← Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Diving into creative chaos to find magic in uncertainty - PJ Richardson (Laundry)
00:52:58
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- [00:01]
Radim Malinic
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- [00:51]
BJ Richardson
You talk about it at the beginning of your book very similarly of just diving right in and just seeing what happens. And sometimes I was like, oh wait a minute, maybe I should have thought that one through a little bit more. But I share that mindset now of hey, like I'm not afraid to switch styles or try something new or go into some technical thing. Now when you go into something really uncertain and new, I think as creatives we all need that because we get bored very easily. But when you do go into something new and messy and unknown, it definitely at the same time bubbles up insecurities and uncertainties too, from wherever else. But it's our job to try new shit.
- [01:28]
Radim Malinic
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radim Malinic and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles. I how they learn to grow as creatives A creative career in a 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. So thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. You ready? My guest today is a celebrated fan figure in the world of creativity, motion design and live action. He's the creative director and co founder of Laundry, a design studio based in la, San Francisco and New York. They work with the clients like Nike, Apple and Tyler the Creator, Linkin park and many, many others. Laundry often merges bold design, animation and pop culture inspired storytelling to create culturally driven visuals that move people and push boundaries. In this very honest conversation, we talk about personal struggles and anxiety, but those can shape creative approaches and business philosophy. We talk about the fact that insecurities just sometimes don't go away, but we can learn how to use them and create chaos that creates magic. It's my pleasure to introduce BJ Richardson. Vijay, how are you doing?
- [03:18]
BJ Richardson
Good. How's everything?
- [03:20]
Radim Malinic
Yeah. I'm super excited to have you on the show. It's a show created in association with Paradiso because we have passed each other at various conferences around the world. It was the first time we actually properly got to chat and hang out and have actually time to speak. So I promised to Hector that this episode will be in association with Paradiso because what he's created has been absolutely remarkable.
- [03:40]
BJ Richardson
I agree, I agree. That was wild. It was everything I thought it would be and more. It was the uncertainty of it, the meeting of like minded minds. Just the setting. It was small, it was intimate, it was bubbling with creativity and chaos and I don't know, it was really nice.
- [03:57]
Radim Malinic
I have to say that after having spoken at so many different of these events, there's been nothing like I've ever experienced before. It was in a way unparalleled to all of the experiences. Because if there was one takeaway for me from Paradiso was that people, regardless of their statue, of their profile, of their achievements and accolades, everyone's human. Everyone's so human. And everyone's is a little bit insecure. Everyone's got aerial problems, everyone's got something going on. And I think it was a great leveler. I think it was a great way to see how we are all equal in this game. Because it's easy to put people on a pedestal, right?
- [04:32]
BJ Richardson
That's exactly what my encounter with it too. I think a lot of things were very much by design. The whole like, what's the format? What isn't the format? No one really knew what they were doing or how to do it. Even some of the best speakers in the world, the most trained and seasoned, were kind of like, what is this? And then on the other side of it too, it was just a different because the audience was so much smaller. Also, you're not talking to students or young professionals like you're usually are. You're giving a talk to your peers. And so there's a big part of it that's like, what can I possibly tell Stefan Seinmeister that he doesn't already know or anybody for that matter. But then that's exactly what happened. At least in my similar experiences. You broke down and was like, wait, none of that matters. It's just about having regular conversations altogether and just vibing.
- [05:16]
Radim Malinic
I have to say that turns out there's a quite A lot that Stefan Sagmaster doesn't know to have in a few conversations. But bj, we haven't properly introduced you yet. For those who have may have never heard of Laundry or PJ Richardson. How would you introduce yourself?
- [05:28]
BJ Richardson
My name is PJ Richardson. I'm a, let's say artist, designer, creative director and director at Laundry, which I'm also a co founder of. And we are a motion design and production studio in la, San Francisco, New York. But mainly we're just a group of like minded creators with teams all over the world. We just happen to have these particular cities and we were mostly just an advertising, film, digital media and just making motion graphics and animation and live action come to life and hopefully delight people and help brands achieve their goals and thrive along the way. If we're doing our work the right.
- [06:01]
Radim Malinic
Way, it's amazing work that you guys do, but I've got habits on the show to parachute you back to where it all started because your journey, it's somewhat similar to quite a few people, I would say from the decade where we grew up because it was not always given that you would be co founder of a motion studio. Like you didn't even have an idea as a motion studio. My kids now have an idea of a branding studio is because they see me doing it. Whereas you grew up in a family that couldn't be far more removed from creativity or entrepreneurialism. So where did you grow up? What was the first encounter with creativity and how do you grow?
- [06:37]
BJ Richardson
Yeah, good question. I grew up in Chinatown in downtown San Francisco. Most of my like childhood was like 80s, like 90s, not the most stable of households to live in. My mom's single mom divorced and had issues of her own. And so I found my way as an outlet into creativity, mostly through graffiti art. And that I think brought me into entrepreneurialism in sort of an unusual way because you have to be pretty entrepreneurial to be a graffiti artist in any successful capacity or not. But it involves a lot of hustle, a lot of risk taking. It's basically marketing at its core. I always talk about that like graffiti is literally marketing. And so it taught me a lot of things. And from there I went to art school and quickly realized that neither graffiti or my misplaced perception of how good I am at art and painting took me into the graphic design world and advertising and ultimately motion design. In the last year at the uni.
- [07:33]
Radim Malinic
I never connected those two as graffiti and marketing.
