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Today I’m not really sharing any advice or tips. Ordinarily, I tell you lessons I’ve learned or I share work I’m really proud of creating. Instead, today, I’m putting a few things I suck at out there, because I think it’s important to un-curate what we share online every once in a while. 

Here are a few things I still suck at drawing

Feet

I have never been able to draw feet. What are toes? Seriously? They’re so weird. And how do you not just make them look like a blob at the end of a calf? Yes, I said a calf because sometimes my issues swallow someone’s ankles as well. Occasionally, although less so recently, shoes also cause me some pain. It’s a perspective thing.

Dogs

This used to include all furry animals, but I think the bear I drew at the start of this year was a real breakthrough. But dogs, dogs I still struggle with. It’s the eyes that always get to me. The worst is trying to draw my own dog, probably because I know and love him, which means I’ll never do his lovely little face justice.

Small hands

I know this is quite specific, but I’m fine with images where the hands are the main focus, where they’re big and detailed and not really in relation to anything else. But small hands as part of full body illustrations have to be drawn over and over and over again until they look less like claws. Or, perhaps worse, until they look less like hands made out of sausages.

Light

This has come from me being super out of practice when it comes to adding colour to my images, but I seem to have lost all ability to add in light to an image. Sure, I can add the occasional highlight, but when it comes to light streaming through a window (something I desperately want to nail) I’m just not there yet. I say yet because I have to trust that it’s only a few more reference images and practice sketches away.

But it’s not all sucky…

It’s not all doom and gloom. I used to think beards (and stereotypically male hair in general) were so hard to draw. I could never get to a middle ground between lego man and whispy straggles. But, thanks to portrait commissions, and a lot of practice, I think I’ve found my beard groove. Similarly, my noses a year and a bit ago were awful. But thanks to drawing them, again and again, I’ve found a way to draw them that works for me.

So, if you, like me, have some stuff you suck at drawing (I think we all do) just keep at it, it does get better. You just have to draw a lot of weird beards.

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I was lucky enough to receive a ticket for one of the beginners classes at Print Club London this Christmas. It was something I’d wanted to do for quite a while, and as this year I’m trying to learn as many new things as I can, I was a very happy bunny when I unwrapped them. I did my session a couple of Sundays ago, and I was even happier when I left their studio with my prints in hand.

Before I went, I was asked by a couple people to tell them what it the beginner’s class is like so they could work out if they wanted to go/buy tickets as gifts. So, I thought I’d share a bit of a review here as well in case anyone else out there was wondering.

What is it?

It’s a full day workshop that takes you through the full process of creating a single colour screen print from prepping your image, to creating a screen and then actually printing. By the end of the day you get to walk away with a final print run of 10, as well as some misprints if you’re lucky. Along the way you’ll get to learn about the history of screen printing and pick up some tips from the experts.

What did I think?

The overarching thing feeling was that I had a great day of making and learning.

As someone who had never screen printed before the class, I could now confidently talk someone else through the process, which I think is a sign of a good piece of teaching. There’s just the right mix of history, examples and then plenty of making.

I was so pleased with the prints that I came out with (so pleased that I’m selling some) and I didn’t see anyone who wasn’t really happy with what they had made. All of the images, as diverse as they were, came out wonderfully. It’s a craft class where you genuinely make something of a really high quality.

This might not be important to everyone but it’s a workshop that’s still comfortable and fun if you’re on your own or if you go as a group, and (at least from the sense in my class) whatever experience you’ve had before. So no one should feel nervous or uncomfortable about going.

What tips would I give someone who wants to go?

First off, just do it. If you’re thinking about going, I would definitely recommend you book your class because it is so worth it.

Second, give some thought to the image you want to print. During the class you work on printing one image, so make sure you take some time picking out what you want to print. It can be anything a doodle, an illustration (as long as it’s not someone else’s), a photo, or something else. I saw examples of them all working well in my class. Just remember you’re printing in one single colour so you want something with a fair amount of contrast. You also need an image that’s in a high enough resolution to be printed at A4.

Third, here are some ideas of nice places you can go for lunch nearby if you’re not a local. Voodoo Ray’s is one of my favourite pizza spots in London (even though I really shouldn’t eat cheese). They sell by the slice, are reasonably priced, and delicious. If you’re in the mood for a cafe both Finger’s Crossed and Old Dalston Cafe are great options. But if you’ve got the good fortune of going when the weather’s nice, I’d say pick up some bits and pieces from Harvest E8 on your way in then have your self a picnic on the Downs.

