565 - What Type of Creator Are You? Unlock Your Style with Katie & Ilana of Goodtype

0:00One of the biggest questions that you will encounter on the creative journey is how do you find your voice? How do you find your style? How do you find your aesthetic? Once you get into that and you start making stuff, you realize that's a pretty amorphous question. Like that's hard to pin down. Like what is the connection between the stuff that you love that other people make and the stuff that you're going to make? How do you start on that journey? How do you get anywhere on that journey? One of my favorite pieces of advice that I've heard on this topic comes from Timothy Goodman, who is a lettering artist and an illustrator and a muralist.

0:38And he said, quit thinking about how you want to speak and think about what you want to say in your work. And I think that that's great advice. Can you get into the questions you want to ask and the statements that you want to share? And even if you're not making lettering work, those things can be your guide to how you want to talk about this through the colors and the images and the sounds and the flavors that you're putting out there. I think it's a great place to start. And I think two people that know a lot about this are people deep within the lettering and type world. It is Katie Johnson and Alana Griffo from Good Type and Good Type, among other things.

1:20has a million followers on Instagram and so much experience with the lettering and typography world. And they've immersed themselves in that for a long time. And they've come out the other side with this new book called Follow Your Art. And it's about uncovering and unleashing your creative voice. It is gorgeous. It's also full of tons of prompts and like journal reflections and exercises. And I thought it'd be great to have them come on the show and share everything they learned both in their own creative journey and in the process of making this book about how do you start to unearth your creative voice?

2:00And so we're going to get to that in just a second, but I got to tell you, stick around for the end of the episode. I'm going to be back with our creative call to adventure. It's called Out One Odd. It's something you can do today to help unleash that creative voice. But for now, let's get to my chat with the women from Good Type, Katie and Alana. On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

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5:09You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. How are you feeling about this? This is a weird moment on all kinds of levels, having done a few books myself. Yes. So I don't know if you experienced this because I think our brains are wired a little more similarly than maybe yours and Katie's or mine and Katie's. But the day after my first book came out, I was like down in the dumps. And it's like you get to the fun is oftentimes like the chase. And then it's done and you're like, OK, what's next? Do I raise the bar? Like now I have to wait for people to buy it. And like, I'm not even going to read the reviews.

5:49I'm just proud of myself for doing it. That was the fun part. And so I kind of feel that coming. And so I'm excited Katie and I are going to be like celebrating together. But also, as you know, the book writing process is long. And so we were really, really fortunate with how long we were given. So we've been working on this book for three years from start to having it in our hands. And so, you know, getting a literary agent, refining our pitch, writing it. And then like we had a long time from when the final files were due until it's in our hands. So also it's just like, wait, is it finally actually here?

6:28Or it's just a really weird kind of like purgatory to be in. Yeah, it is. I think it's interesting. I collaborate with my wife a lot and I've often noticed like, oh, maybe the way that I would articulate something that you just said, but you brought a different angle to it is, I think of myself as a starter and her as a finisher. That's exactly what we say. Yeah. And I, but I hadn't thought about it. Like when you said the chase element, I'm aware of like, oh, that's a dopamine thing. That's, that's my ADHD thing of so much of my motivation is chasing. I, I need, I need to chase. And, and so I'm just, what it made me curious about was what's the, what's the other, you know, brain chemical that's at play that wants to get everything finished and right.

7:15And like, I don't know, I don't know what it is, but it's clearly some other different gear that I don't know. We call it, we call it the spit shine. So I'm the messy first draft and Katie's the spit shine, but we've both were talking about it the other day in the podcast. And we were like, how many times are we going to say the word spit? Like it was Yeah, spit shine. That's spit shine. Do you guys watch SNL? Sometimes. I'm not like an every weeker. Michael Che did this joke that was like, where are the days where we just used to spit in someone's smoothie? And like that was how we got our revenge to a mean customer.

7:49And I was like, oh my gosh. Can't we go back to people spitting in our food? Yeah. You know things have to be bad if we want to go back to that. Like that's, yeah, that's rough. Hopefully that's the only time we say spit during this call, but no promises. Yeah, we can have a spit counter pop up in the corner. It reminds me of, I just saw a clip of Dan Casaro and Dan Christopherson from Young Jerks talking about how they were going on stage. And right before they went on to do a talk, Casaro was like, hey, count how many times I say diaper in this. Diaper? He said he got four. Yeah. Wow. I was like, yeah, I filled my diaper on that one.

