by Ben Toalson | Aug 5, 2014 | In The Boat
I Was An Artistic Child
I self identified early on as an artist… When I say artist, I mean one who is generally interested in and cannot help but to express his or her self through some or many forms of artistic mediums. For me it has been a variety of things, primarily music, but also acting, illustrating, painting, photography, video. It’s gotten to the point where I can almost always find some art in everything. Cooking, for example, is a form of art. Not just the presentation, but also the method. Just about every day I am struck with the urge to pursue some random artistic expression or am inspired by something I see to do something similar. Art continues to fill me with wonder and curiosity, just like it did when I was a child.
Art In Its Purest Form
With children of my own I can see it so clearly in them as well. Their love for making things is manifest in piles and piles of drawings, cardboard buildings for their stuffed animals, towers made from anything but actual building blocks, impromptu theatrical productions, dancing, singing, composing strange melodies on our old piano, stories written and characters imagined on any piece of paper that was within reach at the time of conception… the list goes on. It’s beautiful.
Time To Grow Up
Sometimes, when enjoying one of their most recent pieces, I catch myself feeling a little jealous at the freedom in which they create. It’s a freedom I used to experience as a child. The freedom gave way to responsibility as I grew older. I don’t remember if it was the voices of others or my own that said, “The artist thing was great when you were a kid, but now you’re an adult and you have to choose: do you want to be a starving artist or do you want to get a real job and contribute to society?”
A Growing Sickness
I still questioned this and asked, “Why not both?” So I got a real job, but continued my artistic pursuits on the side. Even before I made the transition into adulthood, however, there was a sickness that was slowly creeping into my life, into my artistry.
As a young man I was exposed to this romantic idea of the “Starving Artist.” The starving artist may look many different ways to many different people, but this is the picture that I had of him:
A Profile of the Starving Artist
His appearance is disheveled. His hair, his choice of clothes, the way he wears his satchel–all his subtle way of saying ‘I don’t have the time or creative energy to care about how I look.’ He is regularly late in every aspect. Bills, meetings, appointments; he is no respecter of persons but treats each activity with an equal level of carelessness. He is rarely present with the people in his company, and is often perceived to be aloof. His life is filled with trial and struggle as if every force in the universe were converging on him to keep him from his creative work. He is an expert at mining the angst from even the lightest of circumstances and even relishes in this activity as a source of fuel for his artistic expression. His mantra is, “Life is pain and pain when filtered through the suffering human soul, is art.” Anything outside of his art is tasteless, meaningless. And this lifestyle is how he will one day create a masterpiece that will simultaneously inspire and break the hearts of the masses.
The Lie I Began to Believe
So, that took a pretty dark turn. It wasn’t this exact idea that started creeping into my mind as a young person… I was mostly riffing just now… but even a mild form of this idea can be a destructive force in the life of a budding artist. Little by little I started giving into it. Especially when the world, or some form of self-fulfilling-prophecy, began to confirm what I was starting to believe: If I want to be an artist, I will suffer for my art.
Over the years, I’ve struggle to reconcile my love for art with the practical things of life. I have, at times, lived into the starving artist stereotype or, at best, felt as though I were leading two lives; the life of the irresponsible artist, and the life of the responsible adult cleaning up after the other guy. One day, in the middle of the cycle I finally asked, “does it really have to be this way?”
An Inevitability or a Choice?
I started learning about artists who lived lives full of routine and rich relationships. Artists whose work was praised by their contemporaries and added beauty and inspiration to the world around them. At some point I decided that the starving artist is not a reality that one must experience but a choice among many choices for how to live into one’s artistic existence.
Art and Life Can Co-Exist
I can have routine and rhythm. I can get up at the same time every morning and go through the same steps getting myself ready for the day and take steps each night preparing myself for sleep. I can even have something close to ritual, where there is deeper meaning to each of these steps that breathe new life and inspiration into each new day.
I can take care of myself. I can get enough sleep and exercise and take pride in my physical appearance as an outward representation of an inner strength. I can approach each new day feeling refreshed and revitalized, strong and confident, though perhaps uncertain about the unforeseen circumstances of the day, certain of the power I possess to face them.
I can take joy in and draw inspiration from deep, meaningful relationships. Ones in which I am known, not just for my strengths, but also for my weaknesses, and loved regardless. I can find meaning and purpose in the giving of myself.
