Steal like an artist

In Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like An Artist he talks about faking it until you make it, start copying your heroes and emulating them. He shares a lot of good ideas and thoughts on how you can start creating things by at first copying your heroes and then moving to emulating them and learning from them.
On page 36 Austin

This last one is one I did of the Smoky Mountains in what I feel like is a Draplin style.

Hugh MacLeod is a cartoonist that has a blog named Gaping Void. He also has a book about creativity.  This book "Ignore Everybody" is a book I intend to give a read. It seems like a great motivational read and was recommended by Austin Kleon the author of "Steal Like A Artist". It additionally seems

 like a great book to have in your unread library. Something to pick up for a inspirational read. 

I think it's a great idea to have books like these two. They both seem to be perfect for a little

 pick me up when needed. 

An unread library is really something to think about when you are starting out to define yourself. When you go to the library to research something, it's not the book you start out with always. Sometimes that book will lead you to another, and then another.  Austin says " Don't worry about doing research. Just search". I think that he has a good idea here. Sometimes when you get too involved in your research you are missing out on the big picture. Grabbing more books that you might not intend on reading right away might hold the key to what you were searching in the first place. Or that book might be around for future questions that you might have on a different subject. 

Scott McCloud's book " Understanding comics" is another suggested book by Austin. It is actually a book I have checked out from the Champaign Public Library years ago, and is something I wish I owned. I remember it being really light and informative. Something I am definitely going back to try and find again so I can give a brief review on. It would be a recommendation of mine.

You can find my project two research here http://gds.parkland.edu/student/fall18/gds122/jpeterson/

Continuing with my thoughts on Austin Kleon's book "Steal Like an Artist", I strongly believe that Austin is right when he talks about being a mashup of what you choose to let in your life. I am totally a sum of the influences that I have let into my life to inspire me. My first influence is my wife. When we were dating I was enamored by her drive and independence. Although it took me way too long to let that inspiration sink in for myself, I strive to be more like her. Another influence is Aaron Draplin. I am currently reading his book "Draplin Design Co. Pretty Much Everything." He has ten pages in his book from people who adore him and why he is the man he is today. They all say around the same things. How hard he worked to get where he is and how hard he still works to this day. He really does have some interesting outlooks on life and I admire him for that.

I am starting to get satisfied with the start of the sum of my influences. I did say the start though, I am not sure that I will ever be completely satisfied with a particular sum of influences. I feel to keep growing in the design field you should keep building on these influences on a daily basis. Ever since I have gone back to school, I have gotten better at the whole research process when working on a project. With the strides I have made during this process it has really shown me what there is out there to inspire us all daily. It is pretty amazing and is something that I am going to keep getting better at to broaden my influences.

Like us all Aaron Draplin has some heroes in his life. In his book he first talks about his cousin Tom Draplin. He explains how Tom always had the coolest sketch books and colored pencils. Even though Tom is an illustrator he has always influenced Aaron. Here are two of his illustrations, the second one being a storyboard in which he does a lot of nowadays.

Another influence is a man by the name of Charles S. Anderson. Aaron is happy to call him a friend and a mentor. You might recognize some of his work.

The last influences of Aaron's that I am going to talk about is actually a type foundry and design studio created by Andy Cruz and Rich Roat. House Industries is the creator of the look of Nickelodeon's TV Land, Ann Taylors clothing tag, and the ever popular sugary breakfast cereal Lucky Charms. Aaron talks in his book on how he showed up at their door and begged them to sell him some of their fonts. Not only did they load him up with "so much cool shit" They made a lifetime fan with their hospitality. Here is a sample of some of their fonts.

I am totally becoming a fan of the book "Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon. I have just started reading this book and it makes a lot of sense. I will immediately start implementing some of Austin's ideas. Just reading the table of contents has me wanting to read the whole thing in just one sitting.

Stealing like an artist shows me that as long as you're not completely ripping someone of word for word, or stroke by stroke anything is fair game. I really enjoyed the quote from French writer Andre Gide, "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again." This just goes to show you that you're not going to reinvent the wheel, so as long as you make your work your own it's not stealing other peoples ideas.

I really do believe that originality is valued in art. Researching and communicating with peers has always helped me in becoming more original. Just seeing what inspires others and ideas they have also gives me a sense of original thought.

I just learned about a swipe file. I don't currently have a official one as I write this but I will be working on starting to organize my internet links and other ideas in some kind of system. Too many times have I found something on the internet and when I tried to go back to find it, I have no luck. It's just gone. Hopefully with a system in place I don't have to worry about that anymore.

I feel an organized collection is a better collection. As of right now if I were to go and try to find something that I have collected non digitally it might take me some time. The following picture shows my cubes that I have stuffed with inspiration.

I have shared an image of Aaron Draplin's logo designs. Last year in Graphic Art History I was introduced to him. I really enjoy his work and sense of humor. This will be a designer that I will try to learn more about this semester.