#the family one is kind of a redraw of something from like 2019 ??

[receding-tides]

Day 4 - AU of your choice (pokemon) Day 5 - Family

[kaleidiope]

September Project updation post in October because, well, i’m silly

This post I’ll mainly talk about my plan for my stories, and the things that’ve changed along with my plans for them and such. This was suppose to be in September but, I procrastinated, so yeah!  And, a ‘keep reading’ line to keep things tidy looking! Also, I actually had this as a draft, but forgot about it! Also, also, please don’t mind all the spelling errors that i’m sure is in here, this is quite long, and i’m so sorry for all of that!

You all know the drill, this is an update for the story I've been working on. It was made in roughly February of 2019. Or at least, that’s when I got the idea for it. I’ve been working on it seriously since September of 2019. So, for about a year. On this blog you can find a good bit of random things about it, including drawings. A lot of the drawings I've done I never posted, maybe one day, probably never, but still! A lot of this Blog has actually been WIPS of my story. And, since those past updates, story pitches and such, a few things have changed, and that's what this is about!

First, for those who don’t know, I feel in love with One shot, Deiland, Moonlighter, Borderlands, and a few other games. Mainly One shot for it’s vibe, it’s feel. I loved it, maybe too much? And, really wanted to make something like it. I don’t see that atmosphere much, personally. On Music box maniacs, a lovely site, I was given the idea to make a melody for a character. And that’s how Umber came along. Over time, I kind of made Umber, and left her. Started trying to get into digital art, but without a tablet I tried to create a character that would be easy to free hand with a mouse. Which became Pax. Over time, I feel in love with Pax’s design. I drew him a lot, he was my first, and only OC. I’ve drawn random people and thing’s before, but he had a name. An age. And soon, a back story. He was set in a different world than Umber’s. Which, at this time, is almost abandoned. He was a potion seller’s child who only wanted to go on the adventure’s the customers where experiencing. And one day, he’d face a dragon, and possibly his fate. But that was scraped because each time I drew him, more and more, the backgrounds reminded me of Umber’s story. So, he became a child in her story and his was abandoned.  Umber was suppose to be a child traveling with no family trying to get awareness of her light to others. And once meeting Pax in another shop, he agreed to help her. So, you could say, Pax was Moonlighter based, and Umber was One shot based. The idea that her light was a bad thing and there were ‘”bad people” didn’t come until later. Though, Crimson was suppose to be a bully type of person who mocked, and even at times, almost hurt Umber. Because also, at this time, everyone was children. Once it was thought over for awhile then did we get the story line we have now. Umber was an inventor in a world suffering a seeming eternal eclipse. which was ruled by a corporation that was money hungry and didn’t care for the greater good. The world had glowing bugs that somehow emit a good amount of light, and through time and a lot messing and discovery, oddly power? Which is what the corporation sells, Starworm lights, and “batteries” of a sort. The bugs also allow some things to grow, but with them being harvested as much as they are, the corporation is killing the world. But, that won’t be their problem, they’ll be dead by the time it’s an issue. Now, we have a lot of characters and general world building stuff, along with the flora and fauna and how things work. So, let’s begin! (Yes, this is going to be a long post. I’m so sorry!) But, I have since changed a few things, which I will now state. I was pretty heck bent on giving them ages, but, I don’t wish for them to have any, anymore. This is not earth. It’s a planet without a sun. Keeping track of time is easier than days, let alone years. So for many, it’s just a toss up on how long they’ve lived for. Just a mere, rough, idea. I wanted ages for personality comparisons and height ideas for when I draw them. Which, was never my idea at first. This was just for OC’s to draw, yes, but then it became a story for them, along with for my own enjoyment and somehow it became more than that. Which, I oddly love. But, ages were more for an even sillier reason I've since abandoned as well, and I think the story’s better off now since then. Also, they were all children at a time. Adults wouldn’t even have names or faces, All adults were originally suppose to get full face masks. Instead of half masks. But Indigo ruined that, and after that, some of the characters were being made older. To fit with the personalities, for say, Talos. He was also a child, who I didn’t feel being a child would fit the character and mainly, their job in the story as a whole. So yes. The story itself wasn’t the main idea. Having OC’s to draw were. But I was given a lot of support on MBM with my story pitches, also, I enjoyed making them. So I continued. And I really enjoy this. World building has been the hardest, trying to make things make sense, like the eclipse lasting years. And the fact a moon bigger and that much closer to the planet would most likely make the planet itself, the planet’s moon, and the moon, the planet. And how is life still possible, along with, isn’t it cold? And to that, yes, yes, yes, and maybe XD Mainly, this is fantasy, yes, I do want it to make sense, yes, this isn’t earth. The people’s races aren’t our races, calling them human might just be an insult to them. I mean, they don’t even have pupils. (Thanks, odd drawing style.) So, my answer to a lot of this is, it’s not earth. This is fantasy. I’m doing this for fun. And I’ve done a lot research for something that was never suppose to be as much of a thing as it is, but i’m having too much fun to stop now. And with that as well, yes, a lot of my characters are suppose to have a deeper skin color. Talos, Mauve, Indigo, and so on, are suppose to have a more deep olive color. But, at the time of drawing a lot of them, I didn’t have the faith to execute other skin tones correctly. So I just didn’t. Just like drawing illustrations for my story. I didn’t think I would because I didn’t think I could, but i’m now willing to try. So, here is where we stand so far! I want my characters to have a rough age, but it could be depicted to give of take about three years. I’ve said I wanted Pax to be about 11, but I also see him to act older for his age and such. The idea of him being any younger seems odd, but if you wanted to give him a 9-15 age for an example, that’s more than cool. That goes for all my characters. I want a lot of my characters to look like their own character, i’m working very hard with redraws to make sure there’s noticeable differences with their noses and eye shapes and such.  I want different skin colors and face shapes and so on, but the idea of different races on such a small planet and even the idea of tanned skin in a world without the sun to give one a tan seems odd to me? But there will be differences, because I always wanted there to be. This story will indeed cover some heavy topics. Including but not limited to, alcohol, death, suicide, murder, mental and physical disorders and illnesses, such as DID, alzheimer’s, dementia, memory issues, abandonment, and a form of racism. All things are not straight out talked about or referenced, but lightly implied.  I took inspiration from a lot of things. (including places, animals, other stories and people) And I will not refer to any of it within my story, such as DID. There is already too much falseness and other wrong info on that and other things. I do not trust myself to paint it in a good light, nor a correct light. And will re-frame from actually stating a character has an identity disorder. The idea this world knows of DID and would use the same word is also something I question. But the characters disorder is based on DID. (Also, it’s Tobias.) The idea of genders is something that’s a toss up. I’ve never said anything of the sort and would rather not say anything. The idea that they have genders or sexuality is just something I don’t really want to think about and is rarely mentioned. The idea of love and such is mentioned, purely more for a joke/bit. But still I don’t wish to think of my characters with genders or those parts no matter what I refer to them as. Not mention these characters still aren’t human. I do use She/he/they pronouns for my characters and as of now have used phases like, “That guy” But, it’s become a personal running joke I want to make clear at the start of my story that it was translated and adapted to fit this worlds standers of word form. There are roughly 25 characters as of now, only five main characters, or should I say, five characters that get there point of view expressed. And about six support characters, and the rest are minor support characters. Some of these characters are only mentioned, or referenced, as an attempt to build the world. Questions are always open, and this story is undergoing many changes and constant consideration. As I learn, grow and improve my skills.  I have no hope or want for this to get big or anything of the sort. this is for fun. 100%. If it looks like I talk about this a lot, but never have anything to show for it, it’s because I want it to be perfect or close to it before I show anything. Which will be never, because I can never make perfect. I’m just trying to do the best I can and am pushing the limits of my skills to get there.  I should note, I am fine, I’m not “Pushing” myself. Which is why it’s taking the time it is.  I am really working on character personalities and keeping them coherent and sane along with the same. And talking about all this helps with that. As for now, I know what I want to do, and where I want my story to go, i’m just figuring out how to execute it best.  I’m more skilled in writing where I describe things, mainly emotions and the scene it’self. Along with script writing. I’m not skilled with writing conversations which is a large part of my story. Same with drawing backgrounds or anything that isn’t people. So my story so far reads a lot like a script due to how the conversations are laid out and due to how I describe how each thing is done. This is something I want to get a bit away from because it was purely so I wouldn’t get lost and confused with who was talking and the emotion/feel of each scene.  That’s because I have the attention span and instruction following skills of a carrot. I use my characters names far too many times along with a lot of other things I use for self help clarity which I hope to fix by the end. I do think it’d be cool to start dropping parts of the story and other things of what I have done, with the note that it could change. I feel it’d be fun, but i’m very hesitant to do so.  I do wish to make character bios and such for them all at some point and just have a post that lays down what has been decided so if anyone wants they can follow along with the process. But, that’s all a toss up as of now. Thank-you for reading, and for your time, I hope you have an amazing day! And I dearly apologize for this length! 

[cleverangelwasteland]

The story of X and social media

X loved to draw since they were a child . X bought pencils , coloring books when they were young and they did everything they can to draw everyday. X was happy . Also X was proud and showed people their work .

X’s work was far from good but still they were content . Then in 2012 a platform called amino was created. X was sharing their work and getting feedback . X was still happy. Later on that year an app called Instagram launched .X was skeptical but at the same time excited to use this new platform . X posted everyday , and even though they started with 10-15 likes they were improving . Fast forward to the end  2015, X is no longer very young and have a message they want to convey in art .X started to get criticism about anatomy which they took well and asked for help in anatomy . X and X’s sensei ( the helper they met online ) had body drawing lessons daily for the entirety of 2016 and 2017 . X drew poses , shapes , studied the anatomy of the body , the muscles , read books and watched many many videos . X even posed for the drawings to see if the pose works . X was happy they were learning something . Also X would repeat the same pose many times and would split the body to shapes and boxes and would practice along late hours along with schoolwork so basically X’s day was full with little time to sleep.  X also memorized the muscles and read many anatomy books like the anatomy for sculptors . They also learned loomis method for faces and these 2 years were just practice to the point that x drew 300 drawings in a month between poses and copied work so X can get a better learning perspective.

