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- [00:02]
Radim Malinich
Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provides them with value. So thank you for being here and for helping out. Thank you.
- [00:36]
Oliver Jeffers
Do you like messy art or do you like neat art? And they, you know, we were having this conversation and Esther and I both realized like, you know, I used to really like neat art, but not I like messy art. And why is that? And is it because in my youth, sort of coming up through the 20s, I was craving control and craving the predictability, whereas now I have control and predictability to some degrees. I'm missing chaos and so that's why I'm resonating to that. But in, in my work itself, you do kind of become not a slave, but you enter into a contract with your own ability. And so there's. I'm not interested too much in completely reinventing my style for the sake of it.
- [01:22]
Radim Malinich
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinich. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? My second guest of this season is Oliver Jeffers, who likes to tell stories and ask questions. A world renowned author, artist and storyteller who creates fine art mostly for adults and picture books mostly for children. He often explores curiosity and humor as underlying themes. In our conversation, he reveals the reality behind creative success, the constant self doubt, the struggle to balance art making with parenthood, and the evolution from seeking external validation to finding internal purposes. Oliver speaks very openly about operating between two studios, one in Northern Ireland and one in Brooklyn, and the exhaustion of juggling multiple projects and the precious window of time spent with young children. Throughout, there's a theme of emphasis on the importance of persistence, the power of simple communication, and the courage to be violently yourself in a noisy world. This episode was produced in association with Paradiso Festival and it's my pleasure to welcome Oliver Jeffers. Hey Oliver. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
- [03:24]
Oliver Jeffers
Thank you, Adam. I'm keeping all right, thank you.
- [03:27]
Radim Malinich
Fantastic stuff. It's great to see you. And how would you introduce yourself?
- [03:31]
Oliver Jeffers
How would I introduce myself? An artist and a storyteller and a spokesperson. I suppose so. Primarily known for children's books, but equally known in different realms for the fine art gallery work, some large scale public sculpture work, and then just being very outspoken on the issues of conflict, disunity, climate, social justice, things like that.
- [03:53]
Radim Malinich
I think it's a fascinating story because you wanted to be a fine art painter, but now you see yourself more as a communicator artist rather than, you know, craft artist.
- [04:03]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, well, but you know, they. I think there's plenty of fine art painters who are communicator artists. That's just like the. I think, and you probably heard me speak about this at the Dawn Bookshop, I think, where, you know, understanding why you're making the work that helps point the direction that you want to go. And whether it is you're a graphic designer, whether it is that you're a fine artist, whether it is that you're making children's books, I think understanding whether you're doing it for the craft or you're doing it to communicate a feeling, there can be two quite different modes in and sense of understanding of why you're doing in the first place. So while yes, I did want to start off being a fine art gallery artist, I still do that, but I kind of siphoned off into making kids books and doing all these other things. And I suppose just as opportunities presented themselves or I went along with tangents that seemed to be a good idea at the time, the future. I could never have written it like this, but I followed multiple paths simultaneously. And it does mean that I, I suppose I kind of operate under three different career systems, three different industries, but I've always said to myself I would just keep going until somebody told me otherwise. And nobody ever has. And even if they did, I don't think I would listen to them anymore.
- [05:14]
Radim Malinich
You mentioned multiple paths. Did you ever feel that you needed to focus on one or the other? Because that's sometimes what the society wants you to do. They want you to sort of double down and do one thing and do it well.
- [05:26]
Oliver Jeffers
It's funny you say that, like when, whenever I was starting off in graduating from university, how that was, like in the late 1990s, like right around the turn of the millennium. And there was this understanding that artists did one thing and so you couldn't be A multidisciplinary artist. Those were not taken seriously. You were a conceptual artist. You couldn't do anything that was figurative, even though you know that was within the art world. But it was way stricter for things like you couldn't dare possibly think of being a painter and have kids books at the same time. But that was just not dumb. So I did run into a lot of difficulties whenever I started off being a fine art painter. And then before graduating I had an idea for a kid's book, decided to go about getting it published and that happened. So then when I was graduating while getting published and that that process happened fairly quickly because kind of did my research and went about it and publishing is much more straightforward as an industry. But then whenever I went to start trying to get shown in galleryland, I was just meeting a lot of closed doors and a lot of closed minds because once people realized that I was the same person who was making these kids books, there just wasn't that much interest because, you know, that's just not what people did.
- [06:38]
Radim Malinich
Yeah, I think there must have been quite a few chin stroking people in your way going, nah, nah, this is not you, what you do.
- [06:43]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, but all it takes is for one brave person to validate you to say, yes, I think this person is good enough. Because often, you know, the ad industry is full of people just justifying their own jobs. Can you make it a bit more blue? Why? I don't know, because I wanted to say something and galleries sort of showing already established, already verified artists rather than somebody taking a risk on somebody who's never shown anywhere before. It's very difficult to kind of break the ice to get that first toe in the door. And you need somebody to open the door slightly for you to do that. But that's a very important relationship. And every artist has somebody who gave them their first chance. And I suppose after that it's what you do with it.
- [07:20]
Radim Malinich
What you're describing always reminds me of, of those famous words by Ethan Hawke by, when he says, give yourself permission to be creative because you more or less you figured out when you were working on your first book, you didn't even know that was a book because you wanted to do series of paintings. Then you realized it potentially it's a book. You work with a local printer to print hundred copies of your sort of demo and sent it out to publishers. I think that already shows, you know, a way to actually go in and get something that you want from the world and from life rather than hoping, you know, what I think I've got content for the book. Who's going to publish it?
