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Episode 74

Making Lemonade Out Of Grapefruits

This week on Overtime, a new contest has designers creating the ugliest logos you can imagine, and designers grab their pitchforks over a renowned publication’s controversial Tweet. Plus, Meg chats with lettering artist and illustrator extraordinaire Mary Kate McDevitt about being productive (or not) during self-isolation.

Of course, a world pandemic is the perfect time to get that personal project going—like, NOT REALLY.


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Transcript

Meg: Hey, hey, hey buddies. It’s me, your host Meg “ClownloverX_YYY71239 Has Logged On” Lewis and welcome back to Overtime, Dribbble’s weekly podcast where I deliver design news plus tips you need to create your best work. This week on Overtime, a place to submit an awful logo and a panel of esteemed judges pick which ones are the absolute worst, and every designer grabs a pitchfork and comes after a publication for tweeting a specific quote. And our bud Mary Kate McDevitt pops by to talk about being productive, or not, during this dumb time in history. Let’s go.

The system for creative people is broken. It puts algorithms over ideas, quantity over quality, what’s easy to sell over what’s good, you know, money brands and just about everything else over the people who actually make the things. And people just say that’s the way it is. Well, Patreon says screw that. And here’s a wild idea. Let’s put creativity over everything because they’re your ideas. It’s your work that captivates audiences, inspires conversation, and builds community. So, it’s time to ditch the old ways and let your fans give you the freedom and stability you need to do your best creative work. It’s not rocket science, it’s just way better. Visit CreativityOverEverything.com and see how Patreon can help you do your best creative work with the direct support of your fans.

I want to start this episode and these news stories off with something that I find to be very fun. There is a new design competition out right now called “How Low Can Your Logo?” and it is a classic design competition. But what are you competing for? You’re competing to design the ugliest, worst, most bad logo. And they have a jury of esteemed judges. They’re actually good, talented designers like Michael Beirut, Jessica Hische is there. It’s pretty funny. I don’t know how to define what a good designer is anyway. I’m looking to my right-hand side like I have a co-host who can confirm or deny or give any kind of comment, but there’s no one here.

But in addition to this, there being a panel of judges, there’s also an audience vote, like you can go on this website and vote on your favorite bad logos. And the winners, the worst logos are actually, you know, you get prizes, and they are very good prizes. These prizes are worth a lot of money and they’re beautiful objects and there’s a lot of them. So, what you’re doing is you are a designing under brief, everybody gets the same brief, and it’s for a tech solution to shorts, a company disrupting shorts. It’s called Smorts. I assume they want everybody to read the company name that way: Smorts. I will not stop. I think this competition is very fun because it is a happy distraction from the sadness and despair and misery swirling around in our brains right now. And I think something lighthearted and jokey and fun is what I at least personally need at the moment. So, I’ve been having a fun time going to HowLowCanYourLogo.com and looking at all the horrible logo designs for Smorts. And I hope you do too.

And for the second news story this week, I want to break down a lengthy – it should be a short story, but it’s not – design Twitter drama that is unleashing before my eyes today. And you’re going to be listening to this podcast a few days from today when I’m recording it, so, in case you missed this drama, I’m going to break it down for you. So an AIGA Eye on Design tweet that was twaught twice, it was tweeted, a tweet that hath been twaught in the past by AIGA Eye On Design was a quote from a designer. And they were talking about job prospects and recent grads and what the heck you’re going to do right now in this current climate where nobody has jobs. So how can you get one?

And the tweet that they originally tweeted, has since been deleted, oh, gasp! And it basically was a quote, and the quote from the article that they were tweeting was, quote, “Be prepared for interviewers to ask, what did you do during the pandemic? If your answer is that you played on your Xbox or even just that you learn to code, you’ll be viewed poorly. If you say you volunteered or helped organize your community or took part in a hackathon to develop solutions to non-clinical problems, that will help you stand out.” End quote.

So, I think you understand why there was some backlash on this quote, this quote is very insensitive about the fact that we’re going through a rough time and like, what employer would even ask this question to begin with? And I truly do think that it is good that designers all collectively grabbed a pitchfork and came after this person for saying that, and you know, called out AGIA Eye On Design for the tweet. I think it’s good because we have come a heck of a long way. This advice would have been very common. Remember the advice of like, “Don’t you show your true self on social media, an employer might see it. Don’t have a tattoo or pink hair or wear round glasses or talk about toots in front of an employer or you know, you might not get the job?” This is advice that I think people were giving or maybe still do give and I think this person that gave this quote probably agrees with all those statements. They probably never toot during an interview.