Opposite to X’ s sensei’s opinion , X decided to recheck on their Instagram which they haven’t done in 2 years . Not even once. X drew something and posted it while being proud of their improvement but they got way less engagement than what they had before .X was still not discouraged and decided to try again so they did a drawing that shows everything they learned , using a full body pose with an angle and shading . basically everything they could do and spend a long time working on what they thought was their masterpiece .

X uploaded and got a comment , which they hastily checked . The comment said the following : “ You suck , I’ll go away to clean my eyes , your drawings should be used as memes .”

X was heartbroken , ofc they were sad and they discussed it with sensei who said that is why they were against reopening X’s instagram account . But X is so used to not getting their way in life , that they decided to go on with it . X posted a few things and some comments were “ your anatomy sucks , study anatomy .”X felt like someone punched them and said to themselves “ But this is what I have been doing for the past 2 years .” X thought : “ I quit here , I quit what I already had just to study anatomy and that is the result?!” Still one of X’s work was featured by a big page and got 1K likes.

Nonetheless X still got back to drawing . Sensei suggested that X draws more real life drawings so X started drawing from a show that was starting called “ game of thrones “ X drew women , men , creatures , objects , perspective and would still repeat it until it looks right and would ask their old art circle to fix-doodle on their work .  X felt like they have a huge bag of knowledge and a 3D camera in their head . If X focuses and closed their eyes they could see the human body from different angle realistically . Sometimes that sumo wrestler X drew to broaden their knowledge on body types would haunt them in their nightmares.

X stayed like this till 2019 .   Forgot to say X was bullied (  back in 2014 )at school , made fun of and always alone. X wasn’t liked and that is where X’s habit of pleasing everybody triggered . X did whatever everyone else wanted eventhough they weren’t included in their activities and was a cast out. 

X cleaned the gym area. X picked up stray balls in sports class . X made sure to please the teachers . X signed up to everything just to feel a sense of achievement . X was unhappy and no longer had the time to draw. X then bought a digital drawing tablet as they can no longer carry their art supplies around when they were in college .

X drew everywhere . In the breaks , lunch break , just name it and they’ll be drawing. X even met someone who took a course in the art department and offered to do their art homework as the other party was struggling. The other party got  a 96/100 and came back thanking X . X felt a bit of validation like maybe their work is worth something debunking X’s thought about maybe being delusional . X suddenly grew quicker on social media , Not so big but since 2012 to 2018 they only had 400 followers so less than a follower a week . X suddenly jumped to 600 affirmating to them that at least they are doing something right . Previously X joined a drawing circle in their local community . And they were treated as non existent so the notion of building an audience was something new to X . They never had friends or any kind of support and they didn;t believe someone would take   the time to comment on their work . Still X was still getting more and more comments about anatomy making X wonder where did they go wrong , so they decided to go back to square one and have a new anatomy study month .X went to youtube , discord servers and reddit s well as more anatomy tutorials by established artists and more books . 

X would get a skeleton and lower its opacity then draw above it all the muscles shapes ( not their name really ) from memory . X compared it with the scientific schematic and found it very similar . Later on that year and after 7 years +of actively drawing , X got their first commission , at first they refused to be paid as if they weren’t open for commissions but the commissioner insisted . later on X did a few commissioned work and a customer was so happy they paid extra . This kind of boosted X’s self esteem as they were having a hard time . Forward to 2020 X did many commissions but it is the year where everyone keeps commenting on X’s work  “ Go study anatomy , you lack in the basics , you look like you just started “ . X felt a big stab in the back as during those 8 years they have been active in , X studied anatomy solely for a total of 2 years and a year in short term practices . X went back and forth to the basics so many times and didn’t skip a day of practice. 

X’s mental health and self esteem quickly deteriorated as they would leave social media then realize they need it to make money and come back to it . X haven’t had a commission in a while which is another blow to their self esteem.

Also X refused a job offer to draw for an animation which will be broadcasted due to the blow to their self esteem.

Also X saw online many artists making so much money by selling art where there are clear anatomical flaws and they get all the love and positive comments unlike X . X started doubting their eyes , thinking “ maybe I am really delusional “ ... Some of those artists have edgy scribbled lines in their lineart , really high eyes leaving no space for the cranium , drawing side views without thinking of the thickness of the body and drawing ears way below the ear zone . sometimes far eyes so the eyes reach the “ forbidden ear zone” necks starting from after or before the ears , people not taking into consideration the the deltoid muscle is like a “ cap “ above the biceps and so on .  But these people were more popular than X  and made more money/ were very successful .

X didn’t understand why they were getting the anatomy comments and why these other people were not.  X felt that they cannot use their knowledge anywhere but still felt that they know a lot .X feels like their knowledge deserves more and that all the pride they felt knowing this much doesn’t deserve this . X changed their style and anatomy 20 times this year and experimented with everything but they couldn’t please everyone and more and more people tell X their improvement looks  a day old not years old when they post redraws.

X lost pride in their work and the joy in drawing because of how social media and the unfairness of its algorithms affect them , instead of making really good artists popular it made a message that you need to have luck and not really the basic skills and that you could get away by tracing or copying.

Now X sent this to this account as they are asking for help , they deactivated everything and are sitting there just with knowledge and 8 years of efficient hard work betraying them .X lost their friends , their family and all support they could have .  X asked the mod  to share their story so others are aware how social media functions for artists and how many people are quitting because of it . Send us your story so we could feature yours too for awareness.

[pklovesdwsart]

Art Minor 2 (Nature & Environment)

This time, no stories to tell (well, maybe one, but I didn’t put it here, haha)! But a whole bunch of stuff I made instead, whoo boy! The theme of this minor was Nature & Environment. I had lots of fun, honestly! I’ll divide it in the 4 subjects I took :). It’s a long post, beware, haha.

Ceramics:

Aaaand the last bit I made! I’ll post a few more :). Especially the glazed ones~!

And that’s about it for ceramics!

Painting & Drawing:

So, this is actually a(n) (abstract) portrait of one of the students. It’s a one-line drawing :). It was, ah, interesting to make for sure....

We also had a session on how to draw “real” portraits.... with, like, the proper proportions and everything. It was interesting for sure!

This is the “self-portrait” I made! There is a lot to be said about this one (also because it is a self-portrait). I’d like to start with the mask. One of the reasons I used it is closely related to an Instagram post of mine (I’ll write it out). Sorry, it’s lone, though. “Lately, I have been forced to think about something I had been thinking years back. About the fact that in this individualistic society, you HAVE to stand out one way or another. I don’t want to. What’s wrong with simply being average and not special at all? What’s wrong with wanting to live a simple life with no particular interesting skills? (yes, I do realise I have some, but it doesn’t make me feel special or like I have to/want to brag about it...). This was something I noticed in particular 2 weeks back (in May, 2019), when my minor started again. We had to draw a realistic scene in the park. Afterwards, we would “redraw” this scene as we felt, heard and saw the things we encountered while drawing, changing the initial drawing drastically. So I did. However, the teacher told me he wanted to “see more of me” in the drawing. But how come he didn’t? The things I felt, saw, heard and fantasised about were all things that came from me and were pictured in the drawing. How is that not me?! Yeah, sure, the girl in my drawing looked manga/anime like. But is that honestly so wrong...? If that’s how I draw, if that’s me, how can you say you want to see more of the “me”? Honestly, I am so sick of this individualistic society that forces you to be “special”, “interesting” or “talented”. Is it so wrong to want to live simply? Is it wrong to not want to be seen as “different from the rest”? Can I just live with a blank face, trying in my own way, on my own conditions?” The mask used in this picture (and the Instagram rant, haha), has the Japanese characters: じ    へ  へ        の の         も        へ (henohenomoheji). They are commonly used to picture a (blank) face. As such, they are mostly used for mob characters, or those of little significance. So the mask itself already symbolises the wish to blend into the masses. On the other hand, the mask can also signify the ability to be flexible. As in, if you have a blank face, it means you are able to “paint over it”. To make yourself be who you want to be. And that clues into my hobby, which is cosplay. I can be whoever I want to be (with the proper means, haha), and that enables me to transform completely. So, yes, the mask signifies a lot to me. And that’s why I decided I wanted the picture to be like this. Because this is me in so many shapes and forms. Continuing on! Photography:

Let’s just say photography is not my thing... Luckily, we had two classes this block period anyway, so I didn’t have to suffer for very long.

Finally! The last subject!

Design:

Ohhhh, I loooooved design! There’s so much I did~ Sooo, we had to gather 5 objects we could find outside (in nature), and we had to take 3 pictures (the top one is said picture). Then we had to write a story based on the object/photograph (mine was a feather, by the way). You had to hand the story over to friends/family/etc., and they had to say one word about the story. So, my two words were “pessimistic” and “inspirational”. Based on those two words, we had to find a new (existing) “picture”. Then we had to bring items that had something to do with the story. So, I brought a ceramic “mountain” (one of the words used in my story) I made last block period. So based on that item, we had to design something around that concept and things that prefferably had to do with the (human) body. Sooo, I went to Wikipedia, and took a look at the words written there. So, that’s when we got to the word “relief” (or terrain, mayhaps). Then I started thinking how that was created (e.i. mountains, and its “relief”). So, that’s when we reached our tectonic plates. And then I started thinking about the fact that a mountain was basically a “print” of the earth (in a way). Okay, got all that? Then hopefully the next part will make sense as well, lol.

