← Daring Creativity
Daring Creativity
Dare to transform fear into permission - Katie Johnson & Ilana Griffo (Goodtype)
00:59:21
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- [00:02]
A
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.
- [00:37]
B
The biggest thing is that common goal. We have the same vision and just keeping that in check. And then the luck, I think was like the way we work together. We're very yin and yang. It's been kind of crazy to watch it unfold, I think.
- [00:49]
C
I used to think compatibility in a partnership would look like sameness and agreeing all the time. And what I've discovered in trials and errors with other partnerships versus this one is that this one actually works better. Because we're such a yin and yang with our strengths and weaknesses, we really fill in the gaps that the other one has and hold up the other person's strengths and allow them to step into those. And it's taken time to find out where those things were and to really get to know each other and go through a lot of projects and a lot of failures too.
- [01:33]
A
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast. The 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, affections and making them count. Becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinj. 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 question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? Today, I'm speaking with Katie and Elana, also known as Good Type. In our free flowing conversation, they shared with me their unconventional journey from strangers who connected over art licensing to becoming business partners. As they both come from different creative backgrounds, they discovered graphic design and eventually typography. This conversation explores their complementary partnership dynamic, working remotely across the country and their philosophy of community over competition. They emphasize the importance of relationships over technical skills, following authentic passion rather than just profit, and approaching business decisions as experiments rather than make or break commitments. It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Katie and Alana. Katie, Elana, how are you doing?
- [03:19]
C
Great over here.
- [03:21]
B
Yeah, we're chugging along.
- [03:23]
A
Thanks very much for coming to talk to me today because as you know, I'm Currently talking to all sorts of people about topic of daring creativity. Daring forever daring creativity being a topic that is not about jumping out of planes. It's about doing the thing that you wish that you've started and not regret never starting it. We are always creative, we always try and something, we always on something on a mission to explore. So what I'd love to know, it's how did you two form Good Type? How did this come together and potentially how is the influences from early parts of your life influencing where you are today?
- [04:00]
C
Yeah, so I think the main thing that people don't realize is that we did not start Good Type. It was actually started by Bode Robinson, who lives also here in Austin, Texas, where I live. But Bode went on a trip up and down the west coast and saw a bunch of amazing signage and was documenting it and sharing it in the Good type Instagram account. In the heyday of Instagram where you could post things and people would actually see them and respond and oh, I remember those days. And she was posting just amazing typography that she was just drooling over on her trip and it caught on and the account grew like wildfire and it turned into just this inspiration account for awesome typography. And so how we fit in to that story. Alana, do you want to tell that part?
- [04:55]
B
Yeah. We actually have to go back even before we come into this picture because Katie and I already had a business together and the way that that started was I had seen Katie's work on the Good Type feed when Bodhi was running it and I had started following Katie and slid into her DMs and basically was like, I love your work, yada yada. And then she had posted about art licensing, which was how I was making money as an artist. I was full time freelance at the time and I think Katie had just gone freelance maybe like a couple years earlier or that year, I don't know. Okay. So the year before and I had been freelancing for a while, I was doing a lot of licensing and so I slid into Katie's DMs and I was like, that's so cool that you're licensing. She said she was going to make a class and I said, that's so cool. I'm hoping to make a class one day. And Katie just had the lovely idea to say, why don't we try working together on it? Since we're to talk about the same thing. We formed a business together to create this course and just had so much fun working on it together that we ended up forming an LLC and working together in a different capacity. And at that point, we reached out to Bode and said, hey, we'd love to bring this education we're doing to your community. It's how we met. We'd love to share it with people. And it went so well that Bode asked us for a call after and said, I love what you're doing. It's what I've envisioned for good. Taylor, would you bring your skill set to Good Type? So it's like a very roundabout way of getting there. But Katie and I had started working.
- [06:23]
C
Together first, and Bode had wanted to just like fully step away from Good Type at that point because they just felt like she wanted to go in a different direction and pursue more of their personal artistic practice. So it all came together in a very kismet type of way. It was awesome. She brought us in and it was like she had this amazing community of a million people that she didn't want it to just die and crumble with her leaving. So, yeah, it was cool that she could pass it on to somebody. Two of us who, like, deeply cared about it and who had, like, good type was really important to us meeting each other. So it all felt very full circle.
- [07:07]
A
So the love of type. Now we're gonna start rewinding back a bit because what was your way into typography?
- [07:14]
C
Yeah, well, I was actually very ignorant of type in the beginning, and I had zero plans to be a graphic designer or do anything design related until, like, my senior year in high school. That's when I really discovered that it was a thing that I was interested in. Before that, I was on the musician track. I was going to be a singer and musician like my parents, but my big rebellion was to become a graphic designer. But when I decided to go into graphic design on my schedule for college was typography one. And I knew so little about typography that I was like, that's interesting that we're delving into, like, map making this early on in, like, graphic design, that seems like an advanced thing, if a thing at all. So I thought that it was topography. So I showed up ready to map out some maps. I didn't know what was going on, so that's how little I knew. And so it was really school and like my peers and everything that had to show me what was up and help me fall in love with it.
- [08:21]
A
I like the flexibility of a future graphic designer. I've come already to make some topography. Have you done it? Before. No, it's so true.
- [08:29]
B
I feel like graphic designers, graphic design is such a nice umbrella for like literally anything. I feel like you could be like, yeah, I'm a map maker, but I got my degree in graphic design. But there's just so many ways you can use design.