- [07:54]
Oliver Jeffers
Look, it's. There's a lot of people with a lot of bold ideas and bold ambitions. And I think there's something that's happened where the Hollywood ification of, you know, if you want something badly enough, you deserve it. And people operate on that mantle that, no, I really want this, so therefore somebody is going to give it to me somewhere along the road, I deserve this. But it's not. That's not how it works at all. You got to work harder or be better than everybody else. And so it is not really this idea of we're all equal, everybody deserves a chance. It just. The world simply doesn't operate like that. And I figured out very early on, though, around the time of my last year of our college, the greatest secret that I think to being a creative is, or actually to being a person, is you only get out what you put in. If you want something, nobody's going to do it for you, you have to do it yourself. And then another important thing that I learned from that is, no doesn't necessarily mean no. This project is not going to happen. And no might just mean I haven't read it properly. I'm too busy. Not right now. Keep trying. And if you get three nos in a row, maybe then it is a no. But that just means that route is closed. There's other ways to go about getting whatever it is that you want to accomplish, accomplished. And I've thought about that, you know, the stubbornness in a lot of artists, and they're sort of like the rock like mentality of I will not move, I will not bend. I will stay here and say and do my thing, and, you know, screw the word for not recognizing my genius. But if you look at a rock that's in the middle of a river, it will eventually get eroded away, whereas the river will find the path to the sea. It'll find its own way. And so I've kind of taken up this mantra to myself of be the river, not the rock.
- [09:32]
Radim Malinich
Yeah, I love that.
- [09:32]
Oliver Jeffers
So it's. Jackie Chan said something about be like water. But this more specifically to the artistic practice, I think, is find another way. And in the process of trying to find another way, one of two things will happen. One, you will find another way, or two, you'll become so much more interested and infatuated with another project that the trickle will die and fail somewhere and you won't even remember it. You'll just move on to something Else. So it's not rejection, it's evolution.
- [10:02]
Radim Malinich
Oh, absolutely. I think we live in this sort of mirage of opportunities that what you see online sometimes can see. Like an opportunity was very easy to sort of join the doors from the start to finish.
- [10:12]
Oliver Jeffers
But yeah, no, and when you say when you're looking online as well, it's all you see is what other people have accomplished. People don't traditionally post all of their failures or all of their bad days or all of the things that didn't work out. And so there's this unrealistic view of their lives that's been completely edited with the idea of stroking their ego.
- [10:33]
Radim Malinich
But when you think about it like, we don't even in personal lives, we don't always share the failures or the things that didn't go well with a broad range of people. Like, we've got our partners, sometimes we got closest friends, and usually those are the ones who hear about the things that didn't go well. But I think that there's something sort of societal in that way, that it takes a courage, it takes guts, and takes almost sort of self acceptance to say, you know what, things are not going well and why would anyone want to look at it? Because after all, I think people show up online because they want to be accepted by the broader public and broader people in society going, am I doing something amazing? Please tell me, please tell me. Because part of the concept of daring creativity is that sort of dare to self accept of who we are and what we stand for and not necessarily look for that sort of extreme validation from people who had nothing to do with our work. Call it like the river and the stone. I think I always see as creators like having really strong roots, that if a really strong wind blows past you, that you still stand still and go, you know what? I'm here, I'm fine. I'm actually deeply rooted in my own grass, in my own soil, doing my thing, rather than going, which sort of, which wind? Which. No, which river? Which stream of water will take me somewhere? Right, yeah.
- [11:46]
Oliver Jeffers
I suppose my analogy works if you know what it is that you want to do, whereas your analogy works for just being a person.
- [11:53]
Radim Malinich
Yeah, because I think we once said that it took you a long time to self accept yourself for what you were doing. Because I'm trying to work out. Well, I think we'll try to work out where did the first children's book actually come from? Because fine art, painting and Trying to Catch a Star are not always the closest two topics to one another.
- [12:14]
Oliver Jeffers
We'll be back after a quick break.
- [12:17]
Radim Malinich
This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Company, the first creative specialty coffee company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and Beyond. Lux Coffee Co. Offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices and you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel@luxcoffee.co.uk you can use the code podcast to get 15% off your first order.
- [13:04]
Oliver Jeffers
No, they're not. But the type of fine art painting that I was making at that time, and I can't remember really how this came about, but I was interested in doing these paintings with a very realistic understanding of light, shadow and but on very simple objects. So almost like toys. So I remember painting fish, but the fish looked like a three year old had drawn it, but then the light and shadow was very realistic and playing about with that and so these very simple shapes but dealt in a way that had great roots in the understanding of how art functions. And I think that's where some of the paintings were taking me. So I was painting things like lighthouses or fish or these things with stripes and the curvature of objects, starfish and tricking myself into thinking it was a reflection. I was like, oh, that would make a great painting that fits into this visual language that I was creating for myself, which is sort of bold colors, simple shapes, but realistic light and shadow. And the first painting was that. And then I thought there's more potential here. You know, throw in another thing that's got stripes like a life ring. Maybe that's another way that he's trying to catch the star. And really at that point I was like, oh wait, there's more to this here. And so that's how that jump made like from this thinking. And actually my fine art painting changed massively after that because I suppose that urge of painting realistically in a kind of accessible and naive way totally shifted into what became my style for children's books. And then the fine art painting went a lot more realistic for a while. And partly that was again sort of trying to prove to people whose opinion I, when under scrutiny would have to admit I didn't really care about try and prove to people that no, I can actually paint realistically, I'm a good painter. And even though I would start off with for, gosh, for even as far as a decade, like trying to paint something, I was like, I'm going to be super Loose with this, I would end up just getting tighter and more realistic and more realistic. Still trying to prove to myself and the stranger on a pedestal that I can do this. Look, I need your validation to say I can paint.
