Stop Trying to Do The Hard Thing so You Can Start Doing What’s Best. — This Medium account began in early 2021 with one goal in mind: to write a book. My goal for last year was to write a book, and I knew in order to do that, I needed to be a writer. So, it was with much enthusiasm that I wrote here…

The Designer’s Problem According to Paul Rand — Pioneering designer Paul Rand, has written many words about commercial art and design. He is certainly one of the most influential thinkers on the topic in my own life. His writing, though formulated many decades ago, has a way of ringing true and relevant today. His ideas have survived the…

What Makes Me a Lousy Employee Makes me a Great Freelancer — I remember in art school, one of my instructors took me aside one day and told me that some of my classmates requested not to be teamed up with me for group projects. I was devastated. I thought that, if anything, people preferred to be in my group over most…

Challenges We All Face and How to Overcome Them — President. Actor. Model. Musician. Artist. Illustrator. What do these careers have in common? They are all dream jobs. Dream jobs are great, but for most people, they’re more dream than job. …

Spoiler Alert: It’s Not Going to Be Easy — I am literally in the business of helping people become illustrators. Most of what I earn comes from teaching illustration on Skillshare. I also support my teaching efforts with a YouTube channel, a Patreon and a Discord server. Over the past few years, I have found myself speaking to many…

Today’s theme might be simplicity. Each of these pieces has its own kind of simplicity that makes it attractive. It’s the kind of simplicity that makes me think, “I could have done that”. But I didn’t. I think this kind of simplicity is exactly what many illustrators and designers torture…