8:28Oh, wow. Wow. That's a new phrase to add to our toolkit. Yeah. We really adore, really adore what they, all their work. And them as human beings are a lot of fun. They really are. So maybe you could just tell us what the book is and a little bit about the book. Okay. Katie, you want to do it? Sure. The book is called Follow Your Art, colon, uncover. No, what is it? every time you had it literally right yeah wait just like just to prefaces we cover and unleash okay yeah yeah yeah right we did change literally all of our files are named by the old book name and so we have just it's so confusing for for us and we're constantly and we went back and forth about the subtitle like a million times i have so now i'm thinking in the title is like final V8.

9:26We left it in the print. Yeah. Final, final dot PDF. You want me to try that one more time? Let me try one more time.

9:40Okay. All right. So why don't you tell us what the book's called and a little bit about it? Absolutely. It's called follow your art, uncover and unleash your creative voice. And it is for the artists and for the designers out there who are trying to figure out who they are as creatives, what their authentic voice really sounds like, and they don't want to manufacture it. They don't want to pull somebody else's style. They don't really know where to go to find their style or how to talk about themselves. This book is a workbook and it's got a lot of essays as well throughout. And it just takes you through this journey of figuring out who you are as a creative and really as a person, it's a little bit existential, I'm not going to lie.

10:31And then you figure out how to communicate it, which is, I think, where a lot of us really get hung up and how to show the patterns and the through lines in your work to other people and how that helps you become a better artist, a more successful artist in whatever that looks like to you, whether that's financially or otherwise. And yeah, I think it's the answer to the question that we've been asked so many times. And I'm really excited that it's out in the universe. I like that you mentioned the existential thing. I think for me, when my voice started to come through a little bit in my work was when I I started to ask much deeper questions about myself and about the kind of work that I wanted to make.

11:15And when I was doing that initially, I felt ridiculous. And I thought, what does this have to do with making, I'm trying to do, I'm trying to be an illustrator, which is a commercial art. Like, I don't really, like, this is, why am I asking these questions? And, but in my experience, this, this is where you have to go. You have to at least entertain that. And then the way it manifests in the work is not always direct, but it really is key. Um, whenever I make anything like a book, it often starts with feeling like I got this thing really wrong when I started. Like I was really, really on the wrong track and then I figured it out.

11:53Or I'm around a lot of people that I think are struggling because they're approaching it in a really, uh, not productive way. So I'm curious, uh, in your opinion, what do you feel like creative people get wrong about finding their, their voice and their style? That's such a good question. And I want to just share a side story first, because this is the first book that Katie and I wrote together. But I wrote a book before this called Mind Your Business. And I started committing to the like I had the idea, but I committed to the idea. Once I got served papers to go to a small claims court with a client.

12:31And I was like, Oh, like, a lot of designers actually have this happen to them. And no one knows what to do. And I was like, I need to write this book because it was to help you set your business up for things like this and for running a business, which is so unpredictable. So for us, when we knew we wanted to write a book, every book is different. Obviously, sometimes, like you said, it might come from feeling like you figured something out or maybe people around you are trying to figure something out. But Katie and I sat down to write this. Thankfully, Katie is really strategic and introspective.

13:03And this was a question that was asked most. So we teach a lot of courses and how do I find my style is the number one question we get. And sometimes we're like, I have no idea. And sometimes we felt like we really knew the answer. And so we sat down and set out to like write down the steps that we've done and that have helped us along the way to figure it out. And just last week I was asked this question, which I think is what our book is. Yeah. It says, do you create to figure something out or because you already know what you want to say? And I'm like, that's a really good, that's really good.

13:38Yeah. Tyler Fink asked me that for his, um, tiny talks, which is something he's doing on his, his website. Yeah. And I feel like the like culmination of the two of those things is kind of our sweet spot. And so we, we had something we wanted to say and part of it was like figuring out as we went, part of it was listening to what other people were going through. Um, I, I might've not answered your question at all. So Katie, did I do okay? it was no it was great what was the question that was your side quest i think that was my side quest i appreciate a good side quest and in fact maybe we'll just camp out there just slightly longer yeah i love that question's really interesting and in my experience uh everybody obviously it ebbs and flows and fluctuates but in my experience a lot of artists fit into one of those like interesting like a lot of people i know they write or they create because they don't know what they think and this is how they process.

