Austin Kleon Books

After the sessions with Darren about personal development and getting your work ‘out there’, I purchased these two books ‘Steal Like an Artist’ and ‘Show Your Work’ by Austin Kleon – a writer and an artist from NY. I must say they are very motivational and give super positive vibes. Steal Like an Artist is actually New York Times Bestseller. It shows you how to lead a more creative life and how to embrace other work around you. Show Your Work is about the process and making your self findable by creating a network. Both books are small enough to fit in your bag or even coat pocket. They have sections which are quick reads and sections which go into more detail. The attitude of the writer is inspiring, pointing out the do’s and don’t’s of life as artist and giving you very useful tips.  I haven’t completely finished reading Steal Like an Artist, but Show Your Work has given me a better understanding of how to become successful and make connections in the design industry. I have took a few photos of some of the points he makes to give you an idea of the things include (with help from my kitten Noah, oops!). Some tips sound pretty obvious such as ‘learn to take a punch’ and ‘blog your work’, how ever it’s nice to be reminded of these things as sometimes it’s easy to go off track or feel like a failure. It also helps with my course as we are required to keep blogging our work and contextual portfolio. It’s like a little guide to get out there and keep moving forward 🙂

I recently took a visit to the library and came across a couple typography books that sparked some inspiration. ‘new illustration with TYPE’ by Martin Dawber and ‘Hand Job’ a catalog of type by Michael Perry. Both of these combined the had very interesting visuals, mainly involving hand drawn designs. Below I picked out some typography that I felt hand very supportive visuals in comparison to their messages. I particularly felt inspired by the ‘Okay okay.. alright’ image as this is the style I have had in mind. My idea is to create a set of illustrations and typographic pieces of dialect which show the essence of the tone and context of the conversations.