- [07:37]
BJ Richardson
Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. It's the parallels. It's wild I think the only other thing and you talk about this in one of your books is the only similar, not only, but one of the similar paths of surfing. It's a lot like navigating creativity, but for the graffiti thing, it's just like marketing or advertising. You can do one of two ways. You can just go write your name on a wall as frequently as possible with no crap, creativity or thought. And the more you do it, the more people will see. We know countless brands that do that. Or alternatively, you can bring some artistic, unusual, very, very creatively crafted approach to something more like a big graffiti mural. There's people that also do that and then there is another side of it, which is more like the Banksy side of it, where you can go for stunts and clever takes and unexpected fresh angles into getting your name out as a graffiti artist as well. And then the behaviors are very similar. Like you need to have a brand somewhat as a graffiti artist to be known for something. You need to have the hustle of getting a lot of no's in this case walls you probably shouldn't write on and still figure out how to do it in spite of it. So it just goes down the line.
- [08:40]
Radim Malinic
This is what I want to ask you because you just said write on the walls that you potentially shouldn't write on. And I remember as a fresh faced teenager tries to do some tagging because you grew up in this small town, you're like, what's happening? And you do your tagging and you basically shit yourself because you're like, I should be really doing it. What was it like for you in terms of a confidence and doing this? Did you run with some kids doing this? Or was it more sort of solit experience? Like how did you get into it? And obviously how did you overcome that feeling of I should be writing on this wall, but I'm gonna. Hell, I give it a shot.
- [09:08]
BJ Richardson
I never felt that good about it because I have a very guilty conscience in general, just as a fundamental my DNA. So I didn't love it, the graffiti tagging part of it all that much. I really fell in love with it when it got more into the mural painting and that side of it. And that's when I felt like I found my own on it a little bit. The thing about that, into the first part of your question is I would go do graffiti with other kids my age or older or younger, and that was cool. But then I really fell into my own when I went more on my own and just got lost in my own world of Creativity. And that's when a lot of really interesting things would happen. Visually, I feel like it's a behavior that's continued on a little bit. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [09:49]
Radim Malinic
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration all the way to Career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day. I think with a lot of graffiti and especially at that decade, you felt like you gave yourself permission to be creative. Like you didn't really wait for something, like for someone to say, hey, by the way, now you're ready. Or now you've got enough followers, let's say enough people look at your walls, therefore you can create another one. We didn't give a shit about any of this. Which, like, it was the movement. You saw other people doing it, it made you feel something and you're like, okay, I'm gonna follow, right?
- [10:54]
BJ Richardson
That's it. At the time, at least, my Pinterest was just stuff in the streets in and around San Francisco. You'd go be like, oh, that new thing popped up, or, oh, that unus person paired this spray paint with this type of thinking or whatever. So it just became this treasure trove of just being out and getting inspired by things. And I think one of the things you just said is something that I talk about a lot now, and I like to think that I apply it enough at least, which is not waiting for permission, the proactivity side of things. That is the make it or break it. I think in our creative industry and design, motion branding, I think we're just held back by our own thinking that we need to wait for someone to give us permission to do something or hire us to do something.
- [11:34]
Radim Malinic
When I look at your book and I've seen a parallel, like we talk about graffiti. I knew you did graffiti, but now I see some of your compositions. Reminds me of old school graffiti, like the layups and like the movements and the shapes. It's funny how these things come up at the right time. But with your absolutely incredible, prolific career and how much you produce and how much you've created already, would you Say in some way was sort of escapism from reality. Was it like coming and dealing with traumas and stuff?
- [12:01]
BJ Richardson
2000%. So the way that I would navigate tough times at home would be to go out to graffiti or get lost in my graffiti art at home and sketchbooks and all that stuff. And it's an annoying mental health thing because the anxiety that dynamic created is something that held onto me. So I've dealt with anxiety pretty much my entire life, even now still. And so I'll use my work to escape and bury myself in doing it to escape my own anxiety, social pressures, any number of different things. In my case, it's a double edged sword because it doesn't necessarily make things better, but it also gives you the payoff of the harder you kind of work, the more you go in on your creative career, usually you get some pretty beneficial, especially financial results. So it definitely carries over.
- [12:45]
Radim Malinic
I think I read in your book story about your friend, in fact two friends and one of them sadly got shot. In fact both of them got shot, right? One in the cinema, one in the drive by shooting. And that is a lot to deal for a young mind to understand. There was a grief in my life when I was young and I couldn't really understand it. But what was the grief and the factor of the grief and potentially the lack of explanation and understanding of how to deal with grief at a younger age. Obviously because you said you were escaping to do graffiti, obviously you were finding yourself through your breakpoint, finding graphic design and doing more work that is more commercially minded and more versatile. But did you ever actively know that you hide in a way or was it just this blanket that made you run away?
- [13:26]
BJ Richardson
I think I was just reacting to my feelings of lack of control and pain and I left to go to university actually out on the east coast. And I didn't really process any of the grief. In fact, I just turned to alcohol, drugs, being young in college with partying. And so I don't think I dealt with it very well or at all. I don't think you're equipped to. At least my setting wasn't like I was already pretty isolated, alone with my childhood, at least outside of home. So I just didn't even know how.
- [13:52]
Radim Malinic
To make sense of that.
- [13:53]
BJ Richardson
So yeah, I think we both have seen is now I know how to be with things a little bit better tools I think to deal with stuff like that. But I don't know what was your experience like and how you responded to.