14:36And then there, I know a lot of artists that are like, I had something to say. I'm, I have something to say category. Like that's when I go to make something, I know what I want to talk about. I think we are helping people to find the voice to say things with. So like first you have to find your voice or like discover it, uncover it, as we say. And then you have to figure out what you want to say, like how you want to use your voice. And I think our book touches on both, but you can really get stuck in one versus the other for sure. Where like, sometimes you're just trying to figure it out. Sometimes you uncover something in the process, but yeah, it's like, this is not a surface level question at all.

15:13Yeah. And I also think that's an interesting distinction, um, about your voice. Some people do, a lot of people I know want to write stories, um, and they're a question and then other people want to write them in their statement. And that's part of your voice. So it's an interesting distinction. Katie, what were you going to say? I was just going to say to your original question, which you were asking, what's like something that we got wrong that kind of led to the book in general. And I think it's just, so everybody asks the, how do I find my style question, right? And it comes from a really smart strategic place.

15:53Like why are people asking this question of themselves? Why do you want to find your style? And that's because people understand the importance of some kind of consistency in your work, but at the same time, they're terrified of consistency. So I think we kind of have to reevaluate what that means and what it looks like and how flexible consistency actually can be. And it's, it is important because the more consistent your work is the more that there's a clear thread of some sort tying your work together, the more people can understand it, can communicate about it, talk about it, share about it, hire you for it.

16:27So I think that is really key to kind of nailing down some kind of thread in your work. However, I think the point where people are getting tripped up is because when they think of style, they think so narrow. They think I'm going to have to like commit to this really tiny, narrow definition of one aesthetic and stick to it for the rest of my life. And that terrifies the pants off of creatives because we're creative. We want to explore. We want to evolve. We want to change our work as we go throughout our life. And the idea of committing to something so small as like one particular medium or one, you know, way of mark making.

17:13That's, you know, not something that a lot of people feel comfortable with. So I think that's the kind of area where we took this book and we zoomed way out. And we said, okay, instead of starting with, I'm going to find one particular aesthetic, what if I am looking for a pattern in who I am as a person, in what my work looks like, how that manifests in lots of different ways. So we start by like, you're going to do some like basic, you know, personality introspection. We talked about getting a little bit existential earlier. We're going to look at like who you are as a person and kind of try to put your finger on how to describe some of the traits that you have, the things that you like, the inspirations, the people who have influenced you, like all of that stuff and be able to kind of understand how all that fits together and like manifests.

18:10And we're looking for your differentiator, the things that make you different from other people. Right. And then once you determine those, you can sprinkle that stuff throughout everything you do. And that is how, you know, that is magic. And that is how you create consistency without becoming so small. Yeah, I totally, totally agree. And I think it's, I do think that's what people get wrong is they think it's a surface level consistency that's very strict and constricting when really it's a much bigger question about who are you as a person and what is the human behind the work that's consistent and how do you show that?

18:51We talk about on the show a lot that it's easy to think that everything's about getting discovered as a creative and then making a sale when there's this huge middle thing, which is building trust. Because you can know about an artist, you can discover them and not be a fan and not buy anything of theirs or not want to hire them. And so there's this transition from I know of them to I'm a fan of them. And I think a huge part of it is trust. And that trust only comes from some type of consistency. and I like everything you were saying. It's like, it's not like, Oh, you always do noses this way.

19:25It's more, it's deeper than that. It's like, you're, you can even be a contrarian as part of what they trust you for is that every time you come out with a new project, it's unlike anything we've ever seen before. And it's, uh, or, or it can be like, Oh, you're a mirror to society where you're like, this is, I'm showing everybody what we're seeing. Or you're like, this is what no one's paying attention to. There are these deeper, deeper things that go beyond this like strict aesthetic that I think a lot of people associate with style. And part of the building trust is being authentic. Like you, and so it like literally you just have to be yourself and it sounds, it sounds so easy.

20:01And we struggle with like how to present ourselves in marketing and in that in-between area that you're talking about and on like social media and stuff. But really like it boils down to like, I'm going to trust somebody who feels like a real human being who's just like sharing their self with me. And I don't feel like there's any kind of mask or like manipulation tactic being put on. So I think the more that we can just like embrace who we are and allow, you know, certain people to not be drawn to that, which is a scary thing to do. But yeah, the more that we can just sit in who we are and not kind of put any filter on that, I think the better.