But truly, I think it’s good that we’re lashing out against this because it means that we’ve changed. We’re becoming more human and more sensitive to other humans’ feelings and thinking of people that work at a job as humans, which is very important, indeed. So, I think it’s good that we’re lashing out. And AIGA Eye On Design’s original response to everybody lashing out was like, “Whoa, read the context of the full article, read the whole thing that this person said, we only had a certain number of characters in this tweet, read the rest of it. And when you look at the rest of the article, the rest of what this person is saying is that basically, you know, we’re all in this together and employers should be understanding that you’re disrupted during this time. And at all costs. You should probably not work with employers that aren’t understanding. But if they ask you in an interview, you should be able to be prepared to say you wert productive.” You got it. Not only do you have to learn how to code, you have to do so much more. You have to organize a hackathon.

So yeah, it’s a little bit of conflicting statements there and not a great look for anybody involved. But let’s break it down. Why is this a problem? And why is it good that we came after them? And what could we have done better? And I think, you know, a quality of a good friend, a good community member, is to support each other, to support your friends and challenge them. So, when they screw up, tell them, you know, in a nice way, in a kind way, if possible, right? Tell them that they messed up and that they did wrong and how they can correct themselves. And I think that’s how we learn as humans, is we get boundaries, and people kind of enforce us and put us in our little box and so that we keep bonking against barriers. People keep telling us what we can and cannot do as a human, so, we keep hitting against those barriers, which forms us into a functioning member of society. And yes, I do and don’t agree with a lot of parts of society and a lot of these barriers that we bonk against.

But I think as friends, it’s really good for us to give Barriers to other people to bonk against so that we know what we’re supposed to do. We know how to be a good person, because we’re all just making up this life as we go. And it’s helpful for other people to give us their feedback along the way that we can either decide we agree with or decide we disagree with. And that’s cool that we’re helping them to do this together and hoping that in the moment, they’re learning something, because I think a lot of times, whenever everybody’s coming after you, it’s really easy to get defensive and to say things that a few days later, if you just had some separation in time, you may not have said. I tend to react very differently to something right away, then if I just give myself a few minutes to cool off, you know? You know what I’m saying? You know, because you’re human, and we all do this. So, I think it’s good that we that we put them in their place, and then we told them what to do. And you know what? AIGA Eye on Design issued an apology very quickly after saying, “Oopsies. We’re so sorry. We apologize. And we want you to see the full piece just in case you didn’t see the whole context.” And then everybody was like “Delete it. Bad advice. Just get rid of it.” And they did. They listened. They did it. Great. Another case closed on design Twitter.

But really, honestly, I think that when it comes to tweeting, like Twitter threads help us to get our huge complex ideas out into the world because you know, when we have a limited number of characters, it’s really hard to communicate complex ideas in short statements. And even Twitter, it’s not enough. It’s not enough words for us to be able to communicate these complex ideas. And that’s exactly why I do not try and use Twitter for this reason. Because it doesn’t matter if I’m tweeting something like, “Making pizza rolls for dinner” and include a photo of my pizza rolls and in the photo, my pizza rolls happen to be near a microwave. Everyone will come after me and say, “Meg Lewis, how dare you microwave your pizza rolls. Don’t you know putting them in the oven makes them crispy and not mushy? Oven only, you are wrong.” That’s what Twitter does. Even though I didn’t explicitly say I was making pizza rolls in my microwave, which I would ever do. I always make them in the oven. People didn’t know that. They guess. I had a limited number of characters; I wasn’t able to explain my entire view on making pizza rolls for optimum crust and crunchy on the outside. Nobody understood. There weren’t enough characters. We couldn’t have a full conversation, so they came after me. And that’s what we do in this world. This is what humans do. This is the world we live in. It’s strange and chaotic and it’s the Wild West out there. But hey, we’re all going through a really rough time right now. Humans are fragile. Humans are delicate. I know I am. I know you are too if you just would admit it. We all are. We’re all just trying to survive. Best case scenario we can maybe try and thrive but right now, we’re going through a tough time. So, everybody’s behaving a little unpredictably. We’re all dealing with things in ways that we can. And we’re learning together and we’re growing together.