- [08:40]
C
I was like, okay, I'm gonna get my compass, I'm gonna get a straight edge. I'm gonna really brush up on this.
- [08:47]
A
I don't know which it takes you to graphic design. Joe's when you are beautifully ignorant, you really should be asking more questions. But you get a creative brief, which is not really creative or brief doesn't make any sense. Can you make it? Of course I can. Do you know what you're doing? Absolutely not.
- [09:02]
B
I think that's one of the things about graphic design is that people, and I, I think I was ignorant to this once too, is like you're not just making things look pretty, but like you, you need to have the strategy and the marketing. And I think that's usually what separates good from great, is that if you're willing to just make it look good, then that's wonderful. But that's almost production. Production is making it work and making sure like things are in where they're supposed to be. But the strategy and the messaging is a really huge piece of it and probably not a piece that gets emphasized enough in any training for graphic design. But I think that's where the like true magic happens is when the like messaging and just like conceptual things happen. Not to be like content is king, but it kind of is. I was pretty up for it.
- [09:48]
A
I'm gonna throw in a piece of information I've learned only a few days ago. And it was a conversation between a couple of BBC doctors and a behavioral scientist. And she was talking about the fact that we are almost pre programmed by society to say yes, to come across as compliant. That's a societal thing. Whereas if you say no, that makes you sound like you're defiant and you don't wanna seem defiant so you wanna go with the flow. And I think what we sort of touching on slowly and vaguely is that as designers, especially from childhood, if you go into your first few design jobs or first few design commissions, you're more likely to say yes because that makes you look like you're actually the right person for the job or you're going to do the right job. Whereas where we really should go, this doesn't make any sense. We should really be looking after ourselves. But how did your topography of thinking that you're saying yes to topography. How did Aden turn out to be the next step to where you are today?
- [10:48]
C
Well, I was actually a little bit scared of. And when I say a little bit, I guess I should say a lot of it. I was a lot of bit scared of typography once I found out what it actually was. Because in my school, and I've talked to Alana a lot about this, and just a lot of people in general, they find in schools or, I don't know, there's this weird. The people who do know what they're talking about around typography have a tendency to be a little scary. They're very intense, they're very passionate, they have very specific opinions, and they're. I think a lot of them, or what I ran into early on was a lot of black and white thinking and a lot of, this is a good typeface, this is a bad type face, and if you use the bad typeface, you're a bad designer and you don't know enough. So it was very scary to include type in my early designs when I had so little background and I just didn't really know anything about the history of design or what I was doing. And so I was terrified that I was gonna put something on the page that then I was gonna show up in class and put on the wall and people were gonna be, like, snickering under their breath, and I can't believe she used Euro style. What the heck? And, yeah, so I felt a little bit scarred and, like, afraid to just delve into that. And lettering was just, like, a step further. I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't even pick the right typefaces. How can I become a lettering artist? Or, like, how can I delve into lettering? So I steered clear for a long time, and I only felt comfortable enough to dip my toe back in when I had more confidence as a designer, like, after school, and when I started seeing a community of people who were in kind of the same level as I was on Instagram. So that was like a huge cue for me to be able to step in, was seeing, okay, there are other people that aren't, like, the king of the type world, but yet they're still posting their stuff on Instagram and, like, putting themselves out there and just figuring it out. And so it felt like a permission slip for me to be able to do that as well.
- [12:54]
A
Before I ask Ilana about the same thing, I had a conversation with Gemma o', Brien, who started her sort of creative journey in typography. I spoke to Eleni Vivarato, who's very much at the forefront of typography. I used to find typographers intimidating or intense, or should I say, because as you said, like, it was a black and it feels like a black and white thinking people are lovely, but they're just. Apparently they care. They care about what they do, how they do it, what we should be doing, potentially care about how we should be perceiving typography as society, but maybe do it a little bit less intense. And I think it's changing. I think. I mean, that's. I think that's definitely changed, but it was. I think we all have a collective idea that sometimes you think, have I got the only impression of this? But no.
- [13:38]
C
Well, you know what, it's funny that when you actually then go and meet these people that are like, killing it and that are actually the people who are most active in the type world and at the top of their game, like 80% of them are not so intense about it. So it's like the people that are in the middle kind of protecting their view of what typography should be. And then there's people who are like, at the top and I think they get to the top because they're like, personable and friendly and they have that relationship piece as well. I mean, there's definitely like protectors of type at the top and people who care and people who are passionate, but they're way less intimidating, I find, when they're like, tippy top of the career ladder than they are kind of somewhere in the middle land.
- [14:25]
A
It's funny, maybe it's just a good old insecurity manifesting itself in such way. Maybe it's just all that that's the.
- [14:31]
C
Hitting the nail on the head right there. Yeah, for sure, Ilana.
- [14:35]
A
I mean, so we've heard that Katie wanted to be a musician and I've got questions about that. But, Ilana, what was your creative background? Did you grow up with creative parents or what was your surroundings?