Support my screen printing habit

I have definitely got the screen printing bug, so much so that I’m selling some of the 10 final prints I made in my store to fund going back to do their more advanced class, and perhaps even become a member. So, if you’d like a print of the design above or if you’d just like to support my screen printing dreams, you can pick one up for just £25.

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Not so long ago one of my colleagues wrote this great piece about why data can’t replace human centred design research. While I agree with pretty much everything he wrote in that piece (David’s an incredibly clever guy) it did get me thinking about the hostility I’ve faced when talking to designers about data and data analysts about design thinking, and why it has always struck me as odd because they could work together so well.

 

Data is most commonly used to validate design hypotheses and user research. It’s somehow seen as truer, because numbers feel solid, which I think is the issue. A huge quantitative survey that asks users 200 questions is incredibly valuable. But alone it is not enough. Those 200 questions might miss out the most important 2. The lack of follow up means you never get to ask a user why they do something, and why that thing led to the action, and why they felt a certain way. Those giant surveys lack depth and quite often they lack the narrative which actually connects with people.

But those surveys can serve a purpose. They can be used to identify and slice up your audience. We can use them to find what an average behaviour might look like, and so we can find out where they outliers are. Outliers, or extreme users, can often give us the greatest insights into how things work, or rather how they don’t. These are the people who love or hate a service, who hit the enter button more times than anyone else or who wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot barge pole. Knowing what makes them tick can help shed light on that average portion and what pushes people to either extreme. We can also see what these groups have in common, does everyone who loves your product also love rugby? Does everyone who hates it come from a certain demographic? You can then take that information into interviews or ethnographic research and find out why. Surveys aren’t the only data source that can be used in this way, I’ve seen absolutely fascinating identification and sampling work using DMPs.

 

Once you’ve found those outliers or any research participant data can be used to track how they actually behave. Most user research is done face to face, interviews or workshops. We rely on what people tell us, and what they tell us is fascinating. Having the opportunity to talk to someone about how they interact with a service, and why they do the things they do or feel the way they feel, is an invaluable part of research. But sometimes what people say they do, and what they actually do can be quite different. For example, if you asked me how much time I spend on my phone in an average day I’d estimate it at maybes 2-3 hours a day. However, I recently downloaded Moment and found the real figure is much closer to 5. Now, I wasn’t lying when I gave my first estimate. Perhaps I was a little generous to myself, but not to the extent that the data shows. Collecting data on how people actually use services, and using it for specific cases and at an aggregated can provide additional insights, as well as provoking more questions – why is my perception of the time spent on my phone so askew?

 

That same kind of tracking data can be used to support ongoing user research for services. One of the principles behind Government service design is “design with data” and in the description of that principle, they say “Analytics should be built-in, always on and easy to read. They’re an essential tool.” Building a tool like Google Analytics into a site is pretty commonplace, but making sure that your ongoing analytics set up properly (whether that’s on a website or not) so that the information you gather can give you useful insights is so important. That data can act as a flag to pain points, a warning sign. It can also help inform and focus further user research.

 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, there are whole swathes of thinking about how we can use tagging and metadata to organize and analyse user research findings. That’s even before we touch on the mysterious entity that is big data.

 

There’s so much that data can offer design and in particular user research. It would be a real shame to ignore that for fear of being replaced because let’s face it no data capture can ever get close to the insight you can get from asking someone “why” three times. This is such an exciting time for both disciplines, and I am so happy to have the opportunity to work across them.

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It’s rare I do any kind of shopping guide, except for my Christmas gift guide, even though they seem to be something of a staple in the blogging world. But today I’m changing things up, because I’ve been bulking up my art supply cupboard so I’ve been doing a little bit more shopping over the past few months.

So, these are some of my favourite places to get supplies, or just to look lovingly at supplies. They’re all based in London, but where they have online stores I’ve linked those as well in case you have the good fortune of having escaped the capital.

Without further ado, and in no particular order, here we go…

 

CASSART

Cass Art is probably the place to go if you’re looking for supplies in London. They’ve got stores across the city – Islington and Soho are my most frequented – and they have a huge range covering all price points and styles.

 

THE LONDON ART SHOP

The London Art Shop does exactly what it says on the tin. It sells a little bit of everything at a fair price, in a lovely store in northwest London.