Birthing Pains
The pursuit of art is a struggle, yes, but I see it as a struggle in the way that bringing a child into the world is a struggle. Art grows and develops inside of us and when we finally birth it into the world, it can bring more pain and struggle than we ever thought we were capable of handling, and at the same time, fills your world with life, gives you a new perspective, makes you more mature and selfless and gives you joy that you cannot contain. We become the caretakers and the stewards of something that ultimately doesn’t belong to us, but that we get to help grow and develop until it finds its way into the world.
Choose to be a “Thriving Artist”
I want so strongly to dispel the lies that we believe about struggling in our pursuit of artistic expression. There are so many aspects of this idea that I want to explore, but I want to start simply by saying that if you think you must suffer for your art, if you think your art doesn’t have a place of value in this world, if you think you must necessarily live into this false ideal in order to produce your best work, STOP! Stop believing these lies and allow yourself to live well and whole. Art isn’t borne of pain and suffering, such a narrow part of the human experience, but is an expression of the WHOLE human experience. Don’t be a “starving artist”, instead choose to be a “thriving artist.”
by Ben Toalson | Jul 28, 2014 | In The Boat
You Gotta Love Business
I co-host a bi-weekly podcast with my good friend Sean McCabe over at seanwes.com/podcast, where he and I talk about (to put it generally) creativity and business. During a recent episode we were discussing the business side of freelance work (billing, sales, documentation, book-keeping, etc.) and how it comprises a significant portion of the freelancer’s time. He argued that if you wanted to experience success as a person in business for themselves, you had to love business.
Can’t I Just Love Something Else?
I struggled with this idea. I argued that maybe you could love your creative pursuit so much that the business stuff, that you don’t like to do, becomes tolerable. Sean and I left that point, not completely in alignment. I just couldn’t see why you should have to love something on the sole merit of the amount of time you have to spend doing it in order to make something you truly love possible. Do I really have to love business? He’s such a boring guy.
Two Kinds of Love
Last night my wife and I were talking about this same idea and I came to a realization. What if it’s not about feeling love or affection for something, but expressing or showing love in the way that you do it. For the sake of my argument, it comes down to two different kinds of love:
1. The love we feel
For example, I feel love for making things with my hands. I have an affinity for sitting down at my desk and carefully sketching out the lines of a project and watching it become what I have envisioned in my mind.
2. The love we show
I am expressing love when I pay close attention to the details of each line. When I slow down to make it perfect when I’d rather speed up and get it done. When I spend an hour thoughtfully recounting in an article all of the ideas and inspirations that led me to this piece.
A Conscious Choice
The second kind of love, the love that we show, is applied quite naturally to the things for which we feel love. Even with those things, however, showing love is still a conscious choice. This is how I believe we can love business. We can express love for it by intentionally applying our values, our attention to detail, our creativity and ingenuity to the way that we do business.
Let Me Count the Ways
Practically speaking, this might look like following your own design process for making a beautiful and functional invoicing system. It might look like coming up with a creative way to lead customers through a meaningful experience with your brand. It might look like taking the time to craft a well-written article about your process with a particular piece. It might look like triple checking your math when doing accounting related activities.
Expressed Love Wins
So how do you express this kind of love, this attention to detail, this level of care, to something you don’t enjoy? You choose to. You commit to. This is the key. You make up you mind about what you will do, and surprisingly, often times, your affection will follow. But, even if it doesn’t, love isn’t relegated to an emotion that you feel while you’re doing something. In the end, whether it’s something you enjoy or not, if you do it without expressed love, it’s not worth doing in the first place. Love what you do.
by Ben Toalson | Jul 21, 2014 | In The Boat
Today I’m going to talk to you about a place where I spend most of my time. My home office. I used to spend most of my time in coffee shops, working on my laptop. As my office took shape, I found myself addicted to working here.
Our office is actually an offshoot of our bedroom space… For the size of our house, the bedroom is actually quite large. We tried a lot of different arrangements for this cozy space, and ultimately decided that it would be best suited as our home office. It’s upstairs and away from the noise of the rest of the house, so when Rachel and I take our shifts, we get to work in peace.
This is my desk area. It’s actually an old drafting table my brother recovered from the side of the road. It is not quite as deep as a conventional desk, which works great for the space, and it’s got some shelving below where I keep our printer and some extra paper. We set it up in front of the window overlooking the street, which isn’t much of a view, but when it rains I open up the blinds and enjoy the softer, overcast light and the rain streaming down the window as I work. I have a 27 inch iMac accompanied by a 17 inch Dell monitor extended desktop to give me a little bit of extra working space when I need it.