- [14:44]
B
I did. My mom was very creative. She had a business where she would go into museums and basically, or like any place doesn't have to be a museum, that's just a significant one. She would find a way for education to meet creativity. And so one of the projects she worked on while I was growing up was taking this museum from a doll museum and turning it into the National Museum of Play. And so their job was to figure out how do we display things. They worked with a graphic designer and strategist and how do we display things so that kids can learn while they're having fun and while things look kid friendly and so that kids are interested in Lear. And so she was always like doing projects. I mean, we would come home and like walls would be painted, furniture would be taken apart. Very creative. And my dad's an entrepreneur, so I feel like I got a really amazing mix of the two. And my sister's a fine artist, so there was definitely a lot of creativity. And I found myself glued to the show Trading Spaces, which I don't know if you had it, if you've ever seen it, but it was terrible. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [15:51]
A
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- [16:44]
C
But yeah, clips of it are resurfacing again. I keep seeing it pop up, but.
- [16:49]
B
I for sure thought that I wanted to be an interior designer because my room was like my space to do whatever I wanted and express myself. And so I knew I wanted to be like in the creative world in some fashion and design felt just so much more me. And I thought it would be interior design and I just liked that it was like clean and getting my hands dirty wasn't always the thing. Like I liked doing pottery and painting, but not at the level that maybe my sister would have liked it. And so when I went to school, I knew I was going for fine art. And then pretty much the same as Katie. I took my first type class. I interviewed at both departments and I just fell in love with graphic design. And I think like every graphic designer, my first project was designing like a CD cover or like an album cover. And I just was like, that's so cool. It's. Yeah, it's on the computer. You don't have to get your hands dirty. It felt organized in a way that was like something I craved. Like that system where you just had a file and everything within the file could be named and it just Had a structure that I craved. I loved everything about it. And so I was, like, hooked from then on. So, yeah, definitely was, like, in my blood, I think.
- [17:58]
A
I think joining the dots from your parents to where you are now, you're kind of doing the same thing. You're helping people through play to learn. And whilst they're having fun and doing the thing that potentially can really enjoy.
- [18:09]
B
I'll make sure I tell my mom that. She'd be so proud.
- [18:11]
A
She should be. Absolutely. And, Katie, you wanted to be a musician. What music was making you excited?
- [18:19]
C
Well, I grew up around jazz. My dad was a really big jazz fanatic and still is. And both of my parents are also classically trained, but that wasn't so much my jam, so I was really gravitating towards jazz and I thought I would be a jazz vocalist. My dad played timpani and drums, and he played with the Brazil Philharmonic Orchestra, and he was bopping around playing with a lot of cool people. And my mom was an elementary music school teacher, but she had this amazing background and a beautiful singer and sings in church choirs and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, they constantly had music playing in my house, and it just seeped in. And I still get that out with writing and singing, mostly for myself. And I have a big store of stuff on my computer that I've written, and some of it's out into the world, but most of it's just for me because I feel like I needed to keep some kind of play precious and not exposed or monetized in a way. And maybe at some point that'll evolve, but for right now, I'm just kind of enjoying creating for me. And just my husband, he works with me on those as well.
- [19:37]
A
That's amazing. I was like, you can see my eyes when you say jazz. I was like, oh, right. Okay.
- [19:42]
C
Are you a jazz guy?
- [19:43]
A
I'm a full spectrum, but anything that sort of comes from jazz is. Yeah, it's always the best music. And I was listening to an interview with Chet Faker just yesterday, and he was talking, like, how he started listening to a lot of jazz and realized that jazz is not just a sort of choice of music you want to play, it's just the way you express yourself. But actually it feels more in line how your soul wants to come out, rather than how do I need to form this pop song into the format that potentially tiktokers might use it. So you've got quite diverse backgrounds, but they come together in a perfect concoction and perfect mixture of influences and Information. So you got the reins to the account from Bode, come together, and obviously before this point, you didn't work with anyone on any sort of businesses together, so you don't live in the same place. Am I right?
- [20:30]
C
Correct.
- [20:31]
B
Yeah.
- [20:31]
C
We're on opposite sides of the country. Alana's in Rochester, New York, and I'm in Austin, Texas.
- [20:37]
A
Excellent. So working together remotely, having a business together remotely, how does that work?
- [20:45]
C
It's a great question.
- [20:47]
B
I think it works because we've worked really hard at it, but I think also we got really lucky. I don't know, like, what else to say besides luck, but I think the stars aligned somehow for us, and we are really compatible, and we really seem to bring out the best in each other. But that has also come with, like, tough conversations, and our hearts are in the same place, so we really want the best for each other. And I think actually not being in the same city probably has been to our benefit, but because we built a relationship based on business first and a common goal, and from there realized, because we were business first and common goal, it was like we were working on a collaborative project. And then when it ended, we were like, that was. That went pretty, pretty well, don't you think? Maybe we should do it again. And so I think a couple things that we've taken away are the first thing is when you're working with a partner, making sure that you are equally invested. And I don't mean just financially, because that's a big piece, but also emotionally and thankfully. Katie and I mean, I have two kids. Katie has a dog and two cats and a wonderful husband. And we've had to say, these are my personal. This is what's really important to me personally. And we have to respect that about the other person, even though we have very different lives. And so that's first and foremost is always, like, making sure our humanity is cared for and our self. Love is first. But I think the biggest thing is, like, that common. The other big thing is that common goal. We have the same vision, and we share that with Bode as well, and just keeping that in check. And then the luck, I think, was like, the way we work together, we're very yin and yang. It's been kind of crazy to watch it unfold.