 

L. CORNELISSEN & SON

If you’re after a bit of London history with your shopping, L Cornelissen & Son has been selling high-end, hard-to-find artist’s equipment since 1855. It’s a bit pricier and more niche than the other stores on this list, but it is stunning, and who doesn’t have a treat yo self ***link*** moment every once in a while?

 

GF SMITH

GF Smith is the go to place for everything and anything paper related. If you’re looking for a soothing afternoon activity, they have a gorgeous and perfectly colour co-ordinated showroom just off Oxford street.

 

LONDON GRAPHIC CENTRE

So, this is probably my most visited art supply store in all of London. There was definitely a period when I worked closer to Covent Garden when I popped in every other week just to touch the paper. They’ve got pretty much anything you could ever want, especially if your work has a more graphic rather than fine arts (they have you guys covered too don’t worry) as their name might suggest. Plus, if you ever find yourself with a Ryman’s voucher you can spend it at LGC as well! Just as an FYI, it’s not open on bank holidays – I’ve been caught out by that a few times.

 

QUILL LONDON

Calling all letter lovers and calligraphy cats, you need to visit Quill. They have everything you could ever need in order to write a beautiful letter, and a whole load of gorgeous stationery besides. Plus, they run calligraphy workshops if you’re looking to brush up on your skills to help you make good use of all of the correspondence cards you will undoubtedly leave with.

 

PRESENT AND CORRECT

It took me a little while to visit Present and Correct, as it’s not on my normal routes, but it was well worth the trip out. Their store is the stationery heaven you would expect if you’ve ever had the good fortune of stumbling onto their Instagram feed. The only problem is that it’s very hard not to walk away with 15 kinds of paperclip that you definitely don’t need.

 

CHOOSING KEEPING

Based on Columbia road, Choosing Keeping is just as beautiful as the flower market its based next to. The next time you’re in need of a stationery fix, or you just want to ogle some stunning “desk objects” I would highly recommend you give them a visit.

 

If you have any hidden (or not so hidden) shopping gems I’d love to hear about them!

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I’ve spent a bit of time recently talking about finding a focus for my work, a direction to grow in if you will. A big part of the reason for that new focus on, well, focus is so that I could measure my trajectory a bit better, and to feel like I’m developing. But I’m still not quite sure of the best way to measure my success as a creative.

Success is different for everyone, and so the best way to measure it is different too. But here are some of my initial thoughts around how to measure success in a creative context.

The method of measuring our success we commonly seem to turn to first is comparison – how are we doing compared to our peers? But unless you’re doing exactly the same thing as someone else, and starting in the same place, it’s very hard to find a group of peers who we can actually measure against. This is made even harder by the internet. With a whole world of other creatives out there, there’s no shortage of people you could choose as your peers, but that means the choice can be overwhelming, and even harder to make well.

More often than not, we (or at least) I pick a peer group who I see as better than me, or are more established, which is great for pushing you forward but not for accurately measuring how well you’re doing, because you might never overtake them. I’ve also ended up comparing myself to people making different work, for different reasons, with different circumstances meaning any comparisons I make are just assumptions, which, again, rarely go in my own favour.

So, comparison with others doesn’t really work.

In fact, the only person you can fairly compare yourself to is yourself. You are the only person who’s working with your specific circumstances. So why not just periodically look back at what you’ve made and see how far you’ve come. I mentioned in my recent post about sketchbooks about the importance of revisiting old work and even of revising old pieces. You could even rework the same piece every year or 6 months, and see what you can add to it that’s new. This allows you to see your progress, but it’s less about pushing you forward.

But what if you want to look forward rather than back all of the time?

That’s where goals come into play. Setting goals allows you to give yourself a challenge to work towards, which you can clearly mark as achieved. The best goals are based on something you can control and lie just out of your reach.

These goals could be quantitative or qualitative. So, they might be that you want to produce a certain number of pieces or make a set amount of money. Or, you might want to be doing a certain kind of work or have a certain skill. This gives you something to work forwards to, and something you can easily measure. But perhaps it doesn’t take into account the process of accumulated growth that happens as your progress, or the power of the process of making in the way that self-comparison does.

In the end, I think it’s clear there’s no one way of measuring creative success that works all of the time. So, perhaps, the answer is to employ a mixture. To set yourself a range of goals, whilst remembering how far you’ve come.

After all isn’t the process just as important as the outcome when you’re making things? The only way to measure that is how you feel at the end of the day.