- [14:03]
Radim Malinic
Oh, I had panic attacks for most of my Teenage years, yeah, unfortunately, like there was an experience when someone died suddenly on the isokearing during a game. And yeah, it was terrible. I think for years and years I was just like, oh, is my numbers going to be up? Because no one explains to you in the middle of was the 80s, maybe like early 90s, like, why did someone die? Whatever, carry on. And I was just like having severe panic attacks. And it took me another 20 years to actually find out that I was having panic attacks because I wasn't really sure what was happening. Because you go into traditional GPS and they're like, yes, stomach cramps, it just wasn't there. And I followed very much the path that no, you followed. I worked myself to the ground. I was working 17 hours a day creating work for every client in every corner of the world. Similarly, like, I didn't know what I was running away from until when I was 40. I started doing a lot of therapy and unpacking and I'm still peeling off the layers of the misspent childhoods and broken families and that kind of stuff. You kind of realize, oh, that's why I needed to do all of this stuff. Because some of these tools were not available back then. It's not even norm now in many places. Like we talk about mental health because we try to get this to be more known and more available to people. And just how do you stop people from almost wrecking themselves again? Because they haven't properly processed the first experience, therefore they doing something on the back of it as a sort of this echo of that experience. And yeah, I think not only our industry where people go and hide away from their problems, you got successful CEOs who don't have to work ever again in their lives, but they still go to work because that immediate sort of gratification is that like you need it, someone needs you. It's easier just to not deal with things because you are in the safe space. And I think that's quite an easy hideaway space for us just to go and create a lot more stuff. And then you create stuff and then you feel like, I need to look for perfection. Because you got that anxiety because you want this to be perfect. Whereas people looking at your stuff be like, whatever next? Especially now in the snackable society we live in. But everything is so fast paced and short lived. You might be agonizing about something and it's just, oh, that's just my way of not processing the shame and vulnerability by trying to process all of this stuff so you're not in Your head. I think you've got a lot to say to it.
- [16:14]
BJ Richardson
Yeah, I mean, that's what I see experience. And I think with a lot of our traumas and look, it's not a competition. Everybody has traumas of varying kinds, and they're all equally real to that person. I think ignoring them doesn't make them go away. And like you said, I think, like, both of us are illustrating neither one of us even had the capacity or the tools to even understand what they were or the people around us to help us get there. And then you fall into work, like you're saying you fall into work, and it becomes an escapism. And then the rewards of that escapism skyrocket. And you're like, this is fucking awesome and makes me feel alive. And it's hell and it's great. And that dance happens back and forth 52 times over one project. And then we pull it up off and hooray, let's start over again. And so it becomes a very addicting escape, side quest, whatever you want to call it. So, yeah, the circle of life of very unique shapes.
- [17:03]
Radim Malinic
It's a definitely a very messy circle of life. But I think in a way of justifying the creative process, we tell ourselves that basically based on our messy experiences, that the process should be clean and pristine and enjoyable, and it should be something that we longing for as a sort of offset. But it's only recently that came to my mind. It was like, if you allow yourself to think that it has to be as messy as possible, it will never be perfect. No clients will ever be perfect. No projects will ever be perfect. Because when you see those shooting matches, like back on the day on Facebook or Twitter or now Instagram, it was easy to get this client across the line, but it was hard to do it for this client. And like, how can we even expect things to go well? Because think about even from personal relationships, like, you might have five really good friends, and most of people are not in that category. So in our lives, you might have five really good clients. And the rest is. That was okay. We know each other, we do stuff. But most people will never be part of your sort of circle of creativity or your expression. So think about it like, why do we come to this and then realize more? Because we haven't dealt with our stuff, have we?
- [18:08]
BJ Richardson
I'm laughing for a few different reasons, but mostly because I'm in full agreement with you on this when I have a funny thing to tell you. When we met at Paradiso and I'VE been in this phase this year at some point, point earlier in the year. I spent 20 years of my career doing every learning every technique, doing every mental health thing, doing every exercise you're supposed to do to help reduce stress and help figure out solutions to navigate the creative industry and make it this calm, sane, perfectly ordered thing. And I do all this self help to cope with it not being ever that. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm going through the same loop over and over and over. I'm looking at it the wrong way. I need to dive into the chaos. Like, it's always chaotic, it's always messy. Instead of trying to, like, order it and cope with that and not having perfectly just go in, just don't create chaos. But I told myself, don't create chaos, but find the most chaotic situations and just commit myself emotionally all in on it. It. And it's funny when you do things like that because it invites other moments like it. And Paradiso was no accident. It was right smack in the middle of kind of a peak dive into the chaos moment. But my anxiety level actually went down hugely by going at things head on with no expectation to try to have it be perfect or perfectly sectioned or anything. And the work was really creative and far more satisfying. Like, I made my team around me perfectly met. But there's also just math on it that I figured out that I was like, hey, we've never not pulled this off. We're always afraid we're not going to pull it off, but we've never not pulled it off. After thousands of projects, it's going to be fine. It's just uncertain. And it was like such a game changer. It still feels weird sometimes, but I know. So I'm in that era right now. I'll keep you posted.
- [20:00]
Radim Malinic
I need to jump in on this one because I remember our conversation because you mentioned you worked on a music video. And it was like, it was messy, it was chaos. And I realized, oh, it's only blinking Linkin park that you're working for. I was like, we should have talked about that. You should have told me who we're working for. Because I was like, it's just a music video. And then a week later, I realized it was for Linkin Park. So tell me about the chaos. I wanna know about the chaos and about that because I feel like who you are, what you describe and what you do, it was just perfect match for the energy of what they've got. So tell me about the process.
