totally went to bed last night and I was like, it was perfect. And he’s like, it was this one thing. And I’m like, no, it wasn’t. 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, leave me alone.
So that’s so that’s end game. Yeah. I think that, um, In regards to, uh, Bruce banner and scholarly Hansen’s character, black widow, Natalie, I think there’s going to be some sort of up where they try to go get her from this.
Right. Thank you too. I feel like it’s just, it was
sad and they also have an upcoming.
Black widow movie. So either it’s a prequel where it’s not Scarlett Johannson or it’s them going to try and find her inter yeah. Sorry. I don’t know. We’ll see. But then it wouldn’t be her. It would be them trying to find her. So it’s not really about hurting anybody. We’re going to go off on a long time, much longer.
It’s like, okay, we get, this is our episode today, but no, it’s good. Um, Yesterday. It was just a really crazy big day for me, which I will talk to. Well, it’s just like a fun day, but Avengers was a huge part of it. And first
let’s play your song. Okay. Yes. Uh, so my song is by two door cinema club. I came up in this, um, a playlist on Spotify that I found called indie sunshine that I actually really like, and I, 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.
I’ve heard a song like it before, who was a by two door cinema club. Maybe it’s just because I’ve heard of two door cinema club. Um, but I like it. It’s, it’s a little, it’s a little summary.
It is it’s it’s shiny season. Yeah. So, um, actually this song I just realized, I obviously picked 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.
Dang.
If you don’t remember, we’re talking about not making excuses and encouraging, trying harder, not be lazy
and try harder. So, yeah. Yeah. And not worrying about other people, like, 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.
Especially with this like hundred day project. I’m like, everybody else is a hundred day projects are so much cooler. Someone’s probably thinking about, and it’s like, it’s so dumb, but
yeah, 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, because
otherwise you can’t get there.
So definitely don’t. Whoa, sorry. My daughter’s. Whoa.
Hello daughter. You just put your phone on D and D
I did, but she’s like she gets pushed through and gets pushed. She’s daughter she’s daughter. Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. So, anyways, tell me about your week.
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 I also got to go to, um, a museum in Santa Fe. There’s also one, I think, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and maybe one Denver, Denver, I think, I think are making one in Denver or something like that. There’s one either opening or it’s open in Denver, Meow Wolf. It’s a really, really abstract, um, kind of underlying, creepy.
Type of museum themed. Um, but it’s so much fun, like hard to
describe
the owl. 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, it’s
true. It’s so black and
neon, 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 it was random, weird stuff.
It was abstract. It all had meaning to me. Um, But like to no one else, but your mom’s like, do I need to be worried? Like, no, it’s fine. I’m fine, mom, just depressed. Um, so when 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 cause 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 want a different experience. I’m going downstairs every single time I’m here.
But I was like, Randy
would probably lie
all the
different ways. And I was like, I don’t have time for this. Give me one second. Stairway. Oh my gosh. 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 Brandy would really enjoy is that fair.
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, I haven’t gone down this way yet.
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 too, I didn’t want to end up there by accident.
It’s like Alice
in Wonderland. Yeah, it was, it was, you you’ll love it. You will love it. And I loved it too. I, I need to go back.
You were like, just go by yourself on a weekday. I’m like, you really should. You really should.
So one last tiny thing that 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. It to me, I have not my creative type.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. There’s
stairs. 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 get all these things.
So wrapped up so nicely today, weird, but it worked out really great. Um, 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.
Um, and what brought this on. So I may ask,
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 to 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 dunno, 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 a S 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.
Right. Right. Well, because that’s the face of the company, which
is the church. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, even if it is something as small as a slide, Um, 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 men 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,
Yeah, that just seems, it
seems lazy. Yeah. You, 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 them 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. Yeah. So that’s kind of where my heart is in, like where I’m coming from today with this subject. I know that you did write a blog post on it three years ago, three years ago, three years ago, this was on your
heart. Now 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.
Yes. 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 know, 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 cruddy.
Right. 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 moving on. But the, the extreme of that, um, you know, I’m thinking now in regards to this conversation, this isn’t actually part of my blog post is just something I thought about.
Um, I think that finding. You know, th 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 and it is, and it is one of my life, but the middle of that is like working to a point where, you know, it’s good enough. Yes. 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.
Right. 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 shouldn’t use 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? Right, good enough. Like it’s good enough by itself is just that there’s something
there. That’s a different Def that’s a definition that’s altogether different than what you’re saying. For that.