I also have a Yeti Blue USB microphone that I can easily swing over for anything I need to record. This is a great and easy way to quickly capture my thoughts if typing won’t keep up, and it will definitely be useful when I start the “In the Boat With Ben” Podcast.
Though the desk area isn’t very deep, one of the great things about having an iMac is that it doesn’t take up a lot of real estate, so I’ve got plenty of room to push the keyboard back and work on art.
Finally, another favorite spot of mine is that blue armchair next to the bookshelf. I use this space to shift my perspective a little bit, both physically and mentally. Here I can break out my laptop, put my feet up on the coffee table (that’s allowed in my office) sip some coffee and write, or brainstorm, or just think, or take a break.
A few months back I was given a “day off” for my birthday. Rachel took care of the kids and said, “You go do whatever you want. Have fun.” I wasn’t out long before I eventually found myself back in the home office, setting it up to look the way that it does today. It may not be the ideal place for someone else, but I love it.
My office is my helm. It’s where I come to steer the ship. It is in the best interest of my work to set up an environment that allows my work to thrive. Give yourself permission to turn your workspace into a place where you love to be. Take some time, rearrange some things. Buy some stuff, or just make what you have work. The work that you do is too important to not live in an environment where it can thrive.
by Ben Toalson | Jul 16, 2014 | Case Studies, Featured Work, In The Boat, portfolio
Goals and Summary:
The goal of the logo is to convey the rich history of the dance hall, while highlighting the fun, light-hearted, community spirit that people experience when they hold and attend events there. A refresh of their branding will help Anhalt Hall to stand out more prominently in peoples’ minds when they consider where they’d like to have their next party, wedding, family reunion, etc. resulting in a more steady inflow of new and returning patrons.
I designed a logo that dances across whatever medium it uses. I intentionally gave some of the letters a subtle characteristic of dancing feet so the logo would express the vibrancy one experiences in the dance hall. I hand crafted a German type style font that matches the historical feel of the venue with a light-hearted spirit. For the secondary text I used a simple, rounded, sans-serif font with a little bit of German flavored decor to anchor the rest of the piece. It says to its beholder, “Come on in! Willkommen… if you will. We’ve been around for awhile and we know how to have fun. In here are good times and fond memories.”
Content:
Main Title – Anhalt Hall
Secondary Text – Est. 1875
Secondary Text – Germania Farmer Verein
Mediums:
Road signs, Banners, Website, Business Cards
Mood-Board:
These are some of the pictures and images I collected while I was gathering inspiration for this logo.
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Process:
-Sketch & Selection
I first sketched out several different ideas. In the end there were a few that really stood out to me. I went with the layout I liked the most and pulled some type styles from a few of the others.
-Draft & Digitize
1. I did a rough sketch of the idea that I liked the most, to confirm that I wanted to go that direction stylistically.
2. I drew and inked a final version that I then scanned into my computer.
3. I used Adobe Illustrator’s “Live Trace” feature to get the lines as close as possible to the original intent.
4. I cleaned up the wavy lines and stray points to make the logo more fluid.
-More Adjustments
5. After struggling with the layout, I decided to use a different arrangement from the preliminary sketch phase and adjust the entire thing. I also started focusing on kerning and making other adjustments to design how the spaces between the letters would interact.
6. I made adjustments to the overall curve of the logo, making sure it followed the curve of the composition more precisely to make for a better visual. I also made more adjustments to kerning.
7. Finally, I made detailed adjustments to each letter to bring out characteristics I wanted to highlight.
-Final
The final piece includes the establishment year and original title of the gathering that founded the hall.
This is a fun variation that overlays a picture of the interior string lights (a key feature of the dance hall).
Package and Delivery:
-PMS color values
Main Color: PANTONE BLACK 7 C
Highlight Color: PANTONE 7515 C
-examples
Entrance Sign:
Business Cards:
by Ben Toalson | Jul 14, 2014 | In The Boat
Pursue Your Passion, Do What You Love, Follow Your Bliss, etc.
I am a big fan of the idea of “pursuing your passion” or “doing what you love” or “following your bliss”. After all, life is too precious a gift to waste it on something that doesn’t matter to you. While I fully agree with the need to find and do what you love, I’ve been burned and left a little stuck by a more aggressive approach to jumping on this path.