- [20:31]
BJ Richardson
Yeah, so I'M doing a ton of different stuff with them right now, but this particular one that I was telling you about in Purdy. So Joe Hahn is the DJ in Linkin park, one of the founding members, and he's friends with the line producer that works on my shoots a lot of the time. And Bill. His name is Bill. He's wonderful human, and got us together, was like, hey, they want to do a video. Can you help out with some visuals? And we did and just did this volley back and forth that came up with this concept. Joe directs their videos too. And he was like, hey, I want to do this visual thing where it's like we're locked in an office in the severance, but there's no windows, there's no doors. It's just the pain of being locked in this constricting place. It parallels with society right now and just how to deal with politics and all this. And it was like, okay, I got that. That's perfect. He was super nice, super collaborative. And so he had this thing where he was like, hey, why don't we do it on a XR projection stage so that the rooms can animate and warp and change shapes and really get super trippy. I was like, also rad idea. Let's do it now. Then Bill, our producer, kicks in and was like, we don't really have any money, we don't have any time, and we don't have any time to figure out all the technical sort of ways that you're supposed to normally do this and unreal and all this stuff. Okay, no problem. So we just did a bunch of animation. We didn't really know what they were going to look like because the schedule was so fast. And Joe, he'd see one thing and then give him an idea to do something else. And I just wasn't really clear on his vision. And, like, all the stuff in my head of we have to have it perfectly storyboarded, then it has to do this and it has to do that. Which is how I work in advertising. Was chaotic because none of that was happening in the way that we're used to. And so it was the night before the shoot, and Joe and I are at the stage testing visuals. We don't really have a look. We don't really have a story. We have a kind of a story. Long story short, I'm sitting in there at midnight with him editing all of these different animation tests together to figure out what this is going to be. And it hit me. This is exactly what it should be. It isn't stressful. This supposed to be chaotic, it's supposed to be uncertain. We're not creating a solution, we're creating sandboxes for happy accidents and unknown discoveries to happen. And he didn't say it, but I figured out that that was what this was. And so I was like, okay, let's just build the playgrounds, let's just build these loops, let's build these vibes on the shoot. We'll shoot around it, we'll find it, we'll add diopters, we'll add lighting effects. And that's exactly what happened. That's when it just hit me to just stop trying to control everything and just get enough in there to create a space to find new things to happen. And it really unfolded like that in a really beautiful video became of it. And I don't think he did that on purpose, but I think it was just happened by circumstance of what it was. But we were all good in the end with it and so it was interesting.
- [23:17]
Radim Malinic
I love what you just said because I find that some of the anxieties and some of our stresses and insecurities go and sit on the bench for a bit. When there's a chaos and working advertising, everything needs to be perfectly storyboarded so we know exactly what we're doing. Whereas creating these messy sandboxes, like you focus on the task in hand because you mentioned techniques, breathing techniques, exercises of like how to get yourself out of anxiety. But being in the moment, focusing on the task in hand, that's where the focus goes and actually lets you be there. Because when you said I didn't want to not realize, not to control stuff, like just letting go of this helps you to actually realize that everything's okay. Because would you say some of your anxieties are driven by vulnerability and shame and thinking like the work's not good enough, even though we know it's good.
- [24:06]
BJ Richardson
Enough 100%, like work's not good enough. I'm not doing enough and my attention to detail isn't good enough. I'm not organized enough. I could go down the line and those vulnerabilities and insecurities come in stronger the more overwhelmed I get or the more that I have going on. So varying degrees of definitions of success. But let's just say success in this case is being busy. That doesn't mean good. It means anxiety level goes up sometimes, you know what I mean? So it's a kind of a double edged sword in that sense.
- [24:35]
Radim Malinic
This is my question, who tells you not enough?
- [24:38]
BJ Richardson
It's all internal. And one of the biggest, I mean, I've done quite a few different things, books, therapies, all this stuff, writing, journaling, all this stuff. And it's all great. I can't knock a single one of them. But the big one for me that's worked phenomenally well recently is deep breathing meditation. I go to a meditation class for 60 to 90 minutes of hardcore deep breathing meditation and you get it all out, but you also go internal and clear. All of those thought leaps out. It's pretty good.
- [25:05]
Radim Malinic
I'm going to do a Debbie Millman moment because I'm going to pull out something from my childhood. Because of your mom's ancestry, you went to French school, but you felt like you were not enough at that school because you were potentially not as affluent background or as stable background. And these kind of things of our worthiness or lack of worthiness either come from our parents, come from our surroundings, come from our environments or situations like those. And would you agree that some of that has been the beginning of how you feel today by your work?
- [25:34]
BJ Richardson
100%. And what's a really tricky thing is you believe that and it's real. And I'm not talking anybody else down on this that chooses either side of this decision, but it also, there's another side of it that creates kind of a chip on your shoulder to push and do extra and puts a little fire into you too. You know what I mean? I would have half the motivation I have if it wasn't for that as well.
- [25:54]
Radim Malinic
Yeah, the first person on the show to say such thing, I think the uncertainty of a young person and obviously also one of the examples of it, you bury your head in the back of a Photoshop and you strive and graft and do everything just to escape that situation, only to realize that when you really find yourself in the back of Photoshop, you're like, actually, I might have to deal with my real life problems because no amount of work can actually get me over this. It's an interesting one because I think for you to share from the place of where you are creatively, professionally, like, there's no doubt that your work is good. Like, people look up to what you do and go, oh, I wish I was as good as PJ and laundry and whatever they do. But knowing that's just still internal battle even after everything that you've achieved is liberating for many people because just like the experience of paradise, you see some people, they're like established, loved by millions of followers and they have in A real life insecurity moment about a piece of work they just shown, which is brilliant. And you're like, oh, really? And it's just like, you want to give them a cut. It's like, dude, enjoy. Because we are still running to this mythical finish line where we will feel secure, accepted, like running towards it. And we feel, wait a minute, that finish line keeps moving for me. Like I'm always hundred, 200 yards away from it. It keeps moving in front of me because we almost don't allow ourselves to actually say, you know what, I will find that piece one day. And it's liberating when you do, because there is situations that I can attest to that I was in very much a similar pickle in my own personal life. And it was becoming a parent for me was the thing that was like, okay, I have to accept the chaos. I'm no longer like in my own head. I can't be anymore. We really need to allow ourselves just the chaos is actually a beautiful thing. And in the chaos, no one's judging you. You don't have time to judge yourself. And I think that's the beautiful part of chaos and embracing it. It's just kind of like every other aspect of our life. Like we think that we will accomplish all the to do lists and we fall into this productivity trap. Like, you're looking to be almost finished with your to do list, so you add more stuff on it so you don't have to actually go and be with yourself.
