What is courage?
Read MoreThe 6 Types of Courage
Why Carlos Segura is a Legend
How do you start a client / designer relationship?
Read MoreThe Best Way to Learn is Teach
What's the best way to learn something?
Read MoreQuestions Every Brand Strategist Should Ask During a Workshop
What's your best brand strategy workshop questions?
Read MoreNail and Scale Your Brands
Where do you start a branding project?
Visuals or strategy?
Lack of Visual Hierarchy
Something 'off' with your design?
Read MoreEveryone Has Three Monsters Inside Them
Which Monster do you have inside you?
Perfection Monster, Advice Monster or People Pleaser Monster?
Instagram Carousels - thechrisdo / antolino
What to get more out of the books you read?
Or hate having an open brief?
Why Clients Micromanage
Do you love being micromanaged?
Read MorePocketful of Do: Learn to Love Yourself
Why is it important to love yourself?
Isn't that narcissistic?
Maybe not...
In these nudenotes we find out, thanks to @thechrisdo and his awesome book #pocketfullofdo. If you haven't grab your copy yet, do it now!
In this chapter, Chris asks how can we love ourselves when society thinks humility is virtuous and anything opposite to that is abhorrent?
If you want to take care of others, you must first take care of yourself!
Remember, the last time you were on a flight and in the safety messaging they say "...put your own mask on before helping others".
If you die from lack of oxygen, how are you going to help anyone else - short answer, you can't!
Reminds me of this quote from Ru Paul: "If you don't love yourself, how are you gonna love anyone else."
Give yourself permission to love the good, bad, ugly, your history and story!
Buy Pocketful of Do here.
Want to see how I created these notes?
Check out my process video:
My Ikigai (2020)
How can I find a job that I love and has meaning?
I have been thinking about this a lot recently, as my looming redundancy date creeps closer and closer.
Panic and 'you got this' have been doing laps in my head.
What's my next step going to be?
What will the next step in my career look like?
How can I continue doing what I love, or even take it up a couple of notches?
And what would that even look like?
Then I remembered, this video from The Futur. Where @thechrisdo ran through the Ikigai framework to discover your reason for being.
Now, I am no expert in Ikigai. I am not even sure this is correct, but it's the best I have based on what I have been able to dig out from a quick google search.
But, here's my nudenotes Ikigai map.
I agree with the results... Packaging + Brand Facilitator.
I love working in the area where branding overlaps with packaging design, especially when I get to collaborate with others and facilitate the journey to the best possible solution.
Time to get start hunting down that perfect new Ikigai matching career!
How To Receive Criticism and Event + Reaction = Outcome
Inspired by an Instagram Post by Chris Do, How To Receive Criticism and Event + Reaction = Outcome
Do you love Chris Do’s Instagram Carousels?
So do I, how can you not!
All his business of design wisdom distilled into a handy 10 slide format.
But, this quickly turned into a problem...
It felt like I wasn't really absorbing the information. I was just reading it.
In 10 minutes of Instagram scrolling I can read through 30 of these amazing carousels, without actually learning anything - This sucked!
It doesn't do justice to the content or Chris' work. So I picked up a pen and my journal, and started to make nudenotes as fast as my hands could move.
Now I have started to build a new niche of nudenotes.
Expect to see more nudenotes based on Instagram Carousels coming soon.
Leave a comment below with you favourite carousel creators, would love to explore new perspectives and ideas.
The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals
Inspired by Chris Do and Farnham Street
What's the difference between amateurs and professionals?
Beyond the obvious difference of getting paid for your work, let's look at the difference in perception and mindset.
Amateurs are generalist, and don’t tend to focus on one particular area, which means that they compete with all the other generalists.
They have a tendency to self-diagnose and create work based on their own tastes.
Professionals are specialists, experts in a small, focused field — as a result, they can only be compared to a few people (if any).
They diagnose before prescribing a solution, ensuring each solution is tailored for each client.