Meg: Yeppers, we’re all battling with our own dang thoughts about whether or not we can or should be productive during this excellently dumb time in history. And I don’t know about you, but I’m telling myself that I have to be productive even when I can’t bring myself to even take a dang shower. So, some days, I feel creative lately, others I don’t. Some days, I only get a few minutes of feeling it maybe even just a few seconds, maybe not at all. But when it comes to someone who I think is doing what she can in small doses, it’s Mary Kate McDevitt, who has been releasing a bunch of DIY videos, essentially showing us how to do her job. Very nice of you. I’ve brought in Mary Kate today to talk about how she does it and what the heck it actually looks like inside her brain right now. Hey, Mary Kate, how are you?

Mary Kate: I’m good. How are you?

Meg: I’m doing okay, I’m doing good. You know, I realized that it feels weird to emphatically say that I’m like, “I’m terrific.” But we were talking a little bit earlier about how you have to enjoy, like, there are good moments, and there are bad moments and you just kind of have to enjoy while you’re having a good moment.

Mary Kate: Totally. Because you never know when the bad moment’s going to come up. It’s so up and down.

Meg: So, what I want to talk to you about today is being productive because I’m sort of oscillating between feeling like I can’t do anything to feeling like I should be doing something to feeling like, “I feel creative right now. I need to do something right now.” And yeah, I think that you are doing a great job of at least seeming really productive, like you’re doing a lot. So, will you tell me and everybody else what some of these things you’re doing that are keeping you productive are?

Mary Kate: Yeah, so I have been keeping busy. I think for me, it’s important to, when I have anxiety going on and obviously everything is chaos. To me, I find it really helpful to kind of put myself into other projects. So along with doing some personal work, all around what’s going on, I really like being able to share whatever my experience is, whether it’s, yeah, that feeling that pressure of free time. So like, one of the things I made was just the pressure of free time and just being like, yeah, suddenly everyone’s talking about like, “Oh, now you can tackle all those projects you’ve been wanting to tackle.” And it’s just like, what? Great, the timings perfect. Of course, a world pandemic is the perfect time to really get that personal project going, like not really.

But yeah, so just being able to put stuff out there and belling like, this is how I’m feeling. Are you feeling like this? The other day, I made something about how I discovered that you can eat grapefruit sliced. I have no idea why. I love grapefruit, and I always eat it by cutting it with a knife. Like each little section and then scooping it out with a spoon. And then one day, I was just like, “You know what? Fuck this, I’m gonna just cut this into slices like an orange. It’s just a giant orange anywho.” So, that was one of the things that I realized that I’m just like, “Hey, you know, this is the quarantine content that hopefully, you’re all here for.”

So, aside from that personal work, I also decided since I’m not going to be able to do travel to do workshops or anything, that I would put out some tutorials on my IGTV. So yeah, the first week of quarantine, I did a block lettering tutorial. And I just kind of put it as like, I could maybe spend the extra time to make it into a Skillshare class or something, but I’m like I’m just in my guest room/office and I don’t really have the tools to really make it super professional or whatever. So, I’m going to just have a really informal tutorial like we’re all hanging out in my guest room slash office together.

Meg: Yes. I must tell you that block lettering tutorial was mind-blowing to me. I swear block lettering is like actual witchcraft. It’s amazing. I’m sure everybody loves that tutorial, because it’s like, you just start with a rectangle and all of a sudden there is a letter. It just blew my mind.

Mary Kate: And I mean, it’s the way I present it, because I’m like, “Guys, you’re gonna lose your mind. Watch how I draw this tree. Boom. That’s it.” Like it’s an infomercial. Like it’s like the infomercial of lettering. Because it’s so easy. There’s got to be a better way. So, it’s like block lettering is the way and now I’m full on obsessed with it. And a lot of people followed along on their iPad, which was fine, but I wanted to do it working on paper and I was using cut paper. So, it was a really fun way to just step away from the computer completely. And then the last one I did, that one, I definitely was like, I set myself up for – not failure, I think it went okay – but I did an animation one. And I’m just like, “Geez, it’s all me on my screen.” Animation does take a long time, so I had to edit it. And so, I was just editing in iMovie and just trying to do a bunch of different exercises for people to try. And when all was said and done, I think there were, including my intro, six videos, so I’m just like, okay, maybe the next one I’ll kind of tone it down. I’m not trying to have college courses here. But I do like going above and beyond sometimes. Well, not to pat myself on my back, I just went above and beyond for you all.

Meg: So, we kind of touched on this a little bit in the beginning of our conversation, but you’ve been doing a lot. Like I think you’re used to having a certain cadence with your work because you are self-employed. You have to be generally quite self-motivated to be self-employed. And you’re always making stuff that’s either for people or just for yourself for fun. And so, have you found during this time that you feel a little bit like me, where you have moments where you just feel like doing nothing instead of being productive? Or do you think that you’re productive more often than not?