Sorry. That’s okay. I didn’t bring water up. I’ve had this coffee this morning. I was not sure I had some water.
So does that, I think that that’s kind of the key to, to part of this, is that like saying that while 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 it’s not good enough. 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.
And if you do it, if you, if you just kind of bite the bullet and just do it, it shouldn’t take you
long. It depends. I mean, and it can, and, um, you know, in the instance of like, well, maybe you really don’t have time, but your friend offered to help this person. And then they should have been like, okay, you know what?
I thank you. Yeah. I don’t have time, but if you’d like to help me with that, that would be awesome. Yeah. And so I think the other part of it is his attitude go plays into a lot of what we talk about on the yeah. To be
honest and Oh, for sure. And that’s honestly a big part of. Um, how I take things out, especially at work, 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, I do
like, don’t be lazy. Yeah. Like, well, like it’s so it’s so. I feel like it takes just as much energy to be
lazy.
It really does. And what I told, and I’m not going to go into specifics, but you know, that like the alternative of, to what I told you was going to take just as long, if not longer to do than what we,
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, um, 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 cause they weren’t my idea.
Um, 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, even though you kind of just want to change it, even though you maybe think you have a better solution.
Um, but we often, even if, um, 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 I it’s unfortunate. And like I said, I fall into this too. My first instinct is that 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, and it’s three years prior is why it’s not gonna work. And here’s why it’s not going to work. And here’s why it’s not going to work, ultimately, because it wasn’t my idea. Exactly. Exactly. So the blog posts I wrote, I don’t remember what number it is.
Did you
write it down? It’s number
44 study making excuses. Speaking of excuse that that just worked out well. Um, so the blog post is called stop making excuses, um, look for solutions, do research and learn. So basically, um, my, my idea is that not only are there, because I don’t think that all they all designers with all these excuses are lazy.
I think some are complacent. Um, I, I think that there’s a difference between just not wanting to do it and only caring to a point. I agree
wholeheartedly. I agree. 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. Um, and I don’t know
which to me is really annoying. Because it’s a bad attitude.
It is. It is. And it’s not okay. But I feel like it’s like, Lacey’s 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,
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 it’s 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, the 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’d need it addressed because I don’t want this going out to the masses without it being as good as we could have possibly done it in the time that we’ve been given. I think it’s really important.
And so it’s just the same that goes with this specific rate. 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.
I was like, 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 and that’s so true. There’s nothing worse than that. Within the like designer realm within the creative realm, just somebody who just doesn’t care about something that they say they do for
a living.
Right. And, um, I ha 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. Yeah. Um, now not all of those, not all of 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. That’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? Let’s find, 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.
And, 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 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 debt, but I do have a hard time with just that mentality overall. And I don’t want it to stick around.
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. I mean, that might sound harsh. No,
no. That’s very
actually what we do is solve
problems of what you do.
Like if you, if you tell somebody, if somebody’s like, Hey, what do you do as a graphic designer? That should be your initial answer. I solve problems. Yeah. And then you can explain how, but that’s what you do. Right.
I solve. Word problems visually. Yes, 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. 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 watched 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. Like I literally, this week. Was learning something new about how to do something that I’ll talk about on the next episode, but like always learning, always trying to learn something.
Yeah. So, yeah. 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.
Solid 50 50 of me just being like, please. And you’d be like, no, do it. And I’m like, but please don’t be.
Cause you were 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
it. Well, 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.
Like, I didn’t know. And then 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. So encouragement 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.
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.
I don’t think that’s true, but on this podcast apart, now, that does mean as you’re
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, I feel like I am too.
Like, you feel like that. Imagine how like, Whoa, I’ve got a
lot to learn. 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, and that’s okay. 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. Exactly. So love it, Michelle, where
can people find us? People can find us on all forms of social media via at Brandy.
See, go ahead and spell your name. B
R a N D I S
E a M. You can give us your feedback or you can hit us up on. Via email brandy@brandyc.com. Um, 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,
you it’s so long. I keep scrolling and scrolling and
scrolling so much fun.
We’ve got some good songs on there. It’s designed 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 all the
stars?
All of the stars. We want all the stars,
but if you want to give us. For, I guess, whatever. Um, just do that on iTunes, or you can share an episode with a friend, just spread the word and a huge thanks to Vespertine 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. Always wonderful, lovely Joelle on all our design speaks episodes. .