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Deadlines and Creativity

The Making of an Ampersand

Dusty Signs

Tommy Kane – Red Hook


I love watching artists work their magic.

(h/t wes molebash)

Doyald Young, Logotype Designer

Never heard of the late Doyald Young? Here’s a 40 minute introduction to his life’s work.


(RSS readers, click here if you don’t see the video)

(source: lynda.com)

Fascinating. One, because it’s all custom…and such a manual process. Can you imagine doing 1500 pages of pencil sketches for a single logo?

Amazing.

Here’s his site.

Here’s an interview from 2008.

Here are some other typographers he mentions:

Here’s my favorite quote:

I’m still learning how to do draw. There are no secrets to what I do. All that what I do is hard work and observation. Really. And doing things over and over until you’re satisfied with them — ’til it’s right.

So, do we care about this kind of craftsmanship anymore?

(h/t logobird)

Fighting through

[eames lounge]

This quote from Ira Glass encourages me.

What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me…is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

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