- [22:27]
C
We got to expand a little on the yin and yang, I think. I used to think compatibility in a partnership would look like sameness and agreeing all the time. And what I've discovered in trials and errors with other partnerships versus this one is that this one actually Works better because we're such a yin and yang with our strengths and weaknesses. We really fill in the gaps that the other one has and hold up the other person's strengths and allow them to step into those. And it's taken time to find out where those things were and to really get to know each other and go through a lot of projects and. And a lot of failures too, to do that properly, to be able to see where those areas are where we can lift each other up and help each other out and fill each other in.
- [23:18]
A
It's such a good thing to hear. That is the yin and yang and more. Because in our naive early stages of our lives, you think, I need someone who's like me for relationship, for being in bands or doing potentially startup businesses. And then you realize you don't want to be looking in the mirror or going all the time. So let's say some designers be like, oh, this is my work. I need to clone myself so I can do more of the same thing faster. Then you realize, actually, you know what, being pushed and being challenged and being shown that there's another option, once you get past that initial mindset, it's so liberating. Because in your case, did you have to initially decide your strengths and weaknesses and did you decide who was going to do what or did you delegate your tasks or how was it in your. What? I've written down a long distance relationship.
- [24:07]
C
Yeah, that's really what it is.
- [24:08]
B
I think they unfolded naturally and we just said them to each other. So Katie would say, hey, you were really good at this. And I would say, I really hate doing this. And she'd be like, oh, I don't mind doing that. And just that willingness to be honest with each other about things. But there are things that I now know about myself that I am good at that I wouldn't have known if Katie hadn't pointed them out. And that also gives me the confidence to do them.
- [24:34]
C
Yeah, same. I feel like I know myself so much more now after this working relationship than any other period of my life has exposed that to me. So it's been really, really helpful.
- [24:45]
A
It totally now snatched my question because you guys bonded over licensing. Is that right? That's the juicy topic. That's how long distance relationships are formed. Licensing. So who started it? Who was first?
- [25:03]
B
Well, Katie posted on her stories that she was gonna talk about. She was gonna do a class on art licensing. And I wrote her and said, that's so cool. It's been on my list. I have some notes Written down about what I'm gonna talk about. I can't wait to learn from you. See how our experiences are different. And Katie, instead of writing back, screw you, that's my idea. She wrote back and said, wanna do it together?
- [25:26]
C
Well, I should be honest and say that I had that thought. The thought went through my head when I got the dm. I was like, darn it, I thought I had carved out this niche. Nobody was talking about lettering for art licensing. And I thought I'd found this special thing and somebody else is in my DMs telling me she has the same idea. Well, I had the opportunity to just be like, forget it and kind of throw in the towel to be mad at her, to look at it as a competitive thing. And I let all those feelings pass through cuz I'm human. And then I was able to, once I was less emotional, pull back and just be like, hey, aren't you always talking about community over competition? And aren't you about a rising boat or a rising tide, lifts all sales, that kind of thing? And so this is probably not the behavior that you want to act out. You probably want to do something more aligned with what you say your values are. So that snapped me out of it. And then I rethought it and realized we could make something better and from two different perspectives of two artists who'd had this foray into licensing and that would. And we'd have twice the reach and this could be an actual better situation than the one that I was in. And it turned out it literally changed my whole life. Life. So yeah, I think I'm really glad that I took some time and rethought it.
- [26:55]
A
That's excellent. So having an licensing experience, obviously you don't come to it as a sort of fresh topic because you kind of, you have to. Am I right to say live it before you can teach it? Right. You like you learn, do and share. So what was your prior experience with licensing and why did you. I guess you must have realized it's quite a topic that could be valuable to many. So what was your experience with licensing and how did you get to that point that you thought people need to know about it?
- [27:25]
B
Well, I think both of us, we both fell into licensing by like a client basically saying, great, we want to license this. And then we said, absolutely. And then we googled it and we realized there was very little information. So it was really based on our own experience when we were trying to find the information and it became a huge part of our income Stream and we realized we were doing so much work to try and figure it out that there were probably plenty of other artists just like us who were also trying to figure this out. And if they weren't trying to figure it out, they probably didn't even know it existed. And it had been really lucrative for us. And it just seemed so silly that no one else was talking about it or that we couldn't find people specifically in the lettering world that we're talking about it. And I think we have done that. I think we've opened the door for other artists. I mean we see so many more artists licensing their work now or at least understanding what a license is. And I think it's definitely much more spoken about. It's still a weird kind of closed door industry, but I do think it's definitely more prevalent. And yeah, it was really impactful to us in our careers and opened a lot of doors for us. So it seemed only fair to spread that wealth with other people.
- [28:37]
A
Absolutely. And you're right about the information being sparse, especially some years ago because I learned about usage when I had my stint as an illustrator in advertising. And then you get to hear, oh, you're going to pay, you're going to get paid usage fee. And I'm like, what? No one ever told you that, am I? And then you realize, oh, this campaign's been renewed. Like, yeah, I need to pay for this. Thank you. It's just. This is fun. I remember watching this campaign, it was for a lotto here in the UK and I had a big poster company, like a big key visual which was going for year second year. And I'm like, that's a lot of money in the usage fees. And I'm literally looking at my watch like in two days time it's either going to come down or I'm going to get paid again. It's come and it came down. But I remember like how I was. I knew to the date that if it was being renewed it would be renewed by that day. But this is great because you guys still talk about licensing and it's still a call on one of your core messages because we always get new people that come into the game that need to know this. So it's always going to be valid, useful to many. When did you realize that other avenues of education and creativity and business should be taught explained to people?