Risky, risky
The more aggressive approach, at its most extreme, looks like quitting your day job and pouring all of your resources into doing your own thing. For some that’s really exciting and for others terrifying. Regardless of your relationship to risk, I believe that just jumping ship is not the best course of action. I’d like to make a case for why you shouldn’t quit your job… yet.
Two Types of People
You are one of two types of people. The first knows what they want to do, knows what they love, and are willing to make sacrifices in order to pursue that thing. The second isn’t quite sure what they love, maybe they enjoy many different things, but they haven’t quite decided yet what it is they want to do. If you’re one of those who enjoys many different things, I want to make the point here that you don’t just have to chose one passion and that’s all you will do for the rest of your life, but you do need to choose one passion to start with and build upon. In either case, whether you know what you want to do, or you haven’t quite figured it out, it is very discouraging and potentially detrimental to your passion to put the financial pressure on its success or failure before it is ready and able to support you.
The Fear of Your Passion Becoming a J O B
Many artist are afraid of charging money or turning what they do into a business, because they are afraid it’s going to start to feel like a job. I believe the real reason is that their passion is not in a position yet to truly support them. In this case, keeping your day job and paying your bills while you build your passion on the side ensures that you keep the financial pressure off of the passion so that it can thrive.
The Danger of Compromise
Another thing that happens when one jumps into their passion to soon is that they are more willing, or maybe even feel that they must, compromise on their values and process in order to make ends meet. This is where pursuing your passion really can feel like a job. When your finances depend on you taking every job that comes your way, you open yourself up to clients that you should not take on, but feel you must because of the deficit in your budget. What if you only did work that you love? What if you only worked with clients who understood your value and were willing to follow your process and compensate your fairly for your work? What if you could refuse to work with clients who you could determine would not be a good fit for you? You are more free to operate this way when your passion is not distressed by the need to make ends meet.
Being in the Position of Strength
There are a lot of people who say that when you start out, you should take whatever work you can get. If you have a day job that is meeting your financial needs, it puts you in the position of strength. You can literally afford to walk away from a bad client. This doesn’t have to result in less work either. In addition to the good clients you may potentially take on, you can work on self-initiated projects, or do free work for clients as a way of building a strong portfolio and putting out regular work.
Leave Room for Discovery
Back on the two types of people… if you are someone who knows what they want to do, building it on the side is a great way to discover whether it truly is something that you love, or that it was just something you liked the idea of doing. Maybe when you really get into it, you’ll find that you don’t really want to do it at all. Maybe you’ll discover that you want to do something “a few degrees” to the right or left. In any case, this process of discovery is best played out in the context of having your financial needs met by something else. If you are like me and you have trouble zeroing in on what you want to do, the process is similar… you’ve got to pick something and dig deeper into it before you determine whether or not it’s something you want to make your primary pursuit, and unless this process is free from the stress of finances, it can cause you to try to rush through the process to quickly or even cause you to feel stuck, not sure of which direction to go.
Have an Exit Plan
Have an exit plan. The point is not to keep a day job indefinitely so that you never put the financial responsibility on your passion, but your goal is to grow your passion to the point where it can support you financially. Make projections about where you will be in 3 months, in 6 months, in a year. Set some goals and see how they play out. Over time you will be able to get a sense for what it will take for you to be able to quit your day job. I find that just knowing there is an end in sight, understanding the role my day job plays in helping me protect and grow my passion, helps me to view my day job with a better perspective.
Why You SHOULD Quit
There are a few circumstances under which I would recommend quitting. You should quit your day job if your job leaves you no time to do what you love. You should quit if your day job environment is so stressful that it is emotionally draining or leaves you little energy for creative work. If you quit your day job for any of these reasons, you should be on the look out for something that will do a better job of meeting your needs while leaving you the time and energy to build what you love. That could also be a good reason to quit your day job, that you’ve found another day job that covers your expenses and allows you more time. Finally, you should quit when you’re passion is ready to support you. These are good reasons to quit.
A Job is a Tool
My encouragement for you is that you not look at your day job as your livelihood. Life is about much more than just taking care of one’s expenses. What is truly life giving for you and your family is having your needs met AND being able to share what you love to do with the world. A day job is no more than a useful tool that you can use strategically to build your passion.
by Ben Toalson | Jul 7, 2014 | In The Boat
Distractions come in many forms these days. From social media, unexpected e-mails, phone calls or visits, to distractions in our environment, it’s really easy to let ourselves get distracted. Sometimes I find that despite my best efforts to build barriers that should keep me from distractions, I still seek them out. I decided to start asking myself the question… why am I seeking out distraction?