- [27:52]
BJ Richardson
I have so much to say because I agree with you in every which way. But there's another side to this, and you touch on this in the book that I read. But let me set it up this way because of the private school thing was interesting in that it I felt out of place and small. But on the other hand, I had a very like Buddhist experience without a being in the moment, mainly just because I was a kid. I just want to have fun and hook up with girls and shit and be popular. But with a lot of more affluent kids, and you see this a lot, they just have a security and a freedom that creates a mental space of a bunch. Abundance, whether it's work or creativity or life. And I also learned from that too, especially creatively, that working from a place of abundance can be a really creative place to be. And at the very minimum, what it gave me was this. It taught me this mechanism to try new and crazy shit often, even at the expense of it being a realistic possibility. And I'm not saying it the way that you said it in your book, but you talk about it at the beginning of your book. Very similarly of just diving right in and just seeing what happens. And sometimes I was like, oh, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't have thought that one through a little bit more. But I share that mindset now of, hey, like, I'm not afraid to switch styles or try something new or go into some technical thing. Now, when you go into something really uncertain and new, I think as creatives we all need that because we get bored very easily. But when you do go to something new and messy and unknown, it definitely at the same time bubbles up insecurities and uncertainties too, from wherever else. But it's our job to try new shit. And I'm very conscious of that at Laundry because I've seen it, I cannot even tell you how many times I've seen it with motion studios. There's some motion studio or design studio that's really popular overnight, for one particular thing, they get called over and over and over for that thing for two or three years. Industry changes, trends change, and then they're poof, they're done, out of the water and they're past. And so I think we're always like, hey, we gotta be proactive, do the work, explore to keep up. And ahead of this, because a little out of fear, but also, it's just humans change. They get bored of shit. You gotta give them something new. It means diving into a lot of new things and getting uncomfortable quite a bit too. But keeps us alive.
- [29:59]
Radim Malinic
Would you describe it? I think is a great sort of way of being ahead of the game. Like being preempting what might be or what could be or should be. Because you mentioned the word change. And we are hypocrites when it comes to change as creators. Like, we love the status quo. Like when we just created that sort of that comfortable, secure path as you just said, studios that sort of stay still for three years of stay busy, preoccupied and blindsided a little bit. As creators, we don't always. Especially young creatives or speaking from my perspective, I was thinking like, this is good. This is going to work for a while, only to realize, oh, I need to think ahead. Because once upon a time I was an illustrator in advertising and I was richly just like yourself now or recently, I was preempting stars. I was thinking, like, what is going to be the next thing? When 3D wasn't as prolific, as widely used as is now? Because it's the line of the ability to create amazing stuff in 3D. Like it's so much more democratized. You can have have 15 year old kid creating advertising campaign if they spend a lot of time teaching themselves, I'll be like, okay, what we creating will almost self destruct in a way. And obviously it's gonna go. Whereas when we're making it, we are so wedded to it that we don't ever want to even get it scratched in any possible way. Like you don't have any imperfections. Only to know that in six months it's going to be obsolete, it's going to be useless in a way. So I think there's an expression like driving in the dark as opposed to seeing for a mile. Like driving in the dark is sometimes so much more valuable because you might bump a few the sides of your car, but you're creating something which keeps you alive, keeps you on set and keeps you in a bit of a chaos. But you never know what might come because I think that sort of predictability of the certain styles is no good to anyone.
- [31:35]
BJ Richardson
I agree with you. And I think the thing that's interesting is it's just hard to do because so many of us, including myself, get stuck on our own uncertainties and insecurities and really fears at sucking at things, especially early on. But you go to a parody, so you go to off, you go to anywhere and you look at these revered speakers and great designers and artists we love. And it's not like any single one of them was born at 0 years old, phenomenal at graphic design or whatever it is. The only distinction in my opinion is they just kept making more stuff and looking around a lot more and a lot more frequently, a lot more actively than anybody else. And even in spite of their insecurities, as soon as they make something, they're on to make something else. And just constantly creating something and moving forward. I think that's the only real distinction. Look at anybody, they're just so prolific. Like the output in spite of everything is so high and they don't know the answers to trends, to the future. None of us do. But there's only one way to find out is just make things and see where it lands and do it again, rinse and repeat. And it's obviously very easy for me to say that, but it's hard for many of us to execute on. But I think it does come down to something as simple as that. Just writing that's anything thing.
- [32:49]
Radim Malinic
The story that you reference from Creativity for Sale is about the surfing story where I just jumped into waves And I was working. I knew I had to work it into my TED Talk when I was doing a TED last year. And I got to three words, and there was the now. Actually, four now. The now versus how. Like, it's the moment. Like, sometimes you need that short circuit, like that sort of error code to come up and go, I'm doing this because it wasn't mistake. I was on the plane for 24 hours. In fact, I was looking forward to that trip for a month. That's what I was gonna do. Even though if I was to step back from the situation, I knew that I was gonna fail at every possible way. And I think that's the sort of the magical magnetic attraction to these moments. You're like, I want to try this. I want to do this. And someone tells you when you got friends, you're like, I'm gonna do this. They're like, dude, not really. It's not gonna work. Is you're like, don't care. I'm doing it. I'm absolutely doing it. And they'll tell you when you failed it. Like, I told you. I'm like, you know what? Oh, I might have been with Bruised by all of this, but it was a great experience because you never know how that will start making sense of your life. Like, how not the things that we do sometimes, the stupid mistakes we make, that makes us almost make a little bit sense of the meaning of life.