- [29:45]
C
I think about the same time or whenever we were going out to start our own art businesses in general and support ourselves. Alana did have entrepreneurs in her family, but I did not. And I have. My dad is my biggest supporter, but he's also, he like very risk averse. And he's very much about calculated risk. Like he wants me to find the things that I love but be really reasonable while I'm trying to achieve them. It's like a parental keeping me safe kind of thing. So my kind of goal, I guess, going out on my own. Before I left my original 9 to 5 job, I made like a 40 page business plan. And because I wanted to be able to pass it around at our weekly dinner and see my dad be like, okay, she can do it. She's got this. Because it was really a reflection of my own fears. But yeah, around that whole time just delving into entrepreneurship, not having known anything about it. And I have this art education, but I don't have a business education. I felt very intimidated by that. And the way that business is usually taught is usually not typically geared towards artists or creatives. So I was finding a lot of it very cold and not aligning with like how much of art is about following your authentic self. And a lot of the business advice I was seeing was like cut and dry, follow the money kind of thing. And not just there was a layer missing. So yeah, I felt that, what's it called, a disparity. That's the word I'm looking for. And knew that I needed to fill it in.
- [31:32]
B
Yeah, I think for me I had this idea. It's actually an idea I pitched to a project. Katie and I like applied for the same residency before we met each other. And my idea was to create a workbook for because I had that was raised in a house that entrepreneurship never felt like this thing that was on a pedestal. It was just like another option. Like it always felt like something that was in my reach. Because I grew up in a house with entrepreneurs. It was never like on this pedestal. It was just one of the options. And so I had this idea to write a workbook and it would be about how to make business more accessible for creatives. Because when I went freelance, I felt like really equipped to go freelance. Like I felt like I knew what I was doing. I definitely didn't have a 40 page business plan like Katie, but I felt like I had the tools I needed and that I would figure it out. And I did have a business plan. It was just like five pages and jumbled. But so I had pitched that for a residency. And then when I didn't get the residency, I pitched it to publishers and I got a book deal. And it went on to be. Right. Right. When I met Katie, I think it was already published, but it was like starting to pick up traction. Right. Was it published?
- [32:45]
C
Yeah. You were just like releasing the photos, I feel like, and I. I remember seeing them for the first time.
- [32:52]
B
Yeah. So it ended up doing really well. It was sold in obviously where books are sold, but it was sold in anthropology stores, which was like. Felt like such a big win because it was such a demographic I wanted to tap into. It was like an Amazon bestseller featured in a Forbes article. And like that was like deep in my core, something that I wanted to do. And Katie just shared that exact same, all the thoughts from it. And when we did the course, the whole same message was like, at the core of it was helping other people feel more secure in taking creativity in by means of business and merging those two worlds. And so I think really in everything we've done, that's been like our deep down in our core, what we want to help people with, whether it's for licensing or bettering their lettering skills, or bringing them together and connecting them with people who they can collaborate with or like suggesting people for jobs or referring people. It's like always been about helping other people to pursue something that for Katie didn't feel. Felt maybe inevitable, but like less risk averse. But for me, like, I think just felt something that I could access, something that was available to me and it doesn't seem like it was available to everyone else.
- [34:02]
A
Katie, you said your dad was risk adverse, but did you see him that way?
- [34:08]
C
Well, he makes. I kind of amended what I said because he makes calculated risks. I think he just needs to have the logic and the plan to back things up. But I mean, he did some really amazing things in his career that were not easy steps to make, and he did. He's done some very courageous things. So, yeah, I don't mean to sound like he's ever holding me back, it's just that he instilled in me the importance of having strategy behind the things that I do. Yeah. And sometimes my anxiety takes it a little further than perhaps is actually healthy, but I've been really working on toning that back lately.
- [34:51]
B
But Katie, strategy is like one of the things that you're so good at. Like we were talking about our roles earlier and like, my role is very rarely strategy. My role is get out there and get it started. And Katie will be like, just like a friendly reminder, where are we going? She has to pull up that all that she learned in her topography class, like the map, the compass is pointing the opposite direction right now.
- [35:16]
C
But I struggle with getting it started because I'm too busy writing my 40 page business plan. So that's how we balance each other out.
- [35:24]
A
That's how you roll. So you are juggling quite a few different things because obviously you inspire people for your Instagram, you've got your community, you do your education stuff and you've got your studio. You talk about quite a lot about licensing and I want to know how much of focus and time and split sort of percentages you go actually for commission work and how much do you actually pre make work for licensing if that's still the case?
- [35:51]
B
Yeah, that's a good question. I think it comes down to the season. So like you said, we're juggling a lot of things. I think we all are as creatives. I think we're always jumping around and that's probably what makes us candidates for self employment. But in this current season, right now we're working on our book that comes out in the spring, we're working on our current, which is our virtual conferen. And we're not making as much art as we did two months ago where we were pretty much solely focused on adding pieces to our portfolio. So it really comes in waves. And I think we've got a pretty good mix now of 20% of this, 20% of that. But it just comes in every week looks a little bit different and I think that keeps things chugging along.