Thanks to these notes, I now have a much clearer understanding of the difference and the steps on becoming a better creative professional.
I hope the list of notes help you do the same.
Let me know in the comments below if you have any more to add to this list.
Why Some Designers Are More Valuable Than Others
Inspired by a video from The Futur’s youtube channel by Chris Do
How do you increase your value as a designer?
As Master Do says in the video:
“The questions you ask demonstrate your knowledge and expertise… Asking why demands a deeper understanding”.
These notes have helped me to shift my mindset towards building my expertise by asking better questions, and I’m gong to make an effort to develop these skills wherever I can.
It has definitely helped me to discover the potential of my own value - both inside and outside of my 9-5.
Who knew questions could be so powerful?
It builds stronger relationships within teams, empowers everyone to be more accountable, and creates a happier working environments.
It's a long, winding road to the develop these leadership skills, but in the long run it'll be worth it.
Key takeaway:
Innovation happens at the intersections.
The best thing about having many creative interests and pursuits is that you’re able to make more connections — you can see more intersections and overlaps in the world.
These are the connections where ideas are born.
It’s great to have a deep skill or understanding, but you still need a broad knowledge of many areas to enrich and empower your deeper skill.
How to Give and Receive Design Critique Well
Inspired by an article by Andrew Wilshere on trydesignlabs.com
Do you hate getting your work critiqued?
I think we all do, right?
I was so pleased to have stumbled across a blog article a few months back.
I’ve been wanting to write my own blog article on the subject for ages, this week I finally did, collaborating with fellow NSC co-founder, Tassia Agatowski.
The main reason we loathe critique as creatives is because often, it’s done wrong!
It's not just the critics’ fault either.
As creatives, we are often guilty of being too attached to our work, which makes any critique seem personal.
As Chris Do from The Futur says, "Be passionate while creating and detached in the critique... Be passionately detached from your work".
Critiques should objective and constructive — in our blog article, 'The Power of Critique', we discuss some best practices, benefits of doing it right and how to embrace criticism.
You can read the full blog post here.
How to Build a Passive Income Business For Creatives
Inspired by a YouTube video by Youtube Video featuring Dustin Lee from Retro Supply
Wondering how to build a passive income business?
I know I am, hopefully this will inspire you as it did for me.
These are my notes on Dustin's three-step process towards a passive income business by leveraging your creative skills.
7 Tips to Create Game-Changing Content for Your Business
inspired by a YouTube video by The Futur & Ted Sim
How do you create effective content marketing?
Although I’m not in the business of creating video content (yet!), I found these seven tips really interesting.
Since founding NSC, I’ll definitely use and share these principles wherever I can.
Hopefully these notes inspire you to do the same!
Also, remember this one thing about marketing from Seth Godin:
"It is a chance to serve... Be generous in the act of helping others achieve their goals."
How To Apply What You Learn
inspired by a YouTube video by The Futur
How do you turn knowledge into action, and action into wealth?
In this video Chris Do mentions sketch notes. I like to think he was thinking of my nudenotes…
Learning is the only way to not only survive, but thrive in this crazy ever-changing world of creative business.
The only way to fully understand a subject is to share and teach others about it.
This is one of the reasons I started creating nudenotes and co-founded this website - not only to understand and retain the material better, but to share it with anyone who wants to hear it.
What is More Valuable, Questions or Answers?
Inspired by The Futur’s Youtube Video
I managed to escape the festive preparations for an hour on a rainy Saturday morning to level-up with more content from Chris Do (The Futur).
This technique empowers you to respond to any questions your clients may have, by asking questions until the solution or problem becomes clear.
It’s value-adding magic and will turn you into a real problem-solving wizard.
Key takeaway:
Always get clarity!
Chris Do hits the mark again with a super insightful piece of wisdom.
Clarity is the secret ingredient in a smooth design process.
It empowers you to be focused, efficient and, more importantly, effective in your design solutions.
Never stop asking questions — never stop searching for clarity in work.