Mary Kate: It goes on and off completely. Like today, I woke up and looked at my to do list and was kind of like, “You know what? It’s Thursday. Friday, there’s still another day in the week to kind of tackle some of this stuff.” And I went straight to cleaning my oven, essentially. And so today I had a complete distraction day where I was just like, still productive, but I felt like I wanted to step away from work a little bit.

Meg: Yeah, I think I’ve learned, especially during this time, to readjust my expectations and the definition of productivity. Because now I find if I just redefine what productive means for myself, and I tell myself I’m blocking off four hours today to play Animal Crossing or to do this one task that I normally don’t, or like, watch six episodes of the show, and if I define productivity is that thing for that block of time then it actually makes me feel good about myself rather than bad about myself. Because it’s the thing I set out to do and I was productive, I got it done.

Mary Kate: Yeah, it’s like on my to do list, it says eat six snicker bars. It’s on my to do list, I have to do it. I can’t wait, I gotta get it done. But yeah, it does. If you listen to your body, I guess listen to what you feel like you need and if what you need is back breaking work of cleaning an oven or playing Animal Crossing, then that’s what should be done because it’s like, you can’t constantly think, like, productivity isn’t necessarily tackling this big giant personal project or thinking of new ways to get clients. I mean, I was talking to my friend yesterday, just about how crazy and scary it all is, just because yeah, obviously work is slowing down. There’s not as many job offers coming through. And I was just like, “Yeah, I don’t have a backup plan. I don’t have a pandemic backup plan for all this.” So, it is scary, but it’s hard for me to be like, how should I refocus my work in order to match what’s going on right now. I can’t do that, it stresses me out and it’s not productive.

Meg: Yes. And luckily for us, as creatives, I feel like we are set up for success more so than almost any other group of people, because our careers, and it doesn’t have to be the exact thing that we’re making or doing, our careers as a creative person and creative thinker is really our brain. So, we’re able to just take what we have in our brain that makes us amazing, and use the skills that we know as creative people to create whatever we need to in order to survive and make money and there’s so many tools out there that can help us make things that don’t really need to rely on anybody else to allow us to do that, which I think is great. And you’re a living example of using your skill set and your own brain in order to make things happen for yourself. Do you, in the practice of making things for yourself and doing all this stuff and all these tutorial videos and how to’s and sharing your work with the internet and your whole community and everybody, do you have any tips for helping creatives to figure out what they can do during this time?

Mary Kate: I would say, you know, if you’re wanting to be productive, and when I say that it’s like when you feel ready, it’s like you have that urgency, like, I want to make something because I think that’s important. If you’re going to force yourself into something, then it’s not going to feel right. So, when you have that urgency behind something, think about what you’ve been wanting to make, what new skill you have been wanting to try, what’s an idea that’s been turning in your head and maybe you know, start small, maybe it’s just working with new material, like maybe you wanted to do more like working on paper, start making little whatever’s and start doing that. Or if you’ve been wanting to make a product that’s a digital download or something like that, start with like, I don’t know, like a coloring book page, a lot of people have been making those.

And I’d say start manageable. So, it’s like, once you get that small part of it done or just that first leg of the whole project, then you’ll have kind of have your starting momentum to really dive deeper into it. And if the urgency to create something is not there, it’s really hard to deal with it. Like in this time in particular, to kind of jumpstart creativity or getting out of a creative block kind of thing, that can be really difficult. But even then, I would say maybe starting small, like sometimes I’ll just mess around and just play with color palettes and overlaying colors, just like an exercise to get me moving creatively, and then suddenly, I have a color palette. I’m like, “Oh, I’m excited to do something with these weird colors.”

Meg: That’s true. I think that’s amazing advice for me to hear because, and I know a lot of people too, where during this time, and a lot of times, we just don’t feel creative. We’re waiting for it to come around and it just never happens. And sometimes forcing yourself to do something makes you just make work that’s bad and then you get more frustrated with yourself. But I like this advice of doing something simple, a simple creative exercise task of like moving colors around or just creating a color palette that you find pleasing. Just doing a little bit to hopefully give your brain a teaser that maybe it could feel creative if it really tried. And then wait and see if it comes naturally. But I agree there’s no sense in forcing yourself to try to be creative or try to be productive if your brain isn’t allowing you to do that, because you’re not going to make great work. You’re not going to make anything that you’re proud of in those moments and it’s just gonna make you feel worse.