- [36:37]
C
Yeah, I think the biggest thing to explain here too is that working with growing the education side of our business and all of those offerings, we had less and less time to do our own art. And I got to a place of a bit of burnout from all of that, just not attending to some of my own creative needs as much. And that came at the end ish of last year. And so we, we only opened, quote, unquote, our good type studio at the very beginning of this year and have started to try and refocus so that we can intentionally make space and time to make the art. This comes though knowing that some of these choices aren't based in that kind of logic I was talking about earlier where businesses are usually taught to follow the money. Some of these choices that we want to make, that's going more towards the art, sometimes that's at the expense of other doing other things with our time, taking on sponsorships, taking on creating more courses, things like that could technically create a larger financial impact. So yeah, that's something that we're Figuring out how our business looks with this new model, but with our mental health and our happiness at the center. I think that's the older I get, the less I'm willing to sprint towards a hill that I know when I get to the top of, I'm just gonna look around and be like, well, now what?
- [38:11]
A
Well, you said quite nicely, it was like, not necessarily following the money is more liberating choice. It's not what. It's not what many people want to hear. But when you don't follow the money, you find yourself being a lot less stressed because you are actually focusing on what really is, what inside you, how you want to express your soul, what you want to do, your creativity, or what's. How much of dopamine you want to get back and how much of sort of return on that sort of emotional investment you're going to get. I want to know in the world that still prefers you to be singular and position yourself as a typographer or type designer or illustrator. You've got five different things that you do. How do people find you, that you available for type? Do you go out to them? Did you get work for licensing contacts? Like, how do you do this? Because you can make it rewarding for yourself, but too busy for the others to understand it.
- [39:01]
B
Yeah, I think something else to say is just that we. It's a huge privilege to be able to say we're not going to just follow the money, we're going to follow our hearts. And we've worked really hard. Not to say that you work hard and it'll happen, but we have worked hard and really focused on setting up our education to be more passive. And I think that there's like a real big misconception with passive income because it's like we're never not working on it, but we're just not building a course. We're marketing our course. And that's just like a different way to. That's a different type of work. But we do a lot of outreach, and because there's two of us, we can focus on different things. So if we have a client deadline, one of us might work on that while the other one is working on marketing. And one of us might be work on outreach while the other one works on something else. And so that's worked in our favor. But we also have had, I think, what, 20 years of freelancing between the two of us before we started working together. So we have a lot of contacts and past clients that we can tap into as well. And I Think there's, like, something about freelancers where when you're, like, destined to work for yourself, I think you're just, like, you're gonna figure it out. I don't know if it's that we're, like, willing to do things to make it work or we're gonna make it happen. And so I think a lot of it is like throwing spaghetti at the wall. And then when something sticks, we go in that direction for a little bit. I don't know, Katie, did I forget anything?
- [40:24]
C
I think Alana is really great at the relationship piece, which is arguably the most important piece of finding work. Everything is based on relationships. And, oh, I know this cousin of this lady that I met at the grocery store and who literally just did that. Juana's the actual queen of that. And she. And you do that just by being a good, fun person, like a good kind hearted person who, like, listens to other people and engages. And I think that those are skills that aren't emphasized very much in typical graphic design education, but they have served us the best out of any skills. Like, it's more important to have that than to have the best design skills in the world. If I had to pick between which one of those I wanted to crank to a hundred, I would crank the relationship skills for sure.
- [41:18]
A
The listening itself is a superpower, absolute superpower. What you Describe it combined 20 years of experience and relationships. This is your momentum. This is your plane taking off, going through the bumpy bed at the cruising altitude, going. We've worked on this. We, like, we actually got somewhere where we can enjoy potentially doing other things and add interesting things to the mix. And it's. Some of those relationships were created and the slightly noisier times where you've got time to. Yeah, okay. Instagram's been around for 10 years. Like, we've been doing sort of things on the side and promoting ourselves, but it feels like the relationship slightly more. I want to use the word easier, but they were like, more human, more or less synthetic.
- [42:00]
B
Yeah. Instagram is so surface level. I feel like you think you know someone. And I'm just realizing that this. There's probably a perception that Katie and I are, like, new at this. And because we're new to good type. I mean, good type was around well before us. And we're not coming to it in just like, overnight a success or anything like that. But we're not new at this. We've been in this field for a long time. And yeah, I think there's. There's misconceptions when you judge someone by their Internet presence. For sure. But we've been at this for a while. But I think, like Katie said, like, we're not afraid to go out there and ask for something. But I think because we're also leading with heart and community and enjoying what we do, we're not trying to be the biggest agency. We're not trying to make a billion dollars overnight. We're not trying to get the biggest Instagram following.
- [42:50]
C
I just want to feel creatively fulfilled and I want to feed my family.
- [42:55]
B
Like, we didn't go into a field where we're like, wow, we're gonna be loaded. Like, we're gonna make the most money of anyone. Like, we just want to make a great, a good living doing something that we love. And it's not a trade off, one versus the other. Yeah, we would probably offer different services if that's what we were looking for.
- [43:14]
A
But what you approaching it with is questions. It's constant questions like, how could this work better? How can we better someone else's careers? How can we better the industry? How can we do this? Because I might have repeated this recently on my podcast, maybe more than once, but the quote is, the sale happens when you're listening. Like when you listen to someone, when they tell you everything about this and you ask them more and more questions, they were more or less bring themselves to asking for a solution rather than going, hey, I'm a graphic designer. What can I do for you to be like, what do you actually do? But when you listen to someone all the time, and sometimes you can apply this method, which is called questions only. So you don't say anything about yourself and you just ask questions and ask questions. I do it a lot with Uber drivers and my kids hate it.
- [44:01]
B
Dad, you're embarrassing us.