- [33:56]
BJ Richardson
I know we all have to use our brains and obviously justify things and just not justify things, but so much of it is, just give it a shot and try again. See what happens. It's so hard to get ourselves outside of our own heads. But no one's good at something the first try. Like, why would you be? Literally, there's nothing scientific specifically, that said you should be great at something the very first try, you go, but who cares? Try it anyways. And then keep trying if you like it enough. I don't know. Surfing metaphor, too, is just so strong for what we do, because so much of it is just practice. And so much of it is adjusting for the weather, the wave size, the location. And then there's a part of it that's, you're balancing, you're surfing, you're turning left, you're turning right. But in the best cases, you're doing it with a little bit of style. And you're not just riding the wave, you're ripping aerials. And it's so right for what this is that we do. It's funny.
- [34:43]
Radim Malinic
You know what's Funny about that analogy because you only get to see the best bit of surfing, like the highlights. The wake, the barrel is the highlight. We don't really watch surfers sitting in the water for two hours waiting for something decent to show up. And this is why we've got creative industry. Like we see the surfers.
- [34:59]
BJ Richardson
You know what the highlight is? It's the Instagram post. That one snippet of someone's best day of a thousand days. Practice just shit doubt. Some good, some bad. It's really that. But the whole hobby is similar to creativity. It's the whole thing. I don't know.
- [35:14]
Radim Malinic
Let's talk about laundry for a bit because what you created is remarkable for laundry. What kind of problems do you like to solve the most?
- [35:20]
BJ Richardson
There's a few. Some of the people in the studio have varying opinions about this. I've never been one big on awards. Like I never understood the point. All they do is make small amount of people feel really good. A lot of people feel really bad. That didn't work with alternatively what's done us really well, particularly on pitching. And I think this is just the graphic design education in me is ultimately we're making advertisements that want to help a brand thrive in some way, whether it's increase awareness or increase sales. So a lot of our work, we work to make sure we equal or increase the impact of whatever the goal is. That's the problem we solve if we're making a social media ad or a projection on the sphere. Like we want the brand to get what it wants for having spent a ton of money on this. You know what I mean? So on an advertising level, that's very much what we just, you know what gets me out of bed for problem solving. On a certain level, there's social problems that if I'm lucky enough to find my way into, help solve in some ways, sometimes in very playful ways. It's a funny story and kind of a serendipitous story actually. My wife was text messaging me on the way home. She'd be like, hi. And I'll be like, is that high? She's happy I'm going home or am I in trouble? What kind of high is this? And what I realized with text messaging was that the lack of intonation behind text messaging makes it confusing sometimes to know what the vibe is behind the message. So we took Helvetica and started to problem solve how to add to color, scale, layout and animation. Create intonation through type animation so that when someone messages you something, you know what you're in for. And so we did a couple of these to try to problem solve this sort of social digital problem. Put them on Instagram or LinkedIn maybe, and Google called us and said, hey, we're doing the same thing. Do you want to help us create this? Like, basically make customizable, tight input imagery that turns into animated gifs in via Android text messaging to help solve this particular social problem problem. And so we worked on that for quite a while and I don't know that it caught him fully, but it did solve like a cultural problem that we found. So stuff like that's really interesting to me too. And then there's just the business side that's simply problem solving. How to pull off a job as creatively as possible with the time and money and resources we have or often don't have.
- [37:37]
Radim Malinic
That's really interesting. Yeah. The way you run a business now, how creative do you find yourself to be? Like, do you still sit in the middle of it all, or do you find yourself like you actually have to run more of a business and then lead your troops into the battle? Like, how involved are you with work now?
- [37:52]
BJ Richardson
Both, I think. I have incredible team at Laundry, from the business and admin side to the artist side. But it's one of the things that I've found is that it's only because of the seat I sit in, but as a creative leader owner, I'm gonna afford it. An audacity to make decisions and take risks, risks creatively that some of my team don't feel like they can because of the sort of employer employee dynamic. And then with some of our clients to have enough of a backdrop of not getting risk of getting fired that I can have much more direct and real conversations with clients as well. And so I end up being pretty hands on in that way. But then also, like, I have a business partner, Tony Liu. We've been business partners the whole time, and we're both pretty attuned to the financial and administrative side too, because, you know, plus one in a certain way, although I kind of like it. But we're just navigating industry slowdown, different industry verticals, slower, faster, all that kind of stuff that we have to keep a pretty close eye on. We can't be too far removed from that. So long story saying we're in it all.
- [38:54]
Radim Malinic
Did you feel like from your beginnings to where you are now, did you feel like you had to teach yourself about leadership or did you keep the loose edges to it because the jump is quite mighty? Like, lots of Creatives really underestimate the power of leading well, because obviously you want to create well with people to help you to do the same thing. Whereas as you said earlier, like, when you let go of the control, that's where the magic really happens. Yeah. How did you do with your sort of leadership training and leadership thinking?
- [39:22]
BJ Richardson
Poorly or uninformed, I should say. I'm the like, make every mistake humanly possible and got lucky to get this far part of it. But I definitely was like, I am going to be the boss so I can put my feet up on a table. That's why I'm starting a studio, because this will be less stressful, which was the biggest misfire of all time. But then also, as far as a leadership, one of my weaknesses is that I'm still in that mode of I'm just gonna do this myself. I can just do this myself, which doesn't scale very well. I've had to work hard at this through a lot of books, a lot of reading therapy, coaching and all this stuff. But I'm like, the nice guy doesn't want to say no to anything. And so I've had to learn how to set boundaries and how to deliver knows in a way that helps everybody. Because also being nice and saying yes has blown up in my face for clients, less even for myself, and ultimately leads to a bad experience for them from working with us. So that's a work in progress.