So, the first thing I did was woodcutting! I really wanted to try my hand at this, mostly because of my overlapping interest in Japan. I had a lot of fun, honestly! (I’ll put all the prints at the end ;))

Bad lighting is bad.... But after the woodcut, I tried my hand at linocut! Which went a whole lot smoother.... (I bought my own gouge set <3 - absolutely in love with it). I had a lot of fun with these, honestly!

Ah, yes, then I once more did some etching! I intentionally “messed up” the feather one (the stripe in the middle does kind of bother me...) to try and see what happens. I really liked the result of that one a lot! (once more, prints will be put down here~) Finally! I tried my hand at this:

screen printing! I really liked doing this! It’s very interesting to do, yet less intensive than any of the things I had done previously... I really had fun! And you can experiment a lot! Which I didn’t, really, by the way.... (slightly regretted it, but time restraints...). Also, putting Timcanpy on my daily gear is like a dream come true <3. Lovely. Now, time for all the prints!

Because wood is a natural material, it kind of soaks up the ink. So you get a grainy kind of print. It’s spotty, but that’s kind of charming in its own way, I guess?

I made loooots of prints for the linocuts, lol. They are way less spotty, and I really liked them! (the stuff in the very back isn’t mine, by the way).

I also really liked the ink colours I used! I also printed everything on postcard format.

The print is even more interesting in real life!

A very clean print for this one. Such a contrast with the previous one! I like both of them, honestly.

What would we be without a little Timcanpy in our lives~

I also used a natural “print”. Don’t worry, it’s not actual snake skin... But it is actual snake skin shed/moulted skin. It’s from my own snake, Sora <3. So it’s kind of an endless supply, lol.

So, that’s all for the practical subjects! Now, it wasn’t all I did, and I have many, many more photos of the process... But the post wil get waaaaay too long if I want to show everything... So I mostly posted the endresults :).

There is one last thing I want to post here! Which are the “extras”.

Extras:

The sketches we had to make for capturing real life (mentioned at my self-portrait). I do have to mention that on that day it was bloody cold, it was raining, and we didn’t even know we had to be there... So I had a shit day, honestly....

I haven’t finished it, sooooo, I don’t have a very good picture, unfortunately... But this was the drawing I got a loooot of hate on, basically....

Ahhh, here’s the sketch, where you can see it a bit better... So basically, he wnted me to draw it bigger. Which I did. Then he suggested I made a selfportrait (instead of using a manga/anime like character......). Which I did. But don’t have a picture of, I believe. Well, I have a lot of issues with all of this, so I kind of want to drop it. Though I will finish the initial one for sure. I don’t care much for the second, the large, one.....

We also had workshops on drawing a naked model! Which was very interesting! I had never drawn a human/humanlike full-model, well, model. So I had many, many issues at first.... I especially had many issues with (human) proportions. But in the end, I had a lot of fun! I attended a second session (not the third, unfortunately), but I don’t have a picture of it (yet). I might edit it in later, buuuut, not sure...

So, I believe that was all! I had so much fun this period, and I’m super glad I decided to stay (I was only obligated to follow one minor). If I hadn’t, I don’t think that in the end I would be this satisfied. Also, this period was, like, 2 or 3 weeks shorter than previous one... So we were short on time, I guess... I learned a lot, I worked with many different materials, and in the end, I’m very happy. So, here are the final pictures of the ENTIRE table :).

[unit85and86deantemjit]

Task 4 - Final Piece

For this task 4, after having a complete plan of what I wanted to do, which was one of the ideas from my pitch. It is now time to start sketching ideas for the types of characters I will be using for the set stickers. However, I’d need to keep in mind that the character needs to be cute and friendly.

I begin the project by sketching ideas of what my characters would look like in different expressions and which I liked the best. I kind of like the idea of keeping my character simple with flat colours, which is something that would stand out in the LINE application.

After sketching out different characters in different expressions and emotions, I have decided to go with the character that has a head that looked like a box. The reason why I chose this character was because it looked simple, silly, and the type of character that I would personally like to use in daily communication. The next step is to sketch all 24 expressions and emotions digitally, and the reason why I am sketching it digitally as opposed to traditionally was that I could save the time of having to scan everything in the sketchbook into the computer. Another important reason was I wanted to have clean lines to show for my presentation on Behance instead of having a scanned in drawings which sometimes could look inconsistent with the lines.

The was the hardest part of the project - coming up with different expressions and emotions. I used the survey which I asked my family as a reference point which I could look back to as to what expressions I’d need to create. There are probably about more than 15 emotions in total, which my family have come up with, and I’d need to try to fill in the remaining amount of stickers. 

For certain expressions that I have difficulties with, I’d do research into the existing stickers on the market and what type of expressions are there and how I could incorporate that into my own character. However, it was mostly expressions and emotions that I would really like to see and use in the set stickers. Designing the remaining set of stickers was really difficult as I was running out of expressions ideas; however, I try to think of something that I would like to use in daily communication without the need to type anything which is: cooking, eating, exercising, love, etc. 

Once all 24 sketches are completed, it is now time for me to move on to the designing part of the character. However, before I begin, I just wanted to explain why there are only one character and the colour concept behind this character. I have researched and looked into existing stickers set available on the market, and most of them have one thing in common - which is there are at least two characters in them. This makes it convenient for the creator to create more emotions and be more expressive with them, and it is also to target both genders effectively. The reason why I chose to only create one character for this project was that my target audience is mainly male gender, and another reason was that I wanted to keep the sticker set consistent. 

I feel that having two characters could ruin the flow and consistency of the sticker set, and another thing which I’d need to consider was my colour concept. I didn’t want to implode my character design to have lots of different colours as this could distract the audience. What I wanted was to have the character in the same consistent colours to still keep the flow of the stickers.

Adobe Photoshop certainly has options which I would really like to use such as creating a sketchy feel to the character to get that authentic drawing feel to it and adding gradients to character design to make it pop. However, the reason why I chose to use Adobe Illustrator as opposed to Photoshop was that the size of the stickers is going to be at 240 x 240 in pixels. These are extremely small, and I’d also add at least 10 pixels margins for each individual stickers so the actual stickers size would be 230 x 230 pixels. 

The reason is pretty apparent as Adobe Photoshop is a pixel-based software whereas Adobe Illustrator is vector based. In Photoshop, the smaller the size of the document is, the more you can see the pixels in character, and let’s be honest - it doesn’t look right. Which was the reason why I chose Illustrator as no matter how small the document is, there will be no pixels in character and will always have that smooth consistency line.

After deciding which software I am going to be using for this project, I then start drawing the character in Adobe Illustrator. I used the pencil tool and changing the setting to ‘smooth’ to get the smooth lines that I was after. I then started drawing using this option, and whenever the lines are a bit off, instead of redrawing it again, I’d use the ‘direct selection tool’ to edit and change the points to save time.

Once the lines are completed, I duplicated it and set it aside from the artboard to use later. I change the drawing lines on the artboard to fill colour and change the colours according to how I wanted it to be.

Next, I add the shadow by using the pen tool to draw the shadow and change to appropriate colours for the shadow. I then used the ‘shape builder tool’ to erase the excess areas of the shadow.

Once completed, I used the drawing lines that I left it aside from the artboard and try to align it to the character with the colours fill to create this cartoon look to the character which is what I was looking for. I then repeat the process for all 24 individual stickers.

I then add some text to certain stickers as some do need a text in there to express certain emotions, such as hello or thanks. However, most of them will have no words or text as this is going to be on the market in all regions which is why it is important that the stickers will be able to portray certain emotions or expressions without the need of any words behind them.

After having every sticker in its own individual artboards, I now make a decision as to which stickers I wanted to animate and give emotions to. I create a green square as a marker to know which stickers I need to animate, and I ended up choosing 9 stickers to animate in total.

The method which I am going to animate is using Adobe After Effect and a little bit of Adobe Animate. My main focus for the animation is to keep everything simple with a maximum time of 4 seconds for the animation. After Effect is used for the movements of the character and Adobe Animate will be used to animate the moving of the mouth which I will import it as .SWF file later to After Effect for the final edit. The animation will be looped and saved as a GIF file so that it can be played on Behance.

However, before I begin animating the stickers in After Effect, I’d need to make sure that the stickers I wanted to animate are in separate layers. To avoid confusions, I have decided to create 9 new document files for each individual 9 stickers that are going to be animated. 

Animation

Once everything is sorted, I then start to animate 9 stickers in After Effect. The file document I created is 400 x 400 pixels as I wanted to leave some spaces for the stickers, and at 29.9 frames per seconds.

The movements of the stickers are relatively simple as mostly it was just animating the position, opacity, and rotation keyframes to create simple actions. The mouth animation was also simple to create as I animated it in Adobe Animate and export the file as .SWF to After Effect.

As soon as the stickers are completed, I then try to submit a sticker form on LINE Creator Studio and try to get these 24 set stickers approved as quickly as possible so that it will be available when the deadline comes. However, one thing which I made a mistake was I thought that it was possible to have a mixture of static stickers and animated stickers all in one set, but after I reached the submission page, I realised that I could choose one option or another which is either static or animated.

This changes my goal entirely as I now can’t submit animated stickers on there with a mixture of static stickers. Therefore, I decided to just submit all the static stickers on there anyway as I’d really need to get it sent off as soon as possible. However, I will still be keeping my animated stickers around as I’d need to present them on Behance for the final presentation anyway. 