I came up with four major roots of distraction and some ideas for how to combat them in the future:
1. Lack of a Good Plan
The first and most common reason I seek distractions is that I don’t have a plan for what I’m doing. I may have a general idea of what I want to accomplish, but if I haven’t given myself a specific or small enough task on which to focus, the size of whatever is in front of me seems intimidating and I stall. Sometimes I’ll be going along just fine and finish all of my tasks for the day, but because I didn’t have a plan for what I would do if I completed all of the things on my list, I end up meandering.
It’s not just having a plan, but knowing the level of plan detail you need in order to stay engaged that will help you to continue to stay focused on your work. If you get to a project and find yourself wanting to stall, break the project down even further and give yourself a more palatable task. If you get to the end of your list for the day, take a few minutes to plan strategically what you will do with the rest of your time.
2. Boooooring!
Another reason I seek distractions is that I feel bored. Everything, even the stuff that you love to do, has some boring task associated with it. There is a phase of the web development process that, though I’ve done it dozens of times, is extremely boring and tedious. I know I can do it, I know that it needs to be done, but it’s just time consuming and boring.
Find a way to add some excitement to this activity. Maybe time yourself and then the next time you can try to beat your record (as long as it doesn’t effect the overall quality of your work). Do some research to see if there is a way to accomplish this particular task more quickly with the right kind of tools. Maybe you are in a position to hand this activity off to someone else, so you can focus on what you really love.
If there’s no way to make this task interesting, just start. Human beings are naturally inclined to see a task through to completion once they’ve started. Starting is often the most difficult part, but I’ve been surprised before at how much I’ve been able to accomplished by simply choosing to start.
3. Unsure of What I’m Doing
A third reason I seek out distraction is that I have gaps in my knowledge. One of the ways I grow is by taking on jobs that, while within my expertise, contain some aspect or task that I know in theory I can do, but maybe haven’t done before. I have gotten in over my head a few times because of this, and sometimes in the face of something I don’t know how to do I become paralyzed.
When faced with an aspect of a project that I don’t fully understand, I remember the three R’s (I just made these up): Relax, Research, & Reach out.
Relax
Sometimes the best thing to do is to find some other part of the project that you do know how to do, and do that instead. Getting your mind away from the fear of an unknown thing and focused on a task that is familiar relaxes you and can put you in the right frame of mind for discovering a solution to an unknown problem.
Research
Researching is a GREAT practice and can help you grow exponentially in your expertise. You may have difficulty at first finding the answers you are looking for, but over time you’ll grow more proficient in your ability to research, using better search language and finding more reliable sources.
Reach Out
Finally, the most important thing you can do is to be plugged into a community of creatives who can call upon you and whom you can call upon when you run into difficult problems. I’m a part of the seanwes community and it is phenomenal! If you are not surrounded by people who are doing the same kind of thing you are doing with similar values and goals, GET SOME PEOPLE! We freelancers often operate as “lone rangers” but the best work out there comes from people who either collaborated with or were supported by a community of people who cared about them and their work.
4. I Don’t Really Care About This
This can be a tough one, especially if you’ve built a career or an identity around a specific creative pursuit. In this instance distraction becomes a welcome escape from the work that you don’t love, but it is especially toxic because it causes feelings of guilt… guilt that you are not doing something you do not feel passionate about. How yucky!
In this case I would welcome another type of distraction. Zoom out and be honest with yourself about this thing. The sooner you can identify it as something you no longer love and create an exit plan, the sooner you’ll be able to get back to work. Sometimes, knowing there’s a light at the end of the tunnel can give us the resolve we need to finish something.
Don’t Focus On The Distraction
It doesn’t matter what the distractions are if you can successfully identify and deal with the root of the distraction. Next time you reach out to distractions, instead of giving yourself a hard time about whatever thing it is you are allowing to distract you, ask yourself these questions: Do I have a clear and solid enough plan for what I need to be doing right now? Can I make this boring task more exciting or shift my focus to something else? What can I do to grow in my expertise so I can feel more confident when approaching this task? Do I really care about what I’m doing?