- [40:20]
Radim Malinic
Yeah, I can tell you that being nice guy is the remnants of your past. Because we try to please. Yeah, because you try to please. You try to be accepted. You try to sort of like, oh, this whole thing, I need to really do a good job for this client because they might use us again. Or we want a good report. Of course, like, doing a good job wholesomely is the right thing to do. But sometimes you're not going to build the same house twice, are you? Like, you do the project, you've done the project, there's very little likelihood you're going to do it again. But we think we're going to build a house for everybody. Let's say hypothetical house or castle or whatever, for everyone every month. Like, no, this is the whole idea of the change. But yeah, I can relate to what you're saying because back in the day, I was promising things on Sunday morning, I'm like, hey, of course I'm going to do it tomorrow. Like, it's Sunday, mate. You don't need to do it this.
- [41:05]
BJ Richardson
Tell me if you think of this thought. Right, because there's A humongous part of creatives that say they think, okay, we just have to say yes and do what they ask us to do and do a really good job. But I think we're more like Sherpas in the Himalayas are like, we're guides to help the client get to what they need to get to. And that makes it different every single time. But it also makes it so that we're helping guide them even around themselves, because, like, they're paying us not do what they already know how to do. They're paying us to help them get to where they can't get to themselves.
- [41:38]
Radim Malinic
How do you make all the work on the top of laundry? How do you make all of your creative experiments, all of that work that you've put into your book, that you've created with Hector as mind blowing amount of work? Where do you find time? How do you think about it? What is there that's still left at the end of the day for you to create so much extra work?
- [41:56]
BJ Richardson
I spend about an hour, sometimes, maybe a little bit more on it, and then sometimes a little longer on the weekends. So it came from a couple different places. Some of them insecurities. One of the things that we were doing a lot more 3D work, and I never felt very confident about 3D work as an artist. And then one of the biggest challenges that I would get into when creative directing projects was being like, I wanted to feel this way and I needed to be more like this. But I was talking in those, like, vague, metaphorical creative director ways that were complete bullshit and no one understood what I was saying. And took a lot of time and money to power through that to get what I needed. So I was like, okay, why don't I just start making some 3D stuff just to learn the tools? And I liked it. I like the technology behind it. And then this other thing kept popping up where in our sales pipeline, we would get asked to do certain styles of work on projects. And they're like, we want to work with you. We love you guys. Do you have an example of a project like this? And it was something we could do in our sleep, but we didn't have the example of it. And I was like. And I got enough of leads missed that. I was like, all right, I'm taking matters into my own hand. And so I started making these little experiments that were very targeted, happy accidents. Oh, you have this?
- [43:03]
Radim Malinic
Oh, yeah.
- [43:03]
BJ Richardson
I've been working with this experiment. Check it out and send it to them to help up our odds on Lead generation. And then from there I just kept doing it out of habit and just started making more and more and then it just ran off from there. And I knew I still had all, and still do have all the self doubts and insecurities about making personal work and whether it's good or not compared to this or not. But early on I did know I was like, hey, I'm going to start really simple, like two cubes and a couple colors. And I had a feeling it would just get more complex over time, purely out of practice. And that's what happened. Like when I look back, the work I do now is much, I would say, more technically and creatively tuned in than it was six years ago when I started. That's how that all happens.
- [43:45]
Radim Malinic
Do you have time to self reflect? Because would you describe it in terms of work? Obviously in terms of personal experiments? Do you ever take time and look back what you've created, how far you've gone? Do you self audit or self reflect or have you ever done it? Because that I'm asking you from a personal experience because we had a very prolific time in my studio with five years where there was a team of people, we were doing so much work that when I scaled the team down and run basically through the archives, I was like, oh my God, not only we created some amazing stuff, there's so much that you know, but went into that pile of like experiments and related to the things. And at that time I didn't think we were fully done. I don't think the work was good enough. Sometimes we were still finessing things and only when I had time to take a deep breath and look back, I was like, oh my God, I have to actually email people back and say we did some fucking good stuff. Like we just didn't have time because I was in a similar position. Not as high up as you have your own team and I don't have that many people to look after. But I was running the studio, I was a young parent, but there was so much to do and I didn't have time to appreciate what we were creating only to actually take a step away and go that was good. That was really good. And we didn't really know it. So I want to know if you are hopefully not in the same position.
- [44:56]
BJ Richardson
No, it happens all the time. Even making that book with Hector, the process of that was pretty funny. People ask me about this. I wrote the writing, sent him a Google Doc and then I sent him a Dropbox link of, I don't know, like 400 projects. And I was like, vector, go your world. And he was like, I got you. And so he put the whole book together and then sent me a PDF. We had like one revision thing, like set round. It was pretty minor, but in doing so, I went through a lot of those old projects and was like, yeah, I remember that being a lot shittier in my head. Or some are just probably similar to what you're saying too. I just outright forgot about a lot of them. I was just like, oh, wow, that. Yeah, I barely remember that. But again, it was like a lesson. It's always a nice reminder to be like, oh, yeah, I did that. And that was great.
- [45:40]
Radim Malinic
And.
- [45:41]
BJ Richardson
And I'm proud of myself for that. And then there's a big part of me that's just keep going. And not for any reason, not for a doubt or an accomplishment, but the gist. Keep at it.