- [15:03]
Radim Malinich
You said it would prove, I think at least three times I can prove to them a campaign. I can prove to myself I can do this. I can prove. Because that's that young turmoil, isn't it? Like, we need to almost work it out of ourselves through all the brushstrokes and all the paint splats, whatever the production, bits by bits. Because then once you want. You don't need to prove to anything to anyone. Like, it's just. It just comes out.
- [15:23]
Oliver Jeffers
Then it becomes not about proof. Yeah, that's it. It becomes about communication or it becomes about sort of just. Yeah, discovery. But yes, it is that. That I. You know, when you're younger and people ask, like, how do you find your style? And it's just that everybody's got to go through that process. There is no quick solution to any of this. And ironically, that became. And while I was working through this, that became a theme of the. My third book, the Incredible Booking Boy. There is no easy shortcut to success, which was wrapped up in that story in a great way because it was something that I was starting to subconsciously wrestle with internally. And that's one way in which it manifested out. But no piece of art that I've ever made. To go back to an earlier question you were saying about has actually ever turned out the way that I thought it would in my head before I put pen to paper or brush to canvas. Not a single thing. And there's. You always have to react to what you see. And some people can become very frustrated with that. Like, it's not looking like it's supposed to. Or you can use that as a conversation, which is. That's not what I thought was going to happen, but that is interesting. What happens if I do that some more? And then the work starts to take you in places that you're not in control completely. And I think there's something really fascinating that happens when you get into that conversation with the thing you're making.
- [16:40]
Radim Malinich
Because it must be very comforting for some people who are listening to this and be like, oh, wait a minute. So you set out to do something, you have a vision, but then it turned out to be something different that you actually planned. Because that obsession with perfectionism. I've been debating this topic for the last 30 odd episodes, maybe even more. It's again, Comes from self acceptance, comes from feelings of shame, vulnerability. Like, am I putting something out there that would I be judged by, you know, in your case, chin strokers? Would I be judged by public at large? Would I be judged? Whereas when you go on a journey with your work, it doesn't matter what thing, what the outcome is in the end?
- [17:13]
Oliver Jeffers
Well, no, it doesn't, because. And also not a single other human being, even those you love and respect the most, can see inside your head. Nobody has any idea of what you had envisaged. So it's that disappointment's on you. But, you know, I was saying that not a single piece of work has ever turned out exactly the way that I thought it would, apart from one. And the only reason that turned out exactly the way that I thought it would is because it involves a bunch of architectural engineers. And it was a large scale public art sculpture project. And so I did some sketches and then they made those sketches, like, without any deviation into reality as a series. And it was the, the project, our place in space. And so it was a true scale model of Earth's place in the solar system as a way to look at ourselves from afar. But because of, you know, the wind load and all of these engineering requirements, the weight bearing, everything else, they had to calculate everything. And the easiest way to do it without it changing massively was to just stick absolutely religiously to the sketches that were made first place. So it's the only time that's ever happened. And it felt weird, to be honest, because I got almost felt a little disappointed, was like, oh, it didn't evolve along the way.
- [18:24]
Radim Malinich
There was no compromising involved at all. Oh, I like that. So I'm trying to zoom in a little bit more on, on the nexus of your sort of book work. And I'm sort of working on the stories because I always think, when I think about people's stars and careers, it always takes me back to a quote by Alan de Botton, who says, we always create things in life that we are longing for. So if our life is peaceful, we create chaos and sort of work that's very messy, whereas if our life is messy, we create things that are very peaceful. And in your case, I mean, you've already been describing, like, the stars are rudimentary drawings with lifelike sort of shadows and rendering. But was there something as a response to your environment growing up, or was there something that you decided to sort of not decide is the wrong thing to say. But, like, how did it come about? Is there any dots we can Join?
- [19:14]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, Joe, it's funny that you mentioned the Messi and the kind of the piece. I just went with my kids and some family friends of ours from the us we were in Paris together and we went to the Pompidou before it closed and I was walking around with two seven year olds, my daughter and her friends, IU and IU's mother and were sort of, I was asking them, like, what do you guys prefer? Do you like messy art or do you like neat art? And they, you know, we were having this conversation and Esther and I both realized, you know, I used to really like neat art, but not I like messy art. And why is that? And is it because in my youth, sort of coming up through the 20s, I was craving control and craving the predictability, whereas now I have control and predictability to some degrees. I'm missing chaos and so that's why I'm resonating to that. But in my work itself, you do kind of become not a slave, but you enter into a contract with your own ability. And so there's. I'm not interested too much in completely reinventing my style for the sake of it. So there, there tends to be a range of neatness and messiness within a scale and it doesn't really deviate too much in it. And especially as a, an artist who's a communicator, I'm aware of what resonates more with people in terms of not saying people I like it, but that it works. And when I say it works, that it does its job. It's set out to try and convey what I'm feeling to other people. And with Alan, the bottoms one, you know, I suppose you'd have to examine why he was making the work in the first place for that. But to answer your question that you originally posed a lot of people because of my books are all about loneliness and friendship and sparse open landscapes. Assume I was an only child. It was like, no. I grew up in a small working class house with three brothers and a dog and had never occurred to me until 10 years into making books. I was like, maybe that was my craving for peace, for calm, for openness, for a space to be alone. And I never noticed it.
