Episode #2 | What if you cared less what the rest of your industry is doing?
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Today I wanted to share a story time about something that was one of those very pivotal moments for me that actually changed the whole way I look at design and creativity.
And it ended up being something that was like a real core foundational value of my entire business.
What if you cared less what the rest of your industry is doing? What if you could make the choice to be naive?
Would that better serve the work?
Let's talk about it.
Episode Transcript —
Introduction
Hello and welcome back to the pod. So today I wanted to talk, well, I have a little story time about something that it was like one of those very pivotal moments for me that like actually changed the whole way I look at design and creativity. And it ended up being something that was like a real core foundational value of my entire business and career over the last 12 plus years and I think it was an absolutely huge piece of getting me to where I am now.
So, it was, shit, it must've been when I was living in Sydney, like 13, I was there in like 2010 -ish for a couple years. And at the time, like I kind of mentioned on the first episode, I was working a nine to five job. I didn't love it. And so I started doing and looking for creative things outside of that. And at the Apple store in Sydney, I don't know if they still do this, but at the Apple store in Sydney, they had these like creative talks. We're like every now and then it would just be like a talk by some creative person. So they had one that I went to. It must've been like after work or something on the weekend.
A New Perspective on Design
They had one with this design studio that I'd never heard of at the time. I believe the studio was called Toko. I don't know if they still exist or if they're still in Sydney. but anyway, I went to it and I believe they were from somewhere overseas, like maybe Scandinavia or something. they were from a totally different part of the world. And basically they told us that they basically explained like the way, cause I was in Australia. So they were like just telling us how the way people look at design and learn about design in Australia and the rest of the world was like very different to what they learned.
And they basically told us, they were like, yeah, we don't, we don't own a single fucking graphic design book. Like we don't follow blogs. We don't really pay attention to what everyone else is doing. And they just like explain this whole different way of looking at design. And it like completely blew my mind because at the time like I was maybe a year ish into my first ever job, just finished my design degree where like it was kind of part of it. Like I had the biggest, this was before Pinterest, like I had the biggest folder of design inspiration on my desktop.
And it was just kind of taught that you like, are just always looking for inspo everywhere. And that's where you, that's where you create your work from. Like just consuming so much outside stuff and like following the trends of the industry and just like paying so much attention to what everyone else is doing. So I went into this talk and it like blew my mind.
The Impact
And they were just like so casual about it. Like it wasn't from a place of like an ego thing. They were just like, why would we do that? Like that doesn't really serve the work very much when you're so consumed by what everyone else is doing. That doesn't actually help the work. And they had, they were like quite a, they're not, they weren't a big studio. I think there was, they had a really small team. But they did really big projects. Like I think they did stuff for like the city of Sydney.
Like they, and then they were talking at the Apple store. So like, obviously they had some like really, they knew what they were doing and they had some really cool projects. So to see like such a somewhat successful business come in and like give us, give me this entire new outlook on how to approach design and creativity was just like absolutely wild. And like from that, it honestly really hugely forced me to like change and pivot the whole way I looked at design.
And it really ended up becoming like a pretty core value of my whole business. So from that moment on, like I was still working a job then and I can't remember. I don't even know if I was freelancing then to be honest, but like once I did start freelancing and eventually become self-employed, that was something that I was very conscious and intentional about.
I was like, I don't want to give a shit what everyone else is doing. It just doesn't feel that interesting. And again, it doesn't really serve the work that much to be so consumed by just making shit that looks like everything else.
A New Approach to Freelancing
Why would that be a thing? So that honestly, I think was, I didn't even do it as a business choice, but it ended up being something that really crafted my work and my design style, I guess you could say, because I was like, blissfully unaware of what most other people were doing or what the trends of the time were.
And it's something that I've actually seen some other people talk about. I can't remember. There was a New Zealand designer. I don't know if it was Karen Walker. Someone from New Zealand. I was reading an interview with them once and I was like, yes, of course, Kiwi would say this. and it's just so good. I don't know if it was Karen Walker. Someone anyway, they were basically saying that like, you can choose to be naive to anything.