- [45:50]
Radim Malinic
I think you'll find yourself very thankful that that book exists. Because if there was one lucky strike in my life, that my creative life that I've created was that I started publishing promo books as soon as I went on my own as a freelancer. Then I started making more books. And I've literally created a portfolio with a bit of writing as my sort of book of ideas years. And that's still out there. People still buy it. And I've still got a memory of the work that we've created because digitally, I can't even get a hard drive working from 2010 and even from 2015. It's just that stuff is gone. But having it in the physical format just encapsulates that time, the effort and the experience. Because, yeah, I really enjoyed hearing how you actually, you know, how heck to put it all together without you really having the input. Because it's a fascinating product. It's a really fascinating book. And the way it's packaged, it speaks to my soul because I love those colors, I love those shapes, I love those things. There's of a lot like, oh, my God. So, yeah, you will look back at this, I think, very fondly.
- [46:44]
BJ Richardson
Oh, I gotta tell you something funny, because it meant quite a lot to me to be at Paradiso, to give out those books and be able to sign them over and write nice messages to friends. But I had no idea that that was planned. I didn't even know that the book was as big as it was. I thought with Hector, he didn't explain any of it to me. So I thought it was just gonna be some little book that they put in the gift Bag when you walk into the conference. I didn't think it was gonna be. Be what it was. In the process, it was going to be what it was. So it was very unexpected and meant quite a lot to me to have you and friends that I really admire be like, hey, come sign my book. It was like, I did not know that that was coming at all. And it was very, very special to me.
- [47:21]
Radim Malinic
What an experience, like, because you didn't really know what to expect. And again, you pretty much had no time to be anxious about it because you're walking into a situation that's just going to happen.
- [47:30]
BJ Richardson
And I knew about that book signing thing about. About 10 minutes before it happened.
- [47:35]
Radim Malinic
Oh, that's amazing. Because you don't have time to fret about any of it. Okay, it's gonna happen.
- [47:39]
BJ Richardson
I don't know. The whole. It was. I mean, those conferences are there, generally speaking, it's a honeymoon of sorts, but because it was just inspiring and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
- [47:49]
Radim Malinic
It was a beautiful touch to quite a few days in the Mexican sunshine to have that book and actually having that takeaway because your book is now in a few hundred hands just. And a few hundred homes around the world. And. And it's fantastic article in a way of how do I remember not only the experience, but I remember, like, your work. I can reference it, like, seeing the colors. And yeah, I was freaking through it today. I was like, finding these extra nuggets that didn't spoil in the first place. I'm like, oh, my God. And as someone who not publishes books, I know how much it means to me sharing that thing that you can carry around. And I think it's still a link to what made us to actually love this industry in the first place, the physical aspect of creativity.
- [48:27]
BJ Richardson
I feel like I scratched the tip of the iceberg of what I'm about to say on the second part, though. But something that really meant a lot to me that you do this on steroids. But I think there's a humongous joy to what we do to be able to write about our experiences, especially the really hard ones, and share them with people, as in hopes of guiding someone somewhere that makes themselves feel like they're the only one going through this. Be like, holy shit, it's not just me.
- [48:57]
Radim Malinic
This is.
- [48:57]
BJ Richardson
Oh, this is. This happens. Okay. Because forever and ever I thought I was the only one that had anxiety or struggle with creativity. And then the more I got into this whole conference world thing, and then ultimately now I'm Crossing paths with books like yours or Ben's, where it's just crazy how important that is for young creatives that don't think that, you know, they think that they're the only one. I don't know. It's wild.
- [49:21]
Radim Malinic
I think, think the experience, it's interesting because they're like, putting it out there might help somebody. But ultimately putting it out there, it's one way of self therapy to actually say, you know what, I'm leaving this. I don't have to hide behind anything. Because somebody once said, if you're lying, you have to remember stuff. And if you're aching, you have to remember what not to tell people. Whereas if you say, okay, well, actually who I am, this is how I feel. This is what's been. This is potentially how I might be acting in the situation that you might find it bit inappropriate or might questioning my behavior. Because you know what, if people were honest, look, I'm drinking because of a shitty childhood or I'm doing this because of some abuse, then we would be a lot more welcoming to one another because it's not what it is, it's how we see it. I think this is our problem. So I've been reading the Elizabeth Gilbert's book called Big Magic. Now, finally I got to read it. And she said, never write a book for somebody else to solve their problems. Don't fool yourself because you look desperate. And. And now with our conversation and the way you described your work, what I see in your work, like you create a work for yourself, which also happens to inspire other people. And you talk about yourself, which also happens to have an impact on other people. And I think when we are true to ourselves potentially, it potentially could be one way of actually getting rid of ourselves, of anxieties and those worries about imperfection, because you are only as good as you are ready right now. You're only as good in that sort of now versus how scenario. What is now matters. And bless you by the rest.
- [50:51]
BJ Richardson
Yeah, I think the only other thing that I'd throw into that, that's been my North Star. Now. There's always something more, bigger, cooler, whatever that we could work on. But like my measuring stick now is just doing it with people that I like working with. Like, does that exist? And if they're not cool or we don't get along or you don't feel connection, kind of know how the project's gonna go. So this is the California hippie coming out now. It's just like good vibes and love always, because that's even in business.
- [51:17]
Radim Malinic
I think that's a perfect motto to use to finish this conversation for now. Because yeah, good vibes and love heavy pinch of those. It can get really far in life. PJ thank you so much for your time today to chat to me.
- [51:29]
BJ Richardson
Thank you so much. This is awesome.
- [51:31]
Radim Malinic
I really enjoy conversation, not only in parody, so enjoyed today and this is first of many I hope so very much.
- [51:41]
BJ Richardson
Foreign.
- [51:47]
Radim Malinic
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radha Malinich. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil McKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. 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 provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.