- [21:12]
Radim Malinich
Yeah, it's interesting how we got there because. Yeah, I mean, there's something that comes out of us whether we like it or not, because you get artists or designers or creatives who produce the most stunning, multi layered, intricate pieces of work, but the inspirations are just like Black and white. 1. On a piece of Paper, you know, the inspiration sometimes in the output is totally vastly different. And I can speak from a person sort of experience. When I was an illustrator, because of looking for self acceptance, I just added every single layer because I could. Even though I like things that were more very minimal but very geometrical. And I think that's just a way like was there a level of expression that I was longing for? Even though the stimulus is totally more.
- [21:51]
Oliver Jeffers
Digestible but that, you know, knowing when to stop is half the battle. Whenever you add lots and lots and lots of things in, it's like Marvel superhero movies tend to do that. It's just everything is just big and brash and it to the point where you just can't see anything anymore. And I remember in design in the late 90s when Flash websites came out and Photoshop was sort of in its the big, that first splurge of accessibility. I remember hearing a phrase called the Mariah Carey syndrome in design and it was Mariah Carey has a 12 octave range and will not sing a single song without using all 12 octaves. And the moral being that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
- [22:29]
Radim Malinich
I like that phrase. I mean I've heard it first used with even just for things like web design. Just because you can use all the features on the website doesn't mean you should. So on the record, I went to see you a couple of weeks ago, I think it was maybe two, three weeks ago. I saw you doing your conversation for your latest book celebrating the work that you've done so far. And you were given quite in depth answers about your processes, about how you think, how you work. And one of the answers involved the fact that you said I don't always paint very often I just use the painting and illustrations just to communicate my points. For some people you are more mostly seen as a, as an illustrator, as a creative, as a visual communicator. It might be to some people's surprise that you are not a daily maker. You're not a daily illustrator anymore. Like you, you spend more time thinking about your work than you create in it. And actually to some might be even surprised that illustration is almost just a means to an end what you do these days.
- [23:25]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, I wouldn't call myself an illustrator and I never was a daily maker. The names to describe what I do, it's always something I've sort of struggled with because nothing really neatly fits the box of it. So yes, I'm a painter, yes I'm an artist, yes I'm an advocate. Yes, I make books, but there's a talk that I give and I kind of try to come up with, hilariously show the difference between illustration and art. And so I wouldn't really be a gun for hire for other people. Although in saying that I've done more projects like that recently than ever before. But mostly just it's because it's things that I believe in and that I want to be involved with the Brooklyn Museum or Greenpeace or the New York Philharmonic. So that. But these aren't like jobs that I would have an agent who's out going looking for work for me. I would almost always say no to client work. And 99% of what I do is self generated. But the difference between publishing and the experience that I have with commercial illustration, whether that's advertising or in editorial, these are some of the differences that I see between art and illustration. And you're solving somebody else's problems. Whereas with art you're creating your own problems to solve. With illustration, you agree a fee before you start the work. With art you make something and then you try to figure out how to make a fee from it. And with illustration, somebody is going to give you the thumbs up and okay the job. Whereas within art, you will forever marinate in existential self doubt.
- [24:55]
Radim Malinich
I actually have that quote here. In art, you'll marinate in your existential self doubt, which I loved it so much when you said it the other day because it's like existential self doubt and marinating in it is pretty much what 99.9 people do generally in everyday life. It's just some of us just decide to actually put in a visual form for others to see.
- [25:16]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah. And you know, from what, from the outside looking in. I guess people see me as a success. But there's still days where you still weak sometimes where it's, I'm not. I don't know, what am I? Who am I kidding? Am I, you know, can I really keep going? Is this, Am I washed up? Is this over? Am I good enough? Completely. Yeah. And then there's. Sometimes there are things, a few things click into place and it's, oh, yeah, this is good. I enjoy this. This is why I do this.
- [25:41]
Radim Malinich
Can we zoom in on those few words you just said? Sometimes I don't feel I'm good enough. Sometimes I feel washed out. I mean, again, from the outside in, people looking at your world and going, does it even need to work?
- [25:54]
Oliver Jeffers
And it might be, you know, it's the good enough thing is, and it's I suppose there's a few other layers of things thrown in on top of that, which our life was sort of turned upside down about four years ago whenever we went traveling with our two kids. They were both born in Brooklyn. Well, one was born in Brooklyn, they're both born in New York. One was born in Manhattan, one was born in Brooklyn. My studio was there. Three full time employees, my wife and I, because they're operating on gallery shows, operating on large installations, operating on children's books, public speaking, all these things. Then we thought, right, let's travel the world before our kids start school. So we're going to take a year off, we're going to travel. We rented out our apartment for two years to someone and we got on a boat and we went across the Atlantic and we got about four or five months into this year off and Covid hit and our apartment had been rented out and we had nowhere to go. And so we ended up back in Northern Ireland. And that's where I'm speaking to you from today. And there was a lot of turmoil and unsettledness to that, which is figuring out what are we doing? Are we living here? Are we living there? My main studio is in Brooklyn. All of the people who buy my work, collectors, all of the connections and the kind of my network is there. And so trying to find a balance between deciding ultimately that it was better to raise the kids in Northern Ireland around family and in a place where the politics, believe it or not, I never thought I'd be saying that anywhere Northern Ireland was safer and better for kids than anywhere usa but it just became clear that this was going to be a better place for them. But so trying to juggle that being a parent in a place where I then leave every couple of weeks to go and just try and bang out a whole bunch of work. And so the, you know, this notion of being super productive for two weeks and then sort of being a like a parent for the rest of the time and having to used to working whenever momentum was striking and just following something through an open road to then suddenly actually my work hours are only really from 9am until 3pm when the kids come home from school. And then looking at my to do list on Wednesday and realizing I still haven't got through half of what I was hoping to get through on Monday and it's Wednesday. And so all of those frustrations and sort of trying to stay on top of those and then in the middle of that trying to find a place to work where it felt like I Was making for joy rather than this pressure just to get things crossed off the list so I can get on to the next thing.