To submit the stickers, there would need to be a total of 26 PNG images altogether, and each individual PNG need to be less than 1 MB. LINE requires the creator to have one main image and one tab image. The main image is the image which will show the character in the market page as its main image, and this is the first image which the consumers will see, so it is essential that the main image reflects how your characters would look in the stickers set. A tab image is used as an icon which will be displayed on the screen to show that particular sticker set. 

Main image:

Tab image:

Next step is to tag every 24 individual stickers to its appropriate tags. This is used when the users type in that specific tags, it would automatically tag that sticker.

The date which I submitted my stickers for approval was on 15/05/2019, a week before the deadline, and I am hoping that it gets reviewed within one week for it to be available before the deadline, but it really does depends. However, to make sure that I still have something to present, I’d create a mock-up to show my stickers being used in the application, and there is also a LINE simulator which you can test your stickers in the application which is just handy. However, since the deadline has been extended for this project by three more weeks, I received the approved signal and published my stickers on the LINE store.

The response I got from the stickers are well received and it seems to be used by some people. Here is a chart which displayed numbers of users who sent and received my stickers:

What inspired you?

I have always wanted to create a set of stickers and publish it on the market for people to download, and what better ways to make the stickers as my last project for College. Moreover, I thought it would be pretty good to have my family members using my set stickers on LINE application as they are frequent users of LINE and uses stickers quite often. This inspired me to create a set of stickers that my family and I would personally use, and some expressions which we thought are necessarily needed in the pack. 

What was your final idea?

My final idea for this project is creating LINE set stickers, and it can either be 8, 16, 24, 32 or 40 stickers in total. I chose to go with 24 stickers because I think it is reasonable going with that amount given the amount of time that we have for this project. What I didn’t realise initially is that I thought LINE would let you add static stickers and animated stickers in the same set similar to how iMessage is. However, I was wrong, and it’s either static stickers or animated, one or the other.

What went well?

What went really well for this project is that I managed to create set sticker pack that I would personally use, and I also successful in being organised and staying true to my schedule as I was able to send the stickers early and get it approved by LINE for it to be on the market just before the deadline.

What didn’t go so well?

What I dislike and the things that didn’t go well for this project is the overall look of the stickers. I wish I could re-design the whole thing entirely and resubmit the stickers; however, it isn’t possible this late into the project unless and I start over again from scratch which I don’t have time for that. Moreover, I didn’t correctly check LINE stickers guidelines for creators as I initially thought that I could submit static and animated stickers all in the same pack, which I was wrong. Had I checked it beforehand, I could have planned out everything better than this.

What have you learnt during this project?

Creating stickers and submitting them is in itself learning, but the things which I learned the most during this project is drawing the character digitally. I initially wanted to do all of the drawings of the stickers in Adobe Photoshop. However, it isn’t possible once I thought about it as creating stickers as small as 240 x 240 pixels would create pixelated stickers in Photoshop. This forces me into coming up with a solution and creating it in Illustrator just make much more sense than it would in Photoshop. 

Furthermore, I had never tried to draw in Illustrator before as I thought it was weird, but after searching for tutorials and choosing the right settings and tools, I was able to draw really smooth lines in illustrator which is precisely what I was after.

What would you do differently next time?

The things that I would do differently next time is to give myself time to think and do more research. I definitely didn’t give myself much time for the research as I planned my schedule to research and write up the Tumblr blogs all in one week, where I would design the stickers for the remaining three weeks. However, that definitely backfire on me as I am now stuck with set stickers that I totally not satisfied with. It is a lovely sticker set that has all the expressions that I expected in the set; however, the character is a little bit inconsistent and looks weird in general. I would definitely redesign the character entirely and coming up with at least two characters: boy and girl to target a wider audience. I would also design the characters to be more cute, friendly and engaging.

Another thing which I would do differently next time is publishing my set stickers on a different application. The reason why I said that is because even though I wanted my stickers to be free, LINE forces you to put a price on the stickers. The free stickers on the market are usually the official released from LINE themselves. While this may look like it is a good thing for creators, it is actually a disadvantage. The reason being is because they take 50% of your profit from your sticker, and it is their way of making money off from creators. 

Overall did you do a good job? Did you manage your time effectively?

I believe I did reasonably well getting all of the work completed and have the stickers on the market on time before the deadline, even if the deadline has been put off for another three weeks, regardless of that, I’d have completed it in one month anyway. Moreover, I was also successful at managing my time really well. Before I begin the project, I created a work schedule in which I would follow to get my work completed efficiently. For the first week, I would dedicate myself into researching everything in regards to creating stickers and writing everything up on Tumblr. This way, I would be able to spend the rest of the time creating all of the stickers and get it sent off for approval so that the stickers will be available on the market before the deadline.

Link to the sticker in the store:

https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/7732307

Final work on Behance:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/81273713/Line-Box-Head-Stickers-Set

[thejustinmarshall]

Anya Miller On Climbing, Cancer, And Creative Strategy

NOTE: In 2018, I started recording interviews with creatives (writers, filmmakers, podcasters, photographers, editors, etc.) in the adventure world. I’m publishing the highlights of those interviews monthly in 2019.

Everyone finds their way into adventure storytelling in a different way, but Anya Miller’s journey to working on film projects, creative campaigns, and podcasts for Duct Tape Then Beer is definitely one of the less straightforward ones: It started with a career in architecture, then bedbugs, then cancer, then a mid-career internship making the same salary she made as a lifeguard in high school, then a job at a big design and creative firm, then finally going to work with two of her longtime friends, Fitz and Becca Cahall. Oh, and lots of climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking.

You’ve probably seen something Anya had a hand in making, even if you didn’t know it. As the Director of Brand and Creative Strategy at Duct Tape Then Beer, she does a little bit of: creative strategy, art direction, graphic design, film production, story development, photo editing, and whatever else needs to be done as part of a small team that makes two adventure podcasts (The Dirtbag Diaries and Safety Third, and films like Follow Through and Paul’s Boots.

Duct Tape Then Beer’s client list includes a lot of the biggest names in the outdoor industry: REI, Outdoor Research, Patagonia, The North Face, The Access Fund, Protect Our Winters, National Geographic, Black Diamond, Chaco, Arcteryx, Subaru, and others. I’ve been lucky to work with Anya on a short film project and see how she works (and how she draws), and why Fitz and Becca invited her to be part of their creative team.

I asked Anya to sit down for an interview a few weeks ago—here’s our conversation, edited for length:

ON GROWING UP IN CHATTANOOGA I’m the youngest of four kids. I was born in Canada in a small town called Hespler, Ontario. I have two sisters and a brother, and they are the best. My siblings really shaped my ideas of what I thought was cool, what I wanted to do with my life. Be good at school. Be Good at sports. Be able to talk with anyone with curiosity. I always wanted to do everything that they did. My brother says that my super power is absorbing other people’s super powers. I think of it more as just learning from rad people.

My parents were divorced when I was five — it was a really rough relationship and so I was a pretty stressed out kid. When I was twelve, my mom decided to move from Canada back to her home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Moving to the South was probably one of the best things that happened in my life because it put me in a more nature-focused place. In Canada, we lived in a small old town with stone buildings and neighborhoods full of kids. Getting outside meant going to the local school and hitting a tennis ball up against a giant brick wall, cruising on bikes in the street or watching my brother and his friends skateboard in the Taco Bell parking lot. When I moved to Tennessee, we moved in with my grandmother, Gigi, who was like a second mom to me. She lived on a small acreage that had been part of her family farm for three generations. She lived and passed on the same plot of land where she was born — so land was important. There were tomato plants, frogs, lightning bugs, fresh mint and magnolia trees — space to just run around. We were close to a lake, so I would run down there to feed ducks and swim.

There were a lot less kids nearby, so I spent a lot of time with my sister Michaela and Gigi outside — working in the yard, playing checkers and drinking sun tea. Moving to Tennessee really set a different tone for the rest of my growing up and for my life.

My family was not an outdoor adventure family at all. My mom was a single parent with four kids, so she got us into as many organized sports programs as possible to deal with our energy levels and probably just to free up some personal time for her.

I did gymnastics, played soccer and tennis and eventually got into diving. Those sports were great for strength and discipline, but I experienced a lot of injury in high school, specifically in soccer. It seemed like I was working really hard athletically, only to then be at the mercy of some overly aggressive hack on the field.

I broke my leg the summer before senior year of high school and basically was just done with soccer — I hated every bit of it at that point, so I washed my hands of team sports. My sister was a pro cyclist at the time and gave me her old aluminum Trek 1500 and I started riding all the time. It changed my idea of distance and freedom. At this point, I was figuring out where I wanted to go to university. I hadn’t ever even been west of the Mississippi at that point — but somehow I thought that I where I wanted to be.

[photo by Anne Cleary]

  ON MOVING OUT WEST There was an image — and this does not sound that deep at all, but it was an image the old rubber-banded Patagonia Capilene packaging. Steph Davis was climbing some crack. I had never rock climbed in my life and I didn’t know who Steph Davis was at the time, but what I saw  was just a super-strong female and she had chalk on her face and her hair was whipping in the wind. Didn’t look perfect, looked like she was trying hard in a wild place, and I wondered where she was. I was inspired by her, but I was also inspired by the place and the sea of rock she was moving through. I’d never been to a place so arid or stoic.

None of my family lived out west then. All of my siblings were either still in Canada or in the southeast. I just thought the west seemed amazing. I was the last of four siblings at home, and I made no secret of the fact that I wanted to go far away, not have a support network and just see how it would go.

I remember sending away to University of Colorado and getting this information packet that had a VHS tape in it. I wish I still had it! It was so ridiculous. It had 80s synth music and this dude rollerblade shredding around the campus, giving a sort of tour. It wasn’t a causal rollerblade tour. The guy was getting rad on campus and pointing out different buildings! As I said, I was kind of a stressed out kid in school. I made straight A’s and was valedictorian. From that rollerblading video, I guess it seemed like CU was a good place for a stressed out, sometimes-too-serious kid to go.