20:41I think one of the things people continuously say, and this is what we hear over and over, and we all feel this, I think, is that when you're starting and trying to listen and uncover and like refine your own voice, you can really, really quickly and easily feel like you're trying to replicate someone else's. And so it's really important to figure out what about that person's work am I drawn to? And is it because there's a common thread to the things that I want to say or that I'm trying to say or that feel important to me. And I think in the age of like virality, it's even more dangerous because we're just fed things that like we didn't even ask to search for.

21:23And then we're like, oh, like that's working for them. And like, there's a glimmer of me in that. I see it. And so maybe I should lean into what they're doing. And so in the book we talk about like finding your influences and figuring out what influences you about that and what inspires you about that. And then also like how to not take it as your only source of inspiration. And that can be really hard when like we just reach for our phones and we're just like constantly fed things. So true. Yeah. It's really tough. And so it's not this conversation. This is not like an easy book. This is not an easy topic to do.

22:03Like it's hard work. And I feel like we kind of want to read a book like this and then like get it through osmosis. We're like, okay, well it's in my brain now. I've probably got it figured out, but like the hard work is actually sitting down and doing the like reflection and writing it down. And like, then at the end, I think our goal is for people to feel confident in it and be like, oh, I understand myself and my work a little bit better or a lot better, hopefully. That's great. And I love what you said about the influences. I think about when I was starting out, I had a sense of like, oh, my influences are something about me.

22:38They're something, they feel important, but I couldn't, at first I was like, but am I supposed to ignore that? And it took a long time to realize like, no, that you have to have that distinction that you just said, where it's like some of the things that are, you're coming across and are interested in are like, you're inspired by how successful they are. And that's, but then there are other things where the true influence is like that thing moves you. It's not just like, oh, I like how that's working for them. It's, it's more than that. And I think there's something about how, um, if something deeply moves you, it's telling you something about your taste.

23:14And that is something about you. Um, and I think it's important to kind of make those distinctions. And especially as these things are being fed to you all the time, I find myself feeling exactly the same, like so easily influenced by, oh, I guess I should be doing that. And you end up going a million different directions. I think the thing that I really discovered to help me when I am in, you know, kind of looking through all my influences and everything and staring at it and trying to discern, like, what do I do with all of this? You can just kind of, it's like little kids when they're asking their parents questions.

23:50that end up being accidentally so deep. All you have to do is keep asking why until you get to the bottom of the barrel. And so, okay, I really like this album cover from 1975. Why? And you keep asking until you get to like the very root of the thing. And then that you can extract and say, okay, now I learned something about myself that's like bigger and applies to a lot more. And we like a lot of the same things for a lot of the same reasons. And you just have to kind of keep finding those whys and then you'll start to see them overlapping. It's really pretty cool. It is cool. When I was a teacher, I would get so frustrated when I would, when I would ask them to, you know, create like a Pinterest board of stuff they're super into.

24:36And then I'd be like, okay, this is showing up a lot. Why do you like this? And they would stop at because it's cool. It's cool. And I'm like, yeah, that's good. That's the first feeling i'm asking why is it cool and then just be like comfortable you're it's a messy thing it's hard to figure out but it's worthwhile asking those it's a little bit like therapy yeah it's like you know when someone is like what do you love about your spouse and you're like i don't know i just like like that's not a good answer it's not a good answer no it's like really bad yeah but i feel like that's what people like maybe this is like a high school thing like what do you like about them?

25:14It's like, um, yeah, I just do. I don't know. I feel like we could graduate from that and maybe do a little reflection. And I don't know if, uh, especially at the beginning, I was very afraid that if I asked myself, why do I think it's cool that there's nothing on the other side of that? Or I thought, oh, maybe it's just me being like other people or whatever. or those are, that's really interesting, important stuff to excavate, like to be like, okay, well, yeah, maybe this is just something where I'm like trying to be like somebody else. Let's get it off the Pinterest board. Or, you know, if you, if you're dating someone and someone asks you that, like, what if I don't really like them?

25:56Like that, you know, you need to ask the question. I mean, trends are trends for a reason. Like we, we pick a lot of them up and then a couple years later, we're like not that interested. And so I think it's really important that we ask ourselves, what is it about this that I like? And also, do I want to partake in this or do I enjoy seeing it as a trend, but maybe it's not something for me? Katie and I talk about this a lot where there are a lot of things that I really appreciate and enjoy, but would not want for myself. And I use the example of my sister, who's an art teacher. She's like the Miss Frizzle of art teachers and like you go to her house and anytime I need any craft project or like have an idea in my head, like I could find the tools in her basement.