- [28:25]
Radim Malinich
So did I get it right? Do you still sort of do commute to New York to do some work.
- [28:29]
Oliver Jeffers
That have two studios now? So there's this in Northern Ireland, this one. And I would tend to do a lot more of the sort of long term planning and the large scale work and the operations and any of the merchandise that we would do and make books here. And then the Brooklyn studio I would use, I would hold court a little more there. So I would hold dinner parties with politicians and activists and scientists and other artists. But that's also where I would do the experimentation work and just like talk into the night over a bottle line with other artists about the state of the world, about art and then just get lose myself on a canvas for 10 hours in a row. So that's where all of the melding of ideas comes into play. The experimentation, the play, the curiosity of it all comes in and then it's just a lot more easier to almost think of admin and production from their.
- [29:16]
Radim Malinich
Seller studio Sounds wonderful. And it also sounds. Well, some people would be, it's tiring.
- [29:22]
Oliver Jeffers
It is, it's the balance of it is lovely. But it does become exhausting.
- [29:25]
Radim Malinich
See, that's what this is what just happened. I thought this sounds lovely. And you say it's tiring because we like the idea of, okay, well, as a fellow parent, if you get three or four hours of work a day, you're winning, you know, because you want to be in your kid's life. I mean it was unimaginable some even 10 years ago for me it was like, you know, 16 hours a day. That was not enough. And now you're like, I've got four good hours, that's enough.
- [29:50]
Oliver Jeffers
And I've been having this conversation, I was like, you know, this is really difficult. But then being aware that this is only a very short window of time because in my brother's kids are 15 and 17, about to be 18 and like they're already gone in some ways. And so he's got all his time back. So it's this little window that you get with these growing human beings that you know to really the foundations of your relationship are being established. And so I've learned to not take that for granted.
- [30:19]
Radim Malinich
Yeah, I think that realization is, I think one of the biggest gifts of our lives. Because as you said, I mean, somebody once said, in fact, there was a question that asked my wife, asked her Business partner. She said, you've got all the kids. Does it ever get easier? She said, it doesn't get easier, but it gets different. You know that it doesn't get easy. It gets different, and it's amazing.
- [30:41]
Oliver Jeffers
So I was like, it's like, it doesn't get easier. It just gets less hard. Which somehow made sense to me whenever they said this.
- [30:49]
Radim Malinich
Yeah. Yeah. Because when you think about it, it's pretty much also a good metaphor for creative life. You know, it doesn't get easy. It just gets different. Like, I think we are. We live on that pretense. We want to get to the point where everything's working. You spend, let's say, 10 years, 15 years working on your little sort of creative empire. Now we're gonna take a deep breath and enjoy the ride for the rest of the time until we go into the sunset. Whereas there's no such thing as end of problems. I think there's always an obstacle, there's always something because we live in this dissonance, thinking, oh, I wish it was easy. I'm gonna enjoy this. But when it gets really easy, we go, this is too easy. Like, where is the challenge? Where it's something that actually grinds at us, Right?
- [31:26]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah. That balance between challenge and joy is. That's the sweet spot, isn't it? And I think it's important to. When you're in the moment with a piece of work, it was like, yes, I. This is working and I'm enjoying it, is to allow yourself that pleasure just to. To relish in the joy of making rather than. Than thinking, okay, what's the next problem?
- [31:47]
Radim Malinich
Yeah. In my. In one of my workshops, I'm trying at the moment for the content of the book. There's this exercises about being in the present moment and doing life audit. And I said in one of my parts, observe the number of positive and negative thoughts. Because we think when we go negative thought, that's the end of us. But no one's ever said, I'm having way too many positive thoughts. Well, I need to stop this, you know, because, like, it's that balance between the two. So I have to say that I have discovered your work through Fate of Fausto. I was working on my third book of branding, and I was, as I always do, doing a research or like, just, you know, the top line research. Where would my book slot in? And I saw your book. I never heard of your work before. And the COVID and the book itself totally stopped me in my tracks. I was like, what's going on? What is this? And it was beautiful color. Everything was great. It was a beautiful color. It was just. It spoke to me. Just one of the things that just sort of stop you in your tracks. I bought the book on understanding it would be a book for my children. So I was like, hey, look, I've got this book. I'm really excited about it. As you can tell, I was a lot more excited about the book myself than it was for them. My daughter was back then maybe four, and I mean, she's nine, I think, if I got it right, open a book. And I was totally taken aback because I had that experience of reading the book for the first time with a little human and going, going, going, going. And then, spoiler alert, you know, the main character drowns and she just looks at me like, what was that about? It was like, what is it really for me? Are we gonna read it again? And what's really been beautiful, like the relationship with the book that they. Especially my daughter, she's now nine, my son is five. She really has a different relationship with the book and kind of gets more of the life aspect of what you wrote a book about and what you did with it. And yeah, when I've sort of been talking to you and I've honestly listened to some of your other interviews, you very much say you make books for yourself. There's no such thing. You're a picture bookmaker rather than children's bookmaker. I think you've kind of created your own sort of path and you created that sort of amazing. Can't say it's not juxtaposition, but this amazing sort of amalgamation of various elements is like watching Simpsons, which is meant to be cartoon for kids, but it's actually for grownups. You know, you've got all of these things, but it's a cross boundary storytelling that was absolutely fascinating. I've been fine ever since.