So I applied the School of Environmental Design and Architecture, and went.

ON DRAWING I can’t remember not drawing. I was always drawing things. In hindsight, I probably just should’ve gotten an art degree. But I think when I was making the college decision, all of my siblings were sociology majors or history majors, which can be cryptic majors to develop a career from. I think I went into school with a practical driven idea that I would know exactly what I was going to do when I got out of school if it killed me.

Considering the different programs that CU offered, it looked like their environmental design program was good. It focused on sustainable architecture and reuse of old buildings, which I was interested in — my mom collected antiques and love making old things new. Plus, I thought architecture was practical. Theoretically, that major equals a decently clear career path after school. Maybe almost too clear of a path — it can be hard to stray from.

I was always drawing as a kid. I remember getting Calvin and Hobbes cartoon books for holidays. I’d go through the pages and duplicate all of the cartoons, hundreds of them. I didn’t trace them — I just redrew them identically, right down to the word bubbles and writing. I did that with Snoopy, Garfield and Far Side comics, too. I really liked cartoons in general. They were funny, they had a dry sense of humor that reminded me of my brother. He cultivated my sense of humor, for sure. He helped explain some of the more complex cartoons and cultural concepts in them.

I would draw on my own, too. For hours at a time. Sharks and birds. My own hands. I’d look at magazine covers and draw them. Time magazine’s person of the year. National Geographic — that woman with the crazy aqua eyes. There were a bunch of skateboard magazines sitting around the house — my brother was a skateboarder. I’d try to redraw the Thrasher logo, which is a really tricky logo to redraw, by the way! I liked looking at that stuff because it seemed raw and cool, for whatever reason.

ON FINDING CLIMBING My first time climbing was on Flagstaff in Boulder. The granodiorite up there is this weird conglomerate rock — it is pretty grippy until its little embedded pebbles get polished. I remember just thinking how cool it was up there. It was so accessible! And at that point, it was pretty quiet there. I lived close to the trails, so I could jog up Flag. I loved that I could go whenever I wanted to. Even at night. I didn’t have a car in university. I didn’t have a car in high school, either, so I fell in love with things that I could do right out of my door with little equipment or support from anyone.

Climbing wasn’t like skiing or snowboarding — you needed a good chunk of money and a car to do those things. Climbing, and bouldering in particular, was something that I could walk out my door, do on my own and have complete control over my experience. With team sports, I couldn’t control my experience. It felt like other people could injure me. At least I had (kind of) had control over whether I hurt myself.

The transition from bouldering to tying into a rope was pretty quick for me. I ended up stumbling into a really good group of people that were better climbers than I was. Probably within the first few months of climbing, I drove with them out to Wild Iris. I remember not really understanding the concept of grades that much, just deciding what I wanted to try based on aesthetics and the encouragement of my friends. I’d say, “That thing looks good! I’ll try that.” It was really important to me to know that my friends believe in me. They did, and I got better quickly.

It was within the first month of climbing that I wanted to try to lead something. Everything about the sport was exciting — I just wanted something of my own. And it seemed like something I could have, in terms of just being able to develop my skills at whatever pace I wanted. I climbed so much (and probably so badly) when I started that I constantly had injured fingers and weeping skin.

[photo by Anne Cleary]

  ON HER FIRST JOB After graduation, the job market was okay. I wanted to stay in Boulder for a little bit. Right out of school, I got a job at a small, residential architecture firm. They were modern and fun and also did a bit of branding and graphic design for the buildings they made. That rollerblade video was full of shit — I worked my ass off in school. I could have gotten a job at a bigger, better-paying firm, but a smaller shop felt more ‘me’. A lot of people in my class were going to giant corporate firms down in Denver or other cities, but I was more interested in smaller scale residential design — and I was more interested in working closely with clients and staying close to the mountains.

That shop was a safe place to escape to after being intense (again) throughout school. I didn’t want to jump into a high-intensity job. There, I got exposed to graphic design, brand design and architecture. They did a lot of the drawing by hand, which I loved. Right then, things were teetering on being all computer-based. Eventually, we did take all drawings into the computer, but all of the concept iteration was hand-drawn. All of the renderings were hand-drawn, which I got to do and loved.

ON LEAVING BOULDER The person I was dating at the time is now my husband, and I think after about a year in Boulder, Charlie and I were pretty ready to take off. We decided to take a trip to South America,  go to Chile and Argentina to go snowboarding and skiing down there.

We were at a resort called Las Leñas, which has an amazing zone of lift-access / assisted  backcountry. One day, Charlie and I were riding separately. It was really crap conditions and I kind of got off my line and was a bit lost. I saw these people just beyond me on this plateau with sastrugi all over it. It was sunny, but windy, like hard-to-move type wind. And I remember seeing a few people and thinking, “They look like Americans,” I screamed out to them, “Hey, can I ride with you guys?”

So we basically get together on that random plateau in Argentina. Maura Mack, her husband Jason, and Adam DesLauriers. We rode a shitty, icy line together and had a hilarious experience in super bad conditions. We got down and decided to go get beers and hamburgers and meet up with their buds, Lel Tone and Tom Wayes. Charlie joined us at the end of the day, and we all went to a hot spring and had non-stop, hilarious conversations. They felt like our people and they told us we should move to Tahoe. A week after we got back from Argentina, we decided to go to Tahoe and check it out. They set us up with a place to live, I got an architecture job, and Charlie started working at Granite Chief, tuning skis. Plus, it was only a short drive from Bishop. I was sold.

ON MEETING FITZ AND BECCA CAHALL That first year in Tahoe, I spent a lot of time in this really tiny climbing gym, if you could even call it that. The Sports Exchange in Truckee. It was really just a used gear shop that had a room in the back with some holds on a woody. But I spent a ton of time there, looking for friends like those I had left in Boulder.

There weren’t a ton of women climbing in there. I saw Becca Cahall — she was strong and I decided, “That girl’s gonna be my friend.” I like to say that I ‘picked her up in the climbing gym’. We started talking, I met Fitz, and Charlie and I started going over to their place in Kings Beach every week for dinner. Becs makes a mean lasagna. It’s amazing at that point in time in my life how much time I had — or made — to connect and chat with people.

We started climbing with those two. At the time, I think Fitz was in the very early stages of starting The Dirtbag Diaries and he was doing a bunch of writing for print publications. Becca was often gone during the summers, doing field biology work in Oregon. And Fitz and I would climb a good bit together in the summers when she was gone. The friendship really started from there.

They moved to Corvallis, Oregon, for Becca’s graduate program. From there, they moved to Seattle. Charlie and I were still in Tahoe, but we kept in touch with those guys and saw them whenever they came through. We were in Tahoe for just over seven years and I was working at an architecture firm there. I was getting really tired of designing 3,000 square foot “cabins” for people from the Bay Area. Architecture was barely providing a living in a mountain town that’s difficult to make a living in. But it wasn’t really filling me up creatively.

Charlie was tending bar, skiing a bunch and tuning skis — at some point, he wanted more of an intellectual pursuit. He started looking around at programs to get his MBA. He was interested in getting into the creation ski clothing and technical outerwear. We were poking around for schools for him — we chose Seattle because of its creative opportunities and proximity to mountains. He had also grown up in Washington, so family was a draw. It was a huge benefit that Becca and Fitz had already made camp here.

Charlie got into the University of Washington and I found a really great position at a firm called Graham Baba Architects. I basically walked into a dream job in an outrageously bad job market. So it just seemed like everything fell into place. Then I found myself in the city. I never really thought I would live in a city, but all of a sudden, I was.

Pretty soon after we moved to the city, I convinced Charlie to take half of a year of his MBA program and in France. So I took an eight-month sabbatical from the architecture firm, even though I hadn’t really been there that long. I spent the season climbing in Fontainebleau. We lived in the 11th in Paris, and traveled around to Italy and Switzerland to do some climbing and snow sports.

ON CANCER When we got back from Europe, I ended up getting a rash all over my body. I thought I had developed a food allergy, so I went to a doctor and I went to a naturopath to get tested for food allergies.

She said, “No, sweetie, you don’t have an allergy. You have bed bugs.” They were pretty common in France at that time, come to find out. She told me how to get rid of them and offered to do my annual exam while I was there (she was a nurse practitioner, too). She does a breast exam on me and she says she feels something. A lump. I could tell she felt like it was bad. She said, “I think you should go get this checked out.” For whatever reason, I just knew there was something wrong. I hadn’t been feeling well, but I couldn’t really attribute anything. Had I not brought those bed bugs back from Europe, I might not have found the tumor. I fucking love bed bugs.

So the very next day I got in for a biopsy at one of the cancer centers in Seattle, and it came back as Triple Negative Breast Cancer. That’s an invasive form of breast cancer. All at once and very quickly, things slowed down for me and sped up, if that makes any sense. I went through a  series of tests to see what the extent of the cancer was — full body scans to see if it the cancer was anywhere else. Waiting for those results was terrifying. I was trying to figure out my course of treatment, and just trying to understand and grapple with everything.

I was whisked into chemotherapy, and that was a crazy, awful chunk of treatment. It stops all fast-growing cells — like cancer — from producing in your body. That’s why your hair falls out  — your hair is fast-growing cell. I decided to take some control and shave my head before my hair really fell out. It just seemed like a helpless situation.

Can you believe that I had a wig made of my own hair? I had it made, and then I never wore it. Not once. It just sat on this weird styrofoam head in the corner of the bedroom the entire time. It was like this weird little animal sitting in the corner. I don’t know why I had it made. Like a security blanket, I think. When I put it on it felt like I was lying about what I was going through.