- [44:03]
A
Why does, why does daddy talk to everyone all the time? But I love the fact that you get so much more trust and value from people just because you care about who they are, what they want. And I think that's a kind of superpower because in creativity itself, when you think about creative blogs, those just unguarded thoughts, they're conflicted, unguarded thoughts. Whereas if you had the question, just like you're going to walk out of your front door, you're going to, if I'm going to do one step, I'm going to be okay. If I do another one, I'm going to be okay. And you kind of, you plan it, you think about it, like how to do this and questioning the process is such a beautiful thing because it removes you from the core of the problem and puts you on the outside of it. So with your creative education and review processes, how much of this sort of approach to curiosity do you sometimes feel like you need to almost instill into your students or into your community group?
- [44:58]
C
Well, this year we've dubbed the year of experiments for ourselves. And that's exactly the mindset that we're kind of trying to take on and then share with other people. So we've been trying different experiments where we are not so invested in the outcome and so tied into it and emotionally invested. It's more about approaching it from like a scientific way. So one of the things that we're facing is getting really fed up with social media and everybody's been feeling so unseen and buried and just grossed out by the vibes, I think, that have come about with social media. So, like, we just did a 30 day experiment where we tried LinkedIn and we just posted on there for 30 days and we were looking at the analytics and like what worked and what didn't, and one of my posts went semi viral. And how did that happen? And what kind of inquiries did we get out of it? And then we've been sharing it in like a lab report kind of style. We just, our podcast episode about that one just came out and we literally put released like a little lab report on Instagram in a carousel that had like little graphs and stuff just to kind of point to, hey, this isn't about showing you the next hot thing or like giving you five steps to a hundred k. It's about approaching things with curiosity and seeing what happens and reporting back. And so I think that is something that we're actively trying to get in our own heads and then instill in students and viewers as well. Because I think it's just a really like, much healthier way to go through life as an observer, as, I mean, you're gonna have emotions and you're gonna have things cycle through your head. Like my initial responses to Alana's dm where I was insecure and upset and then I took time and viewed the facts and saw that if I actually put this together with the things that I have at my disposal, I can actually make this a better scenario for both of us.
- [47:09]
A
So review your experiments. I get to see this as alignment with daring creativity because you're doing things you might potentially would have regretted not doing. What else have you tried or what else is on your radar of things that you might do that you wish to start.
- [47:25]
C
Well, I think starting our studio is definitely one of them. Writing a book. We are currently in the experiment of. And I'm trying to. Yeah, I have the emotional ups and downs of the feelings during it, but I am trying to also look at the. Just the experience because I think we're going to try and rep, like, do it again. We have lots of book ideas, so now that we're paying attention to the process so that we can refine and make it better for ourselves in the future. What are some experiments that you want to do? We have specific clients that we want to do outreach to and more outreach experiments in general. But what are some others? Alana?
- [48:05]
B
Yeah, I mean, I have been doing my own experiment on TikTok, which is like iffy to do in the US because we don't really know. We don't really know. So I've been doing that and just seeing, like, how do I feel? Cause I have a very different emotional tie to TikTok and I find that I really enjoy creating things for that platform as opposed to Instagram. And we've also talked about doing it on Pinterest as well because Katie's had a lot of people reach out to her from Pinterest and we're like, oh, you know, what way of connecting with clients and building relationships feels the best for us. I think it's like kind of our ongoing experiment.
- [48:40]
C
We had some. I have a bunch of small ones that were on my initial list that it's just felt like such a hectic year, but I just need to make some time to do these things. What if I did Pomodoro Sprints for a whole week and just did nothing but that? Would I hate my life? Or would I be more productive? And it might very well be I might hate my life. Well, lesson learned. And little things like that. What if I just set aside a week to just make art for no one but myself? Those types of smaller questions that can lead to a bit more playful kind of findings. I think I want to sprinkle more throughout our workflow.
- [49:22]
B
We've also decided we want to see what working with other people is like. Not. This is just like a two person. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. I want to make it clear it's not. But together we'd like to. We have this really great photography duo that we knew that we know and we were like, what would it be like if we did a passion project with them with no client, with no. Just for fun? What would that look like? How fun would that be? And I Think, Yeah, we've just got some things that we want to try. I mean, like, personally too. Like, I was like, what if I just up picked. Pick up crocheting again? What would I make? And I set a reading goal for myself for the year. I mean, I love to read, so it's not so hard, but just like, little things like that where we just are leading with more curiosity and questions than we are. Like, my goal for the year is to accomplish this, and if I don't accomplish it, I'm a failure. And I think just that mindset has helped us a lot to try things and be okay with whatever findings we have and making sure we look at that as data instead of I'm defining success.
- [50:24]
A
Well, Katie, I can tell you that I've just been rereading 4000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman, and he was a productivity geek, and he said, basically doing the Pomodoro technique is pretty much a version of insanity. So I think, see. See if you can. If you can replicate it.
- [50:38]
C
But I could see that I'm. I'm such a person who doesn't seem like I would fit into Pomodoro's at all. And I've only tried it one time, and I actually got a lot done. But I think if I did it for a whole week, I would rip maybe all of my hair out. But we could try a couple days, see how she goes.
- [50:56]
A
It's the continuous repetition of it. I think it's just like doing it once for 25 minutes over, and a few times there's not a problem. But actually trying to really stick to.
- [51:04]
C
It, well, that's the experiment. At what point do I start to pull the hairs out?