- [34:09]
Oliver Jeffers
Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, it's. You know, I think that I always say that the books are from 0 to 99 and it's. I've always thought that if you can explain a concept to a kid in a way also to your grandmother, then you're really at the sweet spot of communication. Because I don't think the world needs to be overly complicated. There are complicated things that are happening. But if you keep stripping back to get to the core of the spokes of the wheel. So it were. I think you can do a lot more shifting of thought at that deep level than you can if you stay on the surface and voiceto is one of those. And I suppose to clarify for your listeners that it's not a book about death, it's not a book about drowning. I mean, it was inevitable that he had to drown in this. But it's a book about our relationship with greed and our relationship with our environment. And it's only happened two other times where a story has just sort of presented itself to me all in one go. And it felt like an old story. It felt like a story that could have been told 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago. And so with the process of making the book, I wanted to do it in such a way as that it felt like an honored traditional bookmaking techniques, because this is also the time when everything is going digital and not quite the same panic that publishing went through with their Amazon Kindle. And, you know, like book sales would go the way of CD sales because the middleman was being cut out. But even so, I wanted to honor the tradition of bookmaking. And so I made the book on a 200 year old lithography machine in Paris where it mixed the colors and it took approximately five times longer than we anticipated, which was both. Well, let's just say it was interesting. It involved me being embarrassed a lot more than I'd thought. And some of my family would come over and say chaotically. And they happened to be there waiting for me down the road at the Notre Dame the day that it went on fire. But they. So the whole book was made there and the endpaper was marbled the way they used to for old books. We had David Pearson, the famous type designer, design the type based on an old letterpress, one that had never really made it, that was sort of from the 1910s. And he typestyled the whole thing, these systems that have been around for a long time. And this sort of conveyed the story, the ancientness of this fable that we never seemed to learn from.
- [36:37]
Radim Malinich
I like that you said it's a story. It could have been, you know, written 300 years ago. Because now when you've said it, you can see some of the characters, especially Fausto looks like a man from. Not particularly now. He looks like from someone with this sort of this bushy mustache and the way he dresses.
- [36:54]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, because it. Because of the year it came out, everybody thought I was making the book about Trump, which I was. Not at all. Not even slightly. Actually. The book was written before Trump decided that he would run for office in 2015. And I had written that book. And then my son was born in 2015 and Trump decided to run for office. And the world was all suddenly getting angrier and scarier. And I thought at that point, this book, there's a negativity to this book that is not normally. Or an aggression even. That's not normally my style. And I thought, the world doesn't need this right now. Because I had come up with another concept for a book called Here We Are, which was a guidebook for arriving on planet Earth and just about the simple joys of beauty of what it is to be alive on the 21st century. And so I basically parked Feisto for two years while I made Here We Are. And then the reality was that, like, actually, you know, the themes and the issues that's come up in are even more relevant now than they were two years ago. So it felt like this is now the time. And because of the timing of it, everybody thought it was Trump based, but it was not. It was just this sense of we are out of balance with the only place that we can live. And this idea of ownership in capitalism is when somebody's a billionaire, why do they need more? And what is this idea of every global economy being based on growth? Every business's goal is growth. But if you look at growth in terms of biology, uncharted growth is called cancer. And so just this re evaluating the system that we have for ourselves, of what it is that we want.
- [38:26]
Radim Malinich
I mean, yes, you've nailed it. And what I wanted to say, actually, you and Brian Collins are partially responsible for the stars of my latest two books that I've published, Creativity for Selling Mindful Creative. Because, you know, your little neon detailing I'm showing just for some people who can't see. So, yeah, that inspired me using neon color in my books. This is very much a punter. That's that. And the style of illustration was actually inspired by the Collins's work for Mailchimp. So around the sort of same time, around 2018, when they branded Merchant with very messy hand drawn illustrations. And I was like, at that, until that point, my studio was very much working in 3D and digital illustration. I was like, how do I do something different? So that's how things are now out, the little things that you spend time, you know. But your family was waiting in Notre Dame, obviously, like waiting for you to get your craft done. These little details make another spark of inspiration and actually inspired me to do that because I was like, that's genius and I want to do something different.
- [39:26]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, you just never know where the work will kind of permeate and show up somewhere else and who it'll affect. You've never any idea and you never will.
- [39:34]
Radim Malinich
It takes me to a quote by Jony. I've. Who said, you know, obsessing about little details will make people feel that you actually gave a shit about your work. And, like, when you do those little things, they will manifest themselves in. In. In some way or another. I want to. I've got one more question about Fausto before we move on to the next thing. The pacing of the book is simply genius. You say a lot by saying very little with just a few words on a page. Do you ever work with sort of preset paginations? How does your planning work? Because that particular book, in itself, it's got these pockets of excitement. As you can tell, I'm a fucking massive fan of this book, and I'm fascinated, like, how to write as little as possible that you don't feel like you have to add extra words or make the illustration bolder or wider.