Chemotherapy just makes you feel acid washed from the inside out, but it’s what they said was the best and only treatment for my cancer type. Afterwards, I had surgery to take out the tumor, followed by radiation. You don’t fight cancer, you just weather it.

ON DECIDING TO SWITCH CAREERS Coming out of cancer, I realized that architecture wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I wasn’t happy on a day-to-day basis. At that point, after all the cancer stuff, I realized I could pull the plug on architecture and not feel bad at all. I deeply realized that time is short and that I didn’t want to spend a single day doing something that I didn’t love. So I started looking around for other things.

I sat down with my pen and paper, as I usually do. I drew out my problem. I basically tried to draw an infographic of the things that I liked about architecture and the things that I didn’t. I mapped out all of the tasks that I did in between the beginning and end of an architecture project, starting from the first client meeting and ending with them moving into their new or redone house.

Overlayed on the project timeline, I drew an up-and-down heartbeat line. It trended up when I loved the project tasks, and it would go down when I really didn’t like what I was having to do. This line didn’t correlate to difficulty of task — all jobs have hard parts that need grit to get through. True. But this helped me understand what I didn’t like and why.

When I looked at my infographic of my life, it seemed like such a small portion of every project had a loving heartbeat line. The ratio of I love this to I really don’t was just not enough. This visual helped me communicate with people that I was having coffee chats or meeting with, exploring new careers and positions. I could point to the graphic and say these are the things that I’m doing in every project that A) I really excel at and B) fill me up emotionally and really satisfy me as a professional and a creator. Clear, insightful visuals are so key to having good conversations.

I met with a guy who worked at a brand agency. He said, “You really seem like a creative strategist or a brand strategist.” I said, “Okay cool — what is that?” Basically, a strategist makes creative plans and develops foundational ideas that give meaning and inspiration to projects. Strategy helps teams of understand and fulfill creative goals. I wasn’t sure I understood it at first, but I finally had a job title to search for online. I didn’t even know that job existed.

So I started looking for jobs as a creative strategist. I came across an internship that was being offered. This job was definitely aimed at someone ten years younger than me. It was at brand and design firm here in Seattle called Hornall Anderson. Basically, I took my infographic and my architecture portfolio into the interview. I got the job.

[photo by Ken Etzel]

  ON HOW BRAND STRATEGY RELATES TO ARCHITECTURE Essentially, I figured out that creating a house or a space for somebody to use is really similar to creating a brand. In the beginning of an architecture project, you meet the people that you’re going to be working with, the people that will live in that house. You understand how they want to live, the types of spaces they’ll need for their specific lifestyle. You understand the land they have to build on, whether it’s really hilly or flat. You understand the adjacent buildings and you decide how you want your building to respond to those around it. Stand out? Fit in? Be crazy or subdued? Be earthy or modern? You consider budget and you consider the builders that will actually create building. You chart a creative course.

At the end of the day, that planning process that I learned in architecture can be applied to almost any creative project, especially brands. You take a brand. You look at the landscape — where is it going to sit? You understand the brands that sit around it. You consider how your brand is going to respond to, compliment or go against those adjacent brands. You learn about the people that will be ‘living in that brand’ —  the people that are running it and the people that will be purchasing its goods. You set a creative intention that helps develop a solid plan for your building or your brand. Or solid plan for making a film. Or an advertising campaign. Or an event. Whatever that is, there can always be a front-end structuring and creative process that helps you launch into ‘making’ in a considered, intentional and (hopefully) unique way.

ON DOING AN INTERNSHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF HER CAREER I got the internship and it was three months long — terrible pay, of course. But I learned a lot. I had also been in the professional world for ten years at that point. I got hired the day my internship ended, and started working as a Brand and Creative Strategist.

The internship was definitely a proxy for going back to school. I’d definitely recommend it. That job gave me amazing experience and mentors. There, I was able to develop my own techniques of working through brand problems with large teams. Strategists shape clear creative ideas so that it is easier for multiple people to express them.

ON JOINING DUCT TAPE THEN BEER I worked at Hornall for several years. It was the type of agency that had ping pong tables and kegs of beer and free cereal for breakfast. All of those things meant that they wanted you to never leave! I worked a ton, my climbing dropped off. I felt pretty unhealthy. Creatively, I was producing a lot of awesome stuff, working with big brands and talented designers — but eventually it felt a bit soulless. You can only use your intelligence and creativity to sell potato chips for so long.

I wanted to be climbing more. Through those first six years in Seattle, I was of course hanging out with Becca and Fitz. We loved talking about professional and creative stuff. I was always tracking on what Duct Tape Then Beer was doing. One night, I went over to their house and held a little facilitated visual Post-It party to chat with them about creative goals, what they were working on and what they wanted to be. At this point, they had positioned themselves pretty squarely as a film production company and of course The Dirtbag Diaries were still going strong.

When I was at that large agency, I saw people making films and content for brands in categories other than the outdoor industry. I saw how campaigns were being created and how solid, unique creative was being monetized. Basically, I wanted to help Duct Tape expand what they offered. People were coming to Duct Tape saying: We want a film. And then Fitz and Becca would ask: What do you need a film about and why? The brands rarely had good or solid answers for these questions. Maybe they didn’t actually need a film — maybe the brand actually needed a perspective.

Essentially, Duct Tape Then Beer had been creating emotional, unique perspectives for brands and expressing them in films. The value though, for the first years, had been being placed on the film outcome rather than the strategy and thinking that needs to be done before a good story is told.

ON WHAT SHE DOES AT DUCT TAPE THEN BEER Fitz and Becca told me they thought they could hire me. That was a big deal. I was really wary of working with good friends. I had always kept my personal life and work pretty separate. I just didn’t want to ruin our friendship by working together every single day, or having weird professional interactions with folks that I love so much. Eventually, those guys just talked me down from the ledge. They said their first priority was keeping our friendship solid — and they thought we could make some really cool things together. They said we would only work with brands and strengthen and nurture connections to the natural world. They said I could go climbing. That was it. I ended up leaving the big agency and joining Duct Tape to develop a brand strategy offering so that we could answer the brand questions before the topic of the creative output was even addressed.

Before a creative expression (film, messaging, campaign) is ever decided upon, we crystallize emotional ideas that will elicit action. How will we express an emotional idea? Maybe a film. Maybe a podcast. Maybe new headlines or messaging that gets rolled out over a few years. Maybe a social media campaign. Maybe an event. But we always start with clear, emotional ideas.

There aren’t many projects that come through Duct Tape Then Beer that I don’t have some sort of hand in. But you could say that about all of us — we all touch every project. Our skills overlap and are complementary. I make all of the pitch decks. I don’t like to admit that I am a writer — it was always so hard for me — but it has flowed as I’ve gotten older. If it’s a story that Fitz discovered, he’ll write it up and then I design a compelling story deck — sometimes with infographics —  to get our ideas across. I do a lot of strategy work for us internally and for our clients. I do the graphic design and edit the photos that come out of our office, functioning as the art director and social media person. But my official title is Director of Brand and Creative Strategy.

Our podcasts need a good bit of overarching creative strategy. We don’t just haphazardly assort stories and guests. We look at culture and we try to understand what’s going on and try to actively seek out stories that express complex, emotional topics in today’s world. I’ll work to help shape this topic mix.

At the helm of Duct Tape, we’ve got five full-time people. We are all seasoned creatives and high-functioning human beings that love to contribute and work hard for each other. I think that’s what makes project good  — when several smart people contribute in a considered way.

ON SNOWBOARDING VS. SKIING I snowboard. I skied when I was tiny in Canada a couple of times. Since being in Colorado, I’ve been a snowboarder. More and more, I stay out of resorts and am loyal to my splitboard and to snow that makes no noise. I’ve had three torn ACLs on one leg. I’ve torn my meniscus three times. So yea, I ride snow that makes no noise. Luckily, soft snow is usually easy to find in Washington.

ADVICE It was scary and hard for me to leave behind a profession that I’d put a lot of time and energy into. But I knew, deep down, that I didn’t enjoy it. My advice? Take some time and be really honest with yourself about what you like doing (and why) and what you don’t like doing (and why). Because every job is going to have something that sucks about it. Really anything worth doing is going to be pretty hard at some point, so the answer, “I don’t like doing this because it’s too hard,” is bullshit.

But I do recommend that process that I went through. Visually mapping out what filled me up emotionally and what depleted me emotionally. Visualizing that was so helpful. And clear. And it helped me realize what I wanted to be spending my time doing. Continually revisiting those two questions: What do I like doing and why? What do I not like doing and why? Continually revisiting those has been the most helpful thing for me over the last ten years.

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Anya Miller On Climbing, Cancer, And Creative Strategy

NOTE: In 2018, I started recording interviews with creatives (writers, filmmakers, podcasters, photographers, editors, etc.) in the adventure world. I’m publishing the highlights of those interviews monthly in 2019.

Everyone finds their way into adventure storytelling in a different way, but Anya Miller’s journey to working on film projects, creative campaigns, and podcasts for Duct Tape Then Beer is definitely one of the less straightforward ones: It started with a career in architecture, then bedbugs, then cancer, then a mid-career internship making the same salary she made as a lifeguard in high school, then a job at a big design and creative firm, then finally going to work with two of her longtime friends, Fitz and Becca Cahall. Oh, and lots of climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking.

You’ve probably seen something Anya had a hand in making, even if you didn’t know it. As the Director of Brand and Creative Strategy at Duct Tape Then Beer, she does a little bit of: creative strategy, art direction, graphic design, film production, story development, photo editing, and whatever else needs to be done as part of a small team that makes two adventure podcasts (The Dirtbag Diaries and Safety Third, and films like Follow Through and Paul’s Boots.