- [51:09]
B
It's interesting too, because, like, I've always thought it was interesting. And it really depends on, like, your wiring. If you suffer from getting too tight in tunnel vision and then you forget about the other things that need to happen, then maybe it could be worth trying. But also, some things do require just, like a lot of your attention and.
- [51:29]
C
Switch even harder the apt to just stare at my computer and the same thing for the entire day and forget to eat and sleep and pee.
- [51:38]
B
Yeah, I mean, that can be okay. Yeah, maybe it's. Maybe it's a longer Pomodoro.
- [51:46]
C
Yeah, we'll report back once I've experimented with it.
- [51:50]
A
Well, I'm looking forward to reading a report on the Pomodoro on your website. But before I let you go, tell me more about a conference and why'd you do it?
- [51:58]
B
Yeah, Katie, you take this one because I think it was your idea from the get go.
- [52:03]
C
Yeah, I think I was reading the How I built this book. I think that, yeah, I think that's what was happening. And they were just talking about the importance of bringing your community together in one space and how, how that can really impact your, the future of your community and your brand and everything. And I was like, absolutely. This feels like such a natural fit to kind of bring everybody together. And we picked virtually at first because post Covid world first of all and like keeping expenses down and it's just kind of work like we did look into. Well, I guess I should backtrack and say it's a conference. It's a currently a virtual conference that's usually about three days and it just brings the global type community, design nerds, artists, anyone interested in art, entrepreneurship of any kind can really benefit from coming to this summit. And we just gather a lot of amazing speakers and teachers and people in the community who are out doing the things that we really admire and who are teaching really important concepts. And we've really had a vast kind of variety of speakers come in and teach from their various standpoints. We really want it to be something from a lot of different perspectives. So there's something that will resonate with everyone. And so we're not just hearing the same thing over and over. And so it's not just also basically portfolio pitches over and over because conferences can be that sometimes and that's not what this is. And there's a lot of. We really put stock in having actionable things that people know what to do next. I learned this information, so what am I going to do with it? Because I think the kind of general feeling that we have after conferences is overload, overly inspired, and then we don't do anything with it because there were too many routes that our brain was going in. So I think really honing in on those takeaways and the focusing on okay, now let's do something about it. Yeah, yeah. So and then as far as virtual goes, I think for the foreseeable future we're probably going to keep it virtual because like you said, how much goes into it? Oh my gosh. Just running a virtual conference is like a full time job and we work on it from the second it ends pretty much into the next year. So yeah, it's a lot of work. And then bringing it in person, we've looked into it, but just financially it doesn't really make a lot of sense for us right now. We so Appreciate the people who do invest in the in person conferences because it's awesome. But yeah, not doesn't work with our current business model. Maybe a smaller version someday.
- [54:52]
B
Well, and I think there's so many conferences that we've gone to that with the people who we'd want to join. And there are already great conferences out there. And so I think by doing it virtually, we can fill a gap for the people who can't afford to travel to one and bring people together that definitely wouldn't be meeting at these in person events. And so I think we can bring something to the table in that sense as well, where we're like creating a virtual room where everyone can get together, even though we'd all love to be together in person.
- [55:21]
A
I mean, the lineup looks fantastic and yeah, it's. I always say the unsung heroes of our industry are the people who bring us together because the community really is where people feel safe when they feel heard, when they feel seen, when you come in trust when you can ask questions. And I think this is something that, yeah, when I see those people who put money and their neck on the line and build something in person and it's 50, 50 if it's going to even break even, realize those are the real heroes who actually push that together because it's a lot of work, as you say, virtually, let alone doing it in and deal with all sorts of bills and politics and people.
- [55:56]
C
Yeah, the more conferences we go to, the more we just appreciate the heck out of it because we see now that we have this insight, even just from a virtual standpoint, we're, we like laser focus into every detail and oh, I bet that took forever to figure out or oh, that's a really nice detail that probably costs a lot of money and they're getting no return on that. So then I just appreciated it so much more.
- [56:19]
B
The logistics even. I think we could pull it off, but it doesn't sound that appealing. There's so much work and like Katie said, we have so much respect for our pals who have done it in prison because it's totally a different beast, for sure.
- [56:33]
A
Thanks for coming to talk to me today because from my point of view, how I see your world, it makes perfect sense because I'm a big believer in trying lots of different things, daring creatively and exploring and finding ways that potentially can change someone's view on creativity, on, on entrepreneurship, on business, like what is possible because the world is no longer linear and potentially never was. And it was only our perceptions, how we decided to see the world and potentially zoom in on just the one thing and find absolute magic in it. But I believe what could then potentially could seem like sort of multifaceted, complicated world of doing too many things at the same time and having that sort of experience of being thrown around by all of the experiences going, is this secure? Is this right? Am I doing this? Should I do this? Do that? Ultimately, it's the process of discovery and looking through all of these things and finding your way. Because the magic is usually hiding behind a corner. And when you learn to see around those corners, it's where the good stuff is. So thank you so much for what you're doing, what you're doing for the community, being dedicated to it, and hearing about the fact that it's not an easy ride, but it benefits a lot of people. So thank you so much for what you're doing and thanks for coming to talk to me today.
- [57:44]
B
Thank you.
- [57:45]
C
Well, thank you and back at you. Thanks for your podcast and all you do.
- [57:50]
A
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 Malinage. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Banks 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 novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code Podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.