- [40:18]
Oliver Jeffers
Well, you know, the daring is the theme of this. And it is daring to be quiet. It's daring to understand that you grab the audience's attention and you're going to hold it and you're going to make them look at something. But the question of pagination is, yes, when you get into larger books, it's less of a structural concern. But with most picture books, they're, you know, they're all multiples of eight. So they're either 32 pages or they're 40 pages, or then you have to jump right up to 56 pages. And if you go beyond 32, then suddenly you're at 40, and you've got these extra pages that you need to fill. But with. With Feisto, I can't remember what it is. I think, is it 112 pages? That might be right. But I knew that I wanted there to be a lot of space. I felt that it was more like the sort of the spacing of contemporary poetry than of a novel or of a film, where it's, you know, the strange line breaks and giving a word an extra effect. I think there's one spread where the only thing on the entire spread is the word eventually, unfortunately.
- [41:12]
Radim Malinich
You didn't put any page numbers on this.
- [41:14]
Oliver Jeffers
No, I didn't. I'm pretty sure it's 112.
- [41:16]
Radim Malinich
Yeah. It feels like 112. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a masterclass in saying a lot by saying so little and so strongly.
- [41:25]
Oliver Jeffers
I think you can say more with, you know, more. More Is less or. Sorry, less is more or less. Because if you can lay out the crumbs so that whoever's reading the book can put it together in their own minds, the impact of that is going to be much more potent because they'll add their own personal experience to it than if you spell out every single word. So, you know, I think the opposite end of that extreme is Steinbeck, whose language is. It's so precise and so extravagant, so flurry, that you've no choice but to be inside his head. But with something like voiceover, there's so few words. It's. You're kind of inside your own head at that point.
- [42:00]
Radim Malinich
Do you reckon. Does your work link up to the quote that you used which says, building strong children is easier than mending broken men?
- [42:10]
Oliver Jeffers
Oh, the Frederick Douglass quote. Yeah, I think there's something to that. Yes. And it's so like a lot of the books, especially since my kids were born, especially since my kids were born, there was this notion of I want to play my part in trying to make the world the sort of place that they will be proud to be a contributing member of that society. And so, yes, there was a matter of, like, how do I deal with things like climate or greed or, like, conflict in a way that will help them become better future adults? So I think there is something to that get with picture books in particular, and with being able to speak in terms that are simple enough you can possibly get to new arrivals on Earth before the evils and cruelties of the.
- [42:54]
Radim Malinich
World with your books. When did you start reading reviews? Have you ever stopped reading reviews?
- [43:00]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, no. Don't really give too much credence to reviews because that's one person's opinion on one day. And, you know, you can get, I think, reviews and awards, you get to, I think, set on external validations. But I also realized that a lot of the reviews were just sort of lazily written copy and paste of the press release. And I was like, why would you even pay too much attention of just somebody who's clearly not paying attention to the details of their own job? And a lot of times whenever somebody's reviewing something and they feel that they have to be critical, they might just land on something that is random rather than something that they truly deeply felt? No, I don't pay too much heat to.
- [43:41]
Radim Malinich
But did you ever have. Did you ever have that very first negative review when you were like, you didn't know how to deal with it? Because I'm speaking from a personal experience. I had my Very first negative review was like, I think I need to go for a walk. Because it was such a new experience, because you put your work out there hoping for the best, and you never prepared for the worst. It's usually the people with such a strong opinion that they actually. They paragraph that stuff. You know, you paragraph and you're like, you really kind of. There's something about you that's not quite right. And my book is just the enabler of the trigger, but I'm only on the receiving end.
- [44:16]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, I mean, I remember. I can't remember what book it was for, but the review was like, it was such that I was able to say to them. I was like, wow. They really didn't. They didn't get what I was trying to do there. There's a disconnect here because that almost feels like a different book that's been reviewed. And then I did. It was like, maybe this is the point of some reviews. Like, that was like, okay, what could I have done that would have got what I was trying to say across more clearly? And, you know, that comes back to that the communicator artist type mentality. But it's. I didn't take it that personally because it was so obvious that they misunderstood the point.
- [44:52]
Radim Malinich
I can tell you that some of the Fausto reviews from people who are just looking for a straightforward book for their children, they're like, what just happened? You know what I mean? Unfortunately, you don't get reviews like, oh, the postman dropped the book one star. You know, the book smells a bit funny, two stars. They're like, just don't buy this for your kids, would you?
- [45:10]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, you'll never make anything that's going to please all the people, but it's the. You know, the people who do like it will say to their friends. And it works like that. But I do remember getting an email or a direct message on social media from somebody, I think they were in Germany, and they're like, what am I supposed to tell my children Happened to Fausto at the end of this book? And I've almost never reply to DMS like that, but this time I did. It was like, you tell him that he died. Like, it's a conversation that I don't think you can really kind of pretend doesn't exist. Like, death is a very realistic part of life, and to pretend otherwise is to maybe set children up unprepared for the future. So I was just like, yeah, you tell him that he died.
- [45:50]
Radim Malinich
I think it's never the nicest thing for children to realize that there's such thing that's awaiting all of us, but unfortunately as the part of life.
- [45:59]
Oliver Jeffers
Well, but you know, there's another book that. There's another book that I made called the Heart in the Bottle. And adults get very emotional about that because it's about a little girl who loses a father figure in her life. And I never specified whether it's a father or grandfather because I think people take their own. You know, if you don't, if you're not completely specific on the details, it allows people room to project their own personal circumstance. Anyway, adults get very emotional about that book, very sad about that book. Children don't, even though they get it because there's. I don't know, there's this still this sort of sense of balance and curiosity in a way that adults have lost and there's an innate sense of understanding and kids about books like that, so that where it's. It just affects them differently. I tried to never underestimate the intelligence of kids when I'm making any of these books.
