Trust the Process
Hey Friends
Feeling very grateful this week for everything in my life: my career, friends, and my partner Erika. What are y'all grateful for?
We Made it!
10K ON YOUTUBE!! I knew this day would come (didn't think it would take this long) but nonetheless I am stoked. I know these things are just numbers but seeing that 5 digit subscriber count really makes me feel like what I'm doing is all worth it. I remember it like it was yesterday sitting in my 100-degree apartment in the hot summer right when covid hit. I was thinking "fuck it" the world's ending so what better time to get out of my comfort zone and start making videos. Big shoutout to my roommate at the time. good friend, and videographer Vince who helped me edit and got me started.
Since then production, my skills, and the community have grown. I am very thankful for any newcomers and the OGs who have stuck around over these past few years. I am so excited to keep diving into the world of youtube and got a lot more fun things in store for y'all. Also thinking of doing an Q&A video to celebrate so if you ever wanted to ask me something I can answer more long form or personal feel free to email me or message me anywhere!
Personal Practice
So I am a big proponent of creating personal work every day or at least more than a few times a week to get better at your practice and learning to enjoy the ritual. However, I know this can be super had to think of new ideas all the time when you're already spread thin with freelance work or other responsibilities. Creative block can settle in but I've noticed one of the easiest ways to get over that hurdle is having an ongoing idea or list of concepts or an overall design prompt you can pull from.
Sometimes just getting started is the hardest part so one way I combat that is working in "Series" or different categories. Having an ongoing series or theme takes the BIG IDEA out of the process and allows you to get into the work a lot easier. For example when I was creating my Black Note collection, Skatin not Stirred series, or 30-day logo challenge it was a lot easier to create multiple pieces without having to reinvent the wheel each time. So below are a list of things you can try doing to get those creative juices flowing.
Redesign your favorite album arts or singles from your most played on Spotify.
Redesign an old album art in a new style or vice versa
Practice a new technique and create a series of 10 pieces (Collage, webs design, UI Design, Branding, Poster design)
Redesign branding for a local company in your area
Create a series of posters using each track from an album
redesign the poster for your favorite movie in a different genre style
design yourself personal branding and break it up into parts: Logo, Color palette, Typography, stationary, website, etc
Sharing the Love
Like I said above about the YouTube stuff I am so grateful for all of you who show support. I also have been having so much fun writing this newsletter for you all each week. It has been a fun almost jorunaling-like experience and I hope you guys have been enjoying it. All this amazing love from the community has got me thinking about sharing some of that. So I wanted to shout out some of the people whose content and stuff deserve to be consumed, no "Enjoyed"
Newsletters
Harry Vincent: Harry has an amazing way with words and shares super insightful and vulnerable messages. If you knew to harry his newsletter is perfectly him and a great extension of his creative mind, def go check it out and he always rewards his mailing list with early access and goodies
GLASSES by Sam Thomas: If you are into album art and or graphic design this is the newsletter for you. Sam gets super niche about the world of album art design and the way he dissects the creative is super thoughtful and educational. I can tell he puts a lot of work into these write-ups so def go show it some love.
YouTube
Studio Innate: James is a great designer and overall good guy from the UK who runs Studio Innate. James recently hopped into the youtube space and has been creating a cool series on streetwear. I think his channel is going to be super valuable in the long term for people who want to learn about starting a clothing company, graphic design and more!
Dreadlabs: Tom has an amazing community over on youtube and shares great tutorials on design, music, and motion stuff. He is one of my inpsos for starting my channel and deserves all the success he's earned on the platform.
Ross Mason: I don't know much about 3D but it seems like Ross knows everything. If you ever wanted to get into 3D or learn some super cool advanced stuff he's your guy.
Podcast
Make Art Not Content: An absolute must listen. Bronques speaks the creative language we all need to hear. He doesn't sugarcoat things and I love that. This podcast is so hard to describe that I need you to just go listen. Episodes are super short, digestable and its overall dangerously binge worthy.
Collin and Samir: This one is kinda like half podcast half youtube channel but overall super entertaining and helpful. Colin and Samir's channel is all about online creators and there is so much to learn about the online content space from what they talk about and the guests they interview.
Stuff I currently like and stuff I'm looking forward to!
Amazing ad as always by Jake
Severance opening animation by Extraweg
Tweet of the week below
Closing Thoughts
It's about the journey, not the destination.
Much Love, Glue.
Weekly Wrap Up
Super fun flyer video and Pod with Paulina
Designed a flyer and posted around Los Angeles
Podcast with Paulina
WD Hard Drive Poster
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