Mary Kate: Yeah, it’s kind of like, you know, building a snowman or something and you’re in the snow and you’re kind of rolling around snow and just playing, and all of a sudden you have a ball and then it’s just like, see how big this snowball can get. And then you’re stacking two more on top of it, and then adding clothes or whatever. So, it’s just kind of tricking yourself into like, or challenging yourself. Tricking yourself into challenging yourself to try a new thing.

Meg: So, what else are you hoping to trick yourself into challenging yourself to do during this indoor quarantine time?

Mary Kate: Okay, well, I did mention trying to maybe do a Skillshare class that’s been on my to do list for a year. So, I’ll leave that there. That’s still there. I’ve been messing around with making fonts. Because I have like, one that has a lot of glyphs in it, and I feel like it’s looking like something. It’s really hard to make a font that’s like, hand lettered looking, without being like, “Is this the right way to draw a letter?” Like, suddenly, I don’t know how to draw a letter. Fonts are so strange, but I have one that’s kind of there. And then I made four others just because it’s one of those things where it’s just like, suddenly I’m just like, I have a new idea for a font. And it’s so fun seeing your lettering get typed out, it’s like what? So maybe getting that tightened up and releasing a font, that would be wild.

Meg: I think it’s good that you have a lot of ideas that “I would like to do this” and that way you’re giving yourself a selection for the back of your brain so that way whenever your brain does feel like doing something it can choose from a selection. So, that way it has a lot of options, and you can do whatever you feel like doing the most in that moment.

Mary Kate: Yeah, exactly. And a lot of the stuff that I would want to do is sort of partly finished. Just like doing those informal tutorials on my IGTV, it’s just like, if I do have an idea for a more polished Skillshare class, then I have sort of, I mean, I obviously have a bunch of those Skillshare classes too. Or the fonts, like I have a bunch of others that I’ve been playing with. So, it’s like I have, there’s like little, I don’t have a good analogy for this. Like, people say pants on fire. That’s what my kitchen looks like.

Meg: Yes, just a series of pants on fire for you to select from.

Mary Kate: A couple small grease fires that, you know, are just being maintained slowly. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. But yeah, just kind of starting something and feeling okay that it’s not 100% there. Just that it’s like, “Oh, okay, I have something, maybe set it aside.”

Meg: Yes. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share all this with us. Because I know for me, it’s wonderful to look at your work and all the amazing things that you’re doing, especially in this time. It seems, to an outsider like myself, like you’re being super productive and making the most of it. And you’re a great example. But it’s also really refreshing to hear that it’s not that easy and it’s okay to struggle with it sometimes and I think everyone will relate to that a lot. So, thanks for being here so much. Do you have anything specific that you’d like to promote?

Mary Kate: Just my Instagram?

Meg: That block lettering tutorial, my God.

Mary Kate: Check that out. It’s all, you know, free obviously. And then at the end, I do share a promo code for my digital, downloadable lettering booklets, my pocket companion guides. And those are available on my shop, MaryKateMcDevitt.com.

Meg: And what’s your social media handle?

Mary Kate: @MaryKateMcDevitt.

Meg: Excellent. Thanks for being here.

Mary Kate: Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Meg. I appreciate it.

Meg: Did you know that we have a hotline? In case you have never listened to this podcast, I’m constantly urging you to call into our hotline because it’s looking a little lonely out there for me and for you and for everybody. So, call into our hotline. Tell us what you’re worried about what you’re excited about, give me a little message, get weird, get wonderful, get introspective, get sad, get lonely, just tell me a story. Do whatever you need to. Think about it as a little confessional booth. Think about it as a call with a therapist. Treat my hotline like you would calling me on the phone. No one will answer. If you have any anxiety about talking to someone on the phone, I promise you no one answers this number. It goes straight to voicemail. It rules. You can say anything you want to say and your call, your message, plus my response might be featured on this podcast.

And that’s it for this week’s episode of Overtime. Please stay healthy. Wash your hands, take care of your mind and bodies. Stay indoors and do what you can to keep those around you safe and healthy too. And as always, as a community, let’s band together. We’re good at grabbing pitchforks together. Let’s not grab hugs, let’s grab something – our computers, our phones. Let’s grab a book. Let’s grab a stuffed animal. Let’s grab a Twinkie. Again, I love pizza rolls, wouldn’t decline them if someone mailed me one right now. Let’s grab them and let’s virtually touch brains, and virtually touch minds, and virtually touch our hearts together again this week. Bye, hear me next week!