- [46:48]
Radim Malinich
You allowed yourself to be quite vulnerable earlier, saying, sometimes I'm not sure where I'm going, if this is the right place. You know, am I not enough? Am I doing it right? How do you take your life creatively right now? Do you keep making constant notes about what you want to do or do you have things that come to you in waves or how if somebody wanted to think, ah, you show me your sketchbook.
- [47:10]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, well, you know, right now the work seems to be more project based. And it does feel like there's spinning plates. And so it's a lot of just making sure this plate is spinning and then going back and spinning the first plate. And so some of them are book projects, some of them are gallery shows, some of them are events. And it's just a matter of working backwards from what needs to happen. So, you know, the one thing that I have to be strict about in there is protecting the time to make. And so it's like there's a gallery show that's coming up and I want to enjoy the making of those pieces. So I've learned that I can't do that on days where I'm also doing admin or other sketches for other things. It's just going to be okay. I am only doing this. I'm clearing the space and protecting the space just to allow this to happen. And even if nothing happens, as long as I don't then get on my phone or start emailing or start watching A TV show or something. Even if I just sort of sit and stare, think, and nothing actually is made, that's okay because it's. That's part of the process of. Sometimes you think about something for a long time and then it explodes into life. But it's. Right now there's a lot of project based stuff while also trying to take a little time off during the summer. So it's really quite calendar driven.
- [48:23]
Radim Malinich
I think you said, how do you take time off thinking? Because I believe as creative person, there's nothing more satisfying and more liberating than just have the headspace and the space in your mind to actually be thinking about these ideas and validating them even before you touched any of your sort of art tools. Because you and I met at Paradiso and I was thanks to Hector, who put on this amazing event and I very much enjoyed the fact that you can speak to anyone about anything and validate the fact, in my opinion, that creativity is first and foremost verbal. Like we used to say that this image tells, you know, thousand stories or no image can. Something like that. Right. And I was in. I believe in a time when you've got a thousand words can create a prompt. To create an image, however, is the way of how we can eloquently dance with our words and actually engage someone in their interest and excitement by actually explaining something which almost feels like a movement, like something. Because I was sat there with David Carson, I was like telling him about all of this and he's, well, I'm not convinced. And then he says, actually people like my master class because, you know, and there were no designers. And I'm like, yeah, that's because you've told them what you think and obviously you've made that connection verbally first before they could ever be fans of David Carson's work. So that thinking headspace, I think underestimated at a younger age how much valuable that. Because we are itching to get stuff done. Whereas having the space to think is so valuable.
- [49:47]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah, the space to think, but also being in the right mood for it as well. Which, you know, whenever you're juggling a lot of things, that doesn't always align. But I've learned that, you know, some weeks you get a day's work done and then some days you get a week's work done. And it's as long as you get enough of those over the course of a few months.
- [50:05]
Radim Malinich
Is there a book that you wish you had written or created? Is there anything that's out there that you Were like, oh, that's a masterpiece.
- [50:14]
Oliver Jeffers
Yeah. Do you know what? I was thinking about this recently. Do I have a copy of it here? I don't think so, but there's. There's a book called the Enemy by Serge Block. And it's a beautiful simple story about two soldiers on either side of an on name battle and what they think the other person is. And it's just them in their trenches and just the beautiful simplicity of it. And then they both sneak over and discover the other. The others layer and realize that they're just like them. It's wonderfully done. So that's one that springs to mind.
- [50:43]
Radim Malinich
That's amazing. I need to look it up. I've never heard of that one. One of the things I've taken from your recent conversation is you said, be violently yourself. And that to me seemed like a rallying cry that should be written and pretty much on every sort of town center for people to actually do that. Because when you said it, it's a beautiful dance of three words. But it means so much because you can calm someone down with this at any point of their life. You know, been winning or been losing. If you're violently yourself, then there's nothing to compete for because like the feelings of competition or comparison almost fall away instantly.
- [51:23]
Oliver Jeffers
They do. And just to clarify, I am a pacifist, but it's. It's that sense of just the surge of the fire in you that needs to get out. And it's that. And it's just not allowing the, I suppose that external validation to draw you like a carrot on a stick. It's gotta come from somewhere inside. And the reasons that you wanna be doing things and the reasons that you wanna be making. There's the old raster y quote they always say, be yourself. Everybody else has taken. But Cher said something which I think was better, which is all of us invent ourselves. Some of us just have more imagination than the others.
- [51:55]
Radim Malinich
Would you say it takes a while. It takes a while to accept who you are and how you do things in such a noisy world.
- [52:02]
Oliver Jeffers
It definitely takes a while to accept who you are and how you do things. For some people, it happens sooner than later. Some people land into it through whatever set of circumstances that they do. For me, I was lucky to get to that point in my early 20s. But even then there's still moments of self doubt and moments of productivity. But it's, I suppose that that kind of very obvious center of center of self and the reason that I'm doing things hasn't changed the direction which I go that meanders across a range of places and it's not like there's a direct star and there's a straight line to it, but it's the reason that I'm doing any that hasn't changed. Changed.
- [52:39]
Radim Malinich
That's fantastic. Well, Oliver, thank you for joining me today. I've absolutely cherished this conversation because you've allowed yourself to be, you know, every color of human, which doesn't hold anything back. So I feel you're one of the most eloquent artists out there who makes the world of creativity and world at large better place. So thank you so much for what you do.
- [52:59]
Oliver Jeffers
Thank you for saying so. Cheers.
- [53:01]
Radim Malinich
Deserved thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and suggestions, so please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinj. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Bikes Podcast. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle, including an ebook and audiobook to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do. To get 10% off your order, visit November universe.co.uk and use the code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.