Duct Tape Then Beer’s client list includes a lot of the biggest names in the outdoor industry: REI, Outdoor Research, Patagonia, The North Face, The Access Fund, Protect Our Winters, National Geographic, Black Diamond, Chaco, Arcteryx, Subaru, and others. I’ve been lucky to work with Anya on a short film project and see how she works (and how she draws), and why Fitz and Becca invited her to be part of their creative team.

I asked Anya to sit down for an interview a few weeks ago—here’s our conversation, edited for length:

ON GROWING UP IN CHATTANOOGA I’m the youngest of four kids. I was born in Canada in a small town called Hespler, Ontario. I have two sisters and a brother, and they are the best. My siblings really shaped my ideas of what I thought was cool, what I wanted to do with my life. Be good at school. Be Good at sports. Be able to talk with anyone with curiosity. I always wanted to do everything that they did. My brother says that my super power is absorbing other people’s super powers. I think of it more as just learning from rad people.

My parents were divorced when I was five — it was a really rough relationship and so I was a pretty stressed out kid. When I was twelve, my mom decided to move from Canada back to her home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Moving to the South was probably one of the best things that happened in my life because it put me in a more nature-focused place. In Canada, we lived in a small old town with stone buildings and neighborhoods full of kids. Getting outside meant going to the local school and hitting a tennis ball up against a giant brick wall, cruising on bikes in the street or watching my brother and his friends skateboard in the Taco Bell parking lot. When I moved to Tennessee, we moved in with my grandmother, Gigi, who was like a second mom to me. She lived on a small acreage that had been part of her family farm for three generations. She lived and passed on the same plot of land where she was born — so land was important. There were tomato plants, frogs, lightning bugs, fresh mint and magnolia trees — space to just run around. We were close to a lake, so I would run down there to feed ducks and swim.

There were a lot less kids nearby, so I spent a lot of time with my sister Michaela and Gigi outside — working in the yard, playing checkers and drinking sun tea. Moving to Tennessee really set a different tone for the rest of my growing up and for my life.

My family was not an outdoor adventure family at all. My mom was a single parent with four kids, so she got us into as many organized sports programs as possible to deal with our energy levels and probably just to free up some personal time for her.

I did gymnastics, played soccer and tennis and eventually got into diving. Those sports were great for strength and discipline, but I experienced a lot of injury in high school, specifically in soccer. It seemed like I was working really hard athletically, only to then be at the mercy of some overly aggressive hack on the field.

I broke my leg the summer before senior year of high school and basically was just done with soccer — I hated every bit of it at that point, so I washed my hands of team sports. My sister was a pro cyclist at the time and gave me her old aluminum Trek 1500 and I started riding all the time. It changed my idea of distance and freedom. At this point, I was figuring out where I wanted to go to university. I hadn’t ever even been west of the Mississippi at that point — but somehow I thought that I where I wanted to be.

[photo by Anne Cleary]

  ON MOVING OUT WEST There was an image — and this does not sound that deep at all, but it was an image the old rubber-banded Patagonia Capilene packaging. Steph Davis was climbing some crack. I had never rock climbed in my life and I didn’t know who Steph Davis was at the time, but what I saw  was just a super-strong female and she had chalk on her face and her hair was whipping in the wind. Didn’t look perfect, looked like she was trying hard in a wild place, and I wondered where she was. I was inspired by her, but I was also inspired by the place and the sea of rock she was moving through. I’d never been to a place so arid or stoic.

None of my family lived out west then. All of my siblings were either still in Canada or in the southeast. I just thought the west seemed amazing. I was the last of four siblings at home, and I made no secret of the fact that I wanted to go far away, not have a support network and just see how it would go.

I remember sending away to University of Colorado and getting this information packet that had a VHS tape in it. I wish I still had it! It was so ridiculous. It had 80s synth music and this dude rollerblade shredding around the campus, giving a sort of tour. It wasn’t a causal rollerblade tour. The guy was getting rad on campus and pointing out different buildings! As I said, I was kind of a stressed out kid in school. I made straight A’s and was valedictorian. From that rollerblading video, I guess it seemed like CU was a good place for a stressed out, sometimes-too-serious kid to go.

So I applied the School of Environmental Design and Architecture, and went.

ON DRAWING I can’t remember not drawing. I was always drawing things. In hindsight, I probably just should’ve gotten an art degree. But I think when I was making the college decision, all of my siblings were sociology majors or history majors, which can be cryptic majors to develop a career from. I think I went into school with a practical driven idea that I would know exactly what I was going to do when I got out of school if it killed me.

Considering the different programs that CU offered, it looked like their environmental design program was good. It focused on sustainable architecture and reuse of old buildings, which I was interested in — my mom collected antiques and love making old things new. Plus, I thought architecture was practical. Theoretically, that major equals a decently clear career path after school. Maybe almost too clear of a path — it can be hard to stray from.

I was always drawing as a kid. I remember getting Calvin and Hobbes cartoon books for holidays. I’d go through the pages and duplicate all of the cartoons, hundreds of them. I didn’t trace them — I just redrew them identically, right down to the word bubbles and writing. I did that with Snoopy, Garfield and Far Side comics, too. I really liked cartoons in general. They were funny, they had a dry sense of humor that reminded me of my brother. He cultivated my sense of humor, for sure. He helped explain some of the more complex cartoons and cultural concepts in them.

I would draw on my own, too. For hours at a time. Sharks and birds. My own hands. I’d look at magazine covers and draw them. Time magazine’s person of the year. National Geographic — that woman with the crazy aqua eyes. There were a bunch of skateboard magazines sitting around the house — my brother was a skateboarder. I’d try to redraw the Thrasher logo, which is a really tricky logo to redraw, by the way! I liked looking at that stuff because it seemed raw and cool, for whatever reason.

ON FINDING CLIMBING My first time climbing was on Flagstaff in Boulder. The granodiorite up there is this weird conglomerate rock — it is pretty grippy until its little embedded pebbles get polished. I remember just thinking how cool it was up there. It was so accessible! And at that point, it was pretty quiet there. I lived close to the trails, so I could jog up Flag. I loved that I could go whenever I wanted to. Even at night. I didn’t have a car in university. I didn’t have a car in high school, either, so I fell in love with things that I could do right out of my door with little equipment or support from anyone.

Climbing wasn’t like skiing or snowboarding — you needed a good chunk of money and a car to do those things. Climbing, and bouldering in particular, was something that I could walk out my door, do on my own and have complete control over my experience. With team sports, I couldn’t control my experience. It felt like other people could injure me. At least I had (kind of) had control over whether I hurt myself.

The transition from bouldering to tying into a rope was pretty quick for me. I ended up stumbling into a really good group of people that were better climbers than I was. Probably within the first few months of climbing, I drove with them out to Wild Iris. I remember not really understanding the concept of grades that much, just deciding what I wanted to try based on aesthetics and the encouragement of my friends. I’d say, “That thing looks good! I’ll try that.” It was really important to me to know that my friends believe in me. They did, and I got better quickly.

It was within the first month of climbing that I wanted to try to lead something. Everything about the sport was exciting — I just wanted something of my own. And it seemed like something I could have, in terms of just being able to develop my skills at whatever pace I wanted. I climbed so much (and probably so badly) when I started that I constantly had injured fingers and weeping skin.

[photo by Anne Cleary]

  ON HER FIRST JOB After graduation, the job market was okay. I wanted to stay in Boulder for a little bit. Right out of school, I got a job at a small, residential architecture firm. They were modern and fun and also did a bit of branding and graphic design for the buildings they made. That rollerblade video was full of shit — I worked my ass off in school. I could have gotten a job at a bigger, better-paying firm, but a smaller shop felt more ‘me’. A lot of people in my class were going to giant corporate firms down in Denver or other cities, but I was more interested in smaller scale residential design — and I was more interested in working closely with clients and staying close to the mountains.

That shop was a safe place to escape to after being intense (again) throughout school. I didn’t want to jump into a high-intensity job. There, I got exposed to graphic design, brand design and architecture. They did a lot of the drawing by hand, which I loved. Right then, things were teetering on being all computer-based. Eventually, we did take all drawings into the computer, but all of the concept iteration was hand-drawn. All of the renderings were hand-drawn, which I got to do and loved.

ON LEAVING BOULDER The person I was dating at the time is now my husband, and I think after about a year in Boulder, Charlie and I were pretty ready to take off. We decided to take a trip to South America,  go to Chile and Argentina to go snowboarding and skiing down there.

We were at a resort called Las Leñas, which has an amazing zone of lift-access / assisted  backcountry. One day, Charlie and I were riding separately. It was really crap conditions and I kind of got off my line and was a bit lost. I saw these people just beyond me on this plateau with sastrugi all over it. It was sunny, but windy, like hard-to-move type wind. And I remember seeing a few people and thinking, “They look like Americans,” I screamed out to them, “Hey, can I ride with you guys?”

So we basically get together on that random plateau in Argentina. Maura Mack, her husband Jason, and Adam DesLauriers. We rode a shitty, icy line together and had a hilarious experience in super bad conditions. We got down and decided to go get beers and hamburgers and meet up with their buds, Lel Tone and Tom Wayes. Charlie joined us at the end of the day, and we all went to a hot spring and had non-stop, hilarious conversations. They felt like our people and they told us we should move to Tahoe. A week after we got back from Argentina, we decided to go to Tahoe and check it out. They set us up with a place to live, I got an architecture job, and Charlie started working at Granite Chief, tuning skis. Plus, it was only a short drive from Bishop. I was sold.