And that can actually serve you pretty well in business. And I'd never really seen anyone talk about it in that way other than this design studio. So like seeing someone else say that, like you can choose to be naive. I was like, fuck yes, that is pretty bad. And also just a different way of saying what I had learned and taken as my own from the design studio.
Conscious Choices
So I think it's really a conscious choice that you can make. And I really think that like better work comes from it. Like even just from my experience, like I've talked about, I spent a lot of time doing one-on-one work for design clients, like building really big branding and websites. And the kind of, the awesome part of not knowing what everyone else was doing is that the branding and design that I built for the clients that I worked with, it was like a lot of it was really timeless and it lasted them a long time because it wasn't based on stuff that was irrelevant within like six months.
And it wasn't actually super intentional. It was just like, I'm just going to be off in my own world over here. And I'm going to dial in with these clients and like really get in with them and learn about them and their business and what they like, what they don't like, who the audience is. Like I'm going deep with this client and nothing else matters. I'm just building shit for this client. And it really doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. And like that built, that helped me build some really cool brands for clients that were super stoked that their website and brand like stood the test of time for them because it wasn't, it just wasn't based on other stuff like everyone else.
So that is something you can choose to be really conscious about. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, whether you're a designer, a photographer, copywriter, blah, blah. And the other piece of this is like, really being conscious, I feel like I'm using the word conscious a lot. conscious of who you follow on social media, newsletters, whatever, wherever the fuck you follow people. because I think a lot of the time you just end up following so many people, especially people in the same industry as you, which is fine.
Cause like, obviously we're going to have like friends. We want to see what's happening, but like, again, you don't have to. If you're like, this is too much and it's influencing you too much, you can unfollow people. You can mute people. You can choose to be blissfully unaware to all of it and just go off in your own zone and make stuff that you want to make that feels fresh and different. And I think that is, sometimes I feel like that's what's missing a bit.
Final Thoughts
Like in the design world, because everything just ends up looking so similar. Like there's certain design trends that I'm so sick of saying, like, especially the one where you have, like, you have a line of kind of big heading text and then between the words, there's like tiny photos, like placed in line with the text. Like I'm so fucking sick of saying that. Can we just not do that anymore? I feel like that trend has been around for like a couple years and like most people don't do it very well. Like it looks kind of amateur for me, honest. There's a couple of people that I saw recently. I'm like, my God, that actually looks really good. Even though I hate the fact that it's a trend people are still doing. but I think when you are not privy to what everyone else is doing, it gives you so much more freedom and it's like the, you can do whatever you want because you have, then you just focus on like, what is the client doing? What is the vibe, whatever, like when you're not aware of the noise of the industry, then you can really dive deep on the thing, the project itself and like go hard with that to build something that feels and looks extremely fresh.
And that is like the best work. It's always going to come from that. Whether or not, like it doesn't matter the reception you get, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But like the best work will always come from that when you can get rid of all the noise and just dial in on like the vision for the thing itself.
So that's mostly what I have to say on this topic, to be honest. I have talked about this a few times over the years, but I really wanted to make like a short pod on it because it's such a core value, foundational value of mine that has been for my entire business. And it's still kind of as like, I just, I don't really pay that much attention to like other designers or people in the industry. I have friends and stuff, but like, and I use Pinterest, but outside of that, I'm really not paying that much attention. And it just feels kind of nice because like, there's already so much stuff to consume online. I don't want to add to that with more noise.
And I think sometimes even if you like you can be subconsciously influenced by a lot of this, even if you don't think you are. So if you just like totally remove yourself from all of it, you're way less likely to be subconsciously influenced by all of it when it comes to your own creating, if that makes sense. yeah, that's all I got on this topic. Hopefully that like gave you maybe some ideas or like things to think about in terms of just choosing to tune out the noise of your industry, if you want. If you feel like that's something that you're like, yeah, I'm sick of this shit. You can choose to turn it out. Tune it out, if you want. I feel like my accent sometimes, I like say words and I'm like, that sounded, did that sound Canadian? Did that sound like a Kiwi accent? I don't even know what the fuck that was. Anyway, that's all I got.
See you next time.
