Do what you like

The next chapter of "Steal like an Artist" is fairly short, but hits on an interesting and enlightening point, do what you like. Now I and everyone else has heard this phrase said probably millions of times already, but upon reading Kleon explanation of it, I realized it goes a lot deeper than just finding a hobby or job that you enjoy. If you find something you enjoy, like in music, movies, books, etc...create your own versions of those things. It's a bit like fan-art and fan-fiction. If you particularly like something, you most likely have had the desire to create something similar with your own take on it that might be better than the original. I know I am fan-fictioned and fan-arted a lot of TV shows in my head, but it never really developed into something physical and just remained as ideas. Perhaps I should do sketches of those in order to improve my drawing abilities.

One of the specific points Kleon makes is to not write what you know, but write what you like and what you would want to read. This can also be applied to your life direction and career when you are unsure of what to do, just think "What would make the story better?". If I were to write out my life, I am not sure if I would change much because all of my experiences have contributed to who I am now. I guess the only things I would change is reading more books as a child and procrastinating less. As for writing my own future, I'm not sure what I would write that isn't too vague. I would hope that I would still be doing design as a full time job, maybe end up having a small studio of my own. What I know for sure is that designing is what I want to do with my life and this is how I will contribute to society. During my senior year of college when I was studying biology, I kept having this feeling that my life path after graduation will have nothing to do with what I was studying (I told some of my friends this too). Something did not feel right with the idea of me staying in the scientific world (as much as I would have liked to). But now, studying design feels right for me because I have a strong desire to learn and experience more of it, which never happened during my undergraduate years.

I think I strayed from the topic of this blog post a bit, so back to the book. Kleon also suggests to think about the work your mentors have made. What would they have changed or done better? or maybe perhaps worked with another one of your mentors? This is interesting to think about so I will try to combine the work of my current mentor of Massimo Vignelli and my previous one of Chip Kidd. This will require some thought and research, so I'll be back...


UPDATE: So I'm back and this is my version of what Vignelli and Kidd might create should them and myself collaborate.

For those who are interested in my thinking process, here is goes. Since Kidd is famous for his book covers, I figured doing one would be the most appropriate where the cover represents something that occurs in the book. I went to my book shelf and picked this one because I've read it and I remember what happened (plus it's a good book). I decided to do a swiss design to incorporate Vignelli's style and to make the design more abstract, which I think would appeal to both of them. The grey grid represents the people of the dystopian society where everything is in order, under control, and without choices. Then there is the Giver, who is the sole possessor of everyone's memories of the past and emotions, who must pass them on to a new person, ie Jonas. The diamond represent Jonas and his process of breaking free from society due to the memories given to him by the Giver, which is why they are the same color. I also purposely didn't align the title with the grid because the Giver is not fully aligned with society. Overall I like how it came out and would appreciate any feedback to make it better. It was really fun trying to think like the two designers and occasionally I would have conflicting thoughts, like putting the blur on the grey squares. I don't think Vignelli would do that, but I think Kidd would.

Here were my inspiration pieces from both of them that helped me with the brainstorming process:

Chipp Kidd

Massimo Vignelli