ON MEETING FITZ AND BECCA CAHALL That first year in Tahoe, I spent a lot of time in this really tiny climbing gym, if you could even call it that. The Sports Exchange in Truckee. It was really just a used gear shop that had a room in the back with some holds on a woody. But I spent a ton of time there, looking for friends like those I had left in Boulder.

There weren’t a ton of women climbing in there. I saw Becca Cahall — she was strong and I decided, “That girl’s gonna be my friend.” I like to say that I ‘picked her up in the climbing gym’. We started talking, I met Fitz, and Charlie and I started going over to their place in Kings Beach every week for dinner. Becs makes a mean lasagna. It’s amazing at that point in time in my life how much time I had — or made — to connect and chat with people.

We started climbing with those two. At the time, I think Fitz was in the very early stages of starting The Dirtbag Diaries and he was doing a bunch of writing for print publications. Becca was often gone during the summers, doing field biology work in Oregon. And Fitz and I would climb a good bit together in the summers when she was gone. The friendship really started from there.

They moved to Corvallis, Oregon, for Becca’s graduate program. From there, they moved to Seattle. Charlie and I were still in Tahoe, but we kept in touch with those guys and saw them whenever they came through. We were in Tahoe for just over seven years and I was working at an architecture firm there. I was getting really tired of designing 3,000 square foot “cabins” for people from the Bay Area. Architecture was barely providing a living in a mountain town that’s difficult to make a living in. But it wasn’t really filling me up creatively.

Charlie was tending bar, skiing a bunch and tuning skis — at some point, he wanted more of an intellectual pursuit. He started looking around at programs to get his MBA. He was interested in getting into the creation ski clothing and technical outerwear. We were poking around for schools for him — we chose Seattle because of its creative opportunities and proximity to mountains. He had also grown up in Washington, so family was a draw. It was a huge benefit that Becca and Fitz had already made camp here.

Charlie got into the University of Washington and I found a really great position at a firm called Graham Baba Architects. I basically walked into a dream job in an outrageously bad job market. So it just seemed like everything fell into place. Then I found myself in the city. I never really thought I would live in a city, but all of a sudden, I was.

Pretty soon after we moved to the city, I convinced Charlie to take half of a year of his MBA program and in France. So I took an eight-month sabbatical from the architecture firm, even though I hadn’t really been there that long. I spent the season climbing in Fontainebleau. We lived in the 11th in Paris, and traveled around to Italy and Switzerland to do some climbing and snow sports.

ON CANCER When we got back from Europe, I ended up getting a rash all over my body. I thought I had developed a food allergy, so I went to a doctor and I went to a naturopath to get tested for food allergies.

She said, “No, sweetie, you don’t have an allergy. You have bed bugs.” They were pretty common in France at that time, come to find out. She told me how to get rid of them and offered to do my annual exam while I was there (she was a nurse practitioner, too). She does a breast exam on me and she says she feels something. A lump. I could tell she felt like it was bad. She said, “I think you should go get this checked out.” For whatever reason, I just knew there was something wrong. I hadn’t been feeling well, but I couldn’t really attribute anything. Had I not brought those bed bugs back from Europe, I might not have found the tumor. I fucking love bed bugs.

So the very next day I got in for a biopsy at one of the cancer centers in Seattle, and it came back as Triple Negative Breast Cancer. That’s an invasive form of breast cancer. All at once and very quickly, things slowed down for me and sped up, if that makes any sense. I went through a  series of tests to see what the extent of the cancer was — full body scans to see if it the cancer was anywhere else. Waiting for those results was terrifying. I was trying to figure out my course of treatment, and just trying to understand and grapple with everything.

I was whisked into chemotherapy, and that was a crazy, awful chunk of treatment. It stops all fast-growing cells — like cancer — from producing in your body. That’s why your hair falls out  — your hair is fast-growing cell. I decided to take some control and shave my head before my hair really fell out. It just seemed like a helpless situation.

Can you believe that I had a wig made of my own hair? I had it made, and then I never wore it. Not once. It just sat on this weird styrofoam head in the corner of the bedroom the entire time. It was like this weird little animal sitting in the corner. I don’t know why I had it made. Like a security blanket, I think. When I put it on it felt like I was lying about what I was going through.

Chemotherapy just makes you feel acid washed from the inside out, but it’s what they said was the best and only treatment for my cancer type. Afterwards, I had surgery to take out the tumor, followed by radiation. You don’t fight cancer, you just weather it.

ON DECIDING TO SWITCH CAREERS Coming out of cancer, I realized that architecture wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I wasn’t happy on a day-to-day basis. At that point, after all the cancer stuff, I realized I could pull the plug on architecture and not feel bad at all. I deeply realized that time is short and that I didn’t want to spend a single day doing something that I didn’t love. So I started looking around for other things.

I sat down with my pen and paper, as I usually do. I drew out my problem. I basically tried to draw an infographic of the things that I liked about architecture and the things that I didn’t. I mapped out all of the tasks that I did in between the beginning and end of an architecture project, starting from the first client meeting and ending with them moving into their new or redone house.

Overlayed on the project timeline, I drew an up-and-down heartbeat line. It trended up when I loved the project tasks, and it would go down when I really didn’t like what I was having to do. This line didn’t correlate to difficulty of task — all jobs have hard parts that need grit to get through. True. But this helped me understand what I didn’t like and why.

When I looked at my infographic of my life, it seemed like such a small portion of every project had a loving heartbeat line. The ratio of I love this to I really don’t was just not enough. This visual helped me communicate with people that I was having coffee chats or meeting with, exploring new careers and positions. I could point to the graphic and say these are the things that I’m doing in every project that A) I really excel at and B) fill me up emotionally and really satisfy me as a professional and a creator. Clear, insightful visuals are so key to having good conversations.

I met with a guy who worked at a brand agency. He said, “You really seem like a creative strategist or a brand strategist.” I said, “Okay cool — what is that?” Basically, a strategist makes creative plans and develops foundational ideas that give meaning and inspiration to projects. Strategy helps teams of understand and fulfill creative goals. I wasn’t sure I understood it at first, but I finally had a job title to search for online. I didn’t even know that job existed.

So I started looking for jobs as a creative strategist. I came across an internship that was being offered. This job was definitely aimed at someone ten years younger than me. It was at brand and design firm here in Seattle called Hornall Anderson. Basically, I took my infographic and my architecture portfolio into the interview. I got the job.

[photo by Ken Etzel]

  ON HOW BRAND STRATEGY RELATES TO ARCHITECTURE Essentially, I figured out that creating a house or a space for somebody to use is really similar to creating a brand. In the beginning of an architecture project, you meet the people that you’re going to be working with, the people that will live in that house. You understand how they want to live, the types of spaces they’ll need for their specific lifestyle. You understand the land they have to build on, whether it’s really hilly or flat. You understand the adjacent buildings and you decide how you want your building to respond to those around it. Stand out? Fit in? Be crazy or subdued? Be earthy or modern? You consider budget and you consider the builders that will actually create building. You chart a creative course.

At the end of the day, that planning process that I learned in architecture can be applied to almost any creative project, especially brands. You take a brand. You look at the landscape — where is it going to sit? You understand the brands that sit around it. You consider how your brand is going to respond to, compliment or go against those adjacent brands. You learn about the people that will be ‘living in that brand’ —  the people that are running it and the people that will be purchasing its goods. You set a creative intention that helps develop a solid plan for your building or your brand. Or solid plan for making a film. Or an advertising campaign. Or an event. Whatever that is, there can always be a front-end structuring and creative process that helps you launch into ‘making’ in a considered, intentional and (hopefully) unique way.

ON DOING AN INTERNSHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF HER CAREER I got the internship and it was three months long — terrible pay, of course. But I learned a lot. I had also been in the professional world for ten years at that point. I got hired the day my internship ended, and started working as a Brand and Creative Strategist.

The internship was definitely a proxy for going back to school. I’d definitely recommend it. That job gave me amazing experience and mentors. There, I was able to develop my own techniques of working through brand problems with large teams. Strategists shape clear creative ideas so that it is easier for multiple people to express them.

ON JOINING DUCT TAPE THEN BEER I worked at Hornall for several years. It was the type of agency that had ping pong tables and kegs of beer and free cereal for breakfast. All of those things meant that they wanted you to never leave! I worked a ton, my climbing dropped off. I felt pretty unhealthy. Creatively, I was producing a lot of awesome stuff, working with big brands and talented designers — but eventually it felt a bit soulless. You can only use your intelligence and creativity to sell potato chips for so long.

I wanted to be climbing more. Through those first six years in Seattle, I was of course hanging out with Becca and Fitz. We loved talking about professional and creative stuff. I was always tracking on what Duct Tape Then Beer was doing. One night, I went over to their house and held a little facilitated visual Post-It party to chat with them about creative goals, what they were working on and what they wanted to be. At this point, they had positioned themselves pretty squarely as a film production company and of course The Dirtbag Diaries were still going strong.

When I was at that large agency, I saw people making films and content for brands in categories other than the outdoor industry. I saw how campaigns were being created and how solid, unique creative was being monetized. Basically, I wanted to help Duct Tape expand what they offered. People were coming to Duct Tape saying: We want a film. And then Fitz and Becca would ask: What do you need a film about and why? The brands rarely had good or solid answers for these questions. Maybe they didn’t actually need a film — maybe the brand actually needed a perspective.

Essentially, Duct Tape Then Beer had been creating emotional, unique perspectives for brands and expressing them in films. The value though, for the first years, had been being placed on the film outcome rather than the strategy and thinking that needs to be done before a good story is told.

ON WHAT SHE DOES AT DUCT TAPE THEN BEER Fitz and Becca told me they thought they could hire me. That was a big deal. I was really wary of working with good friends. I had always kept my personal life and work pretty separate. I just didn’t want to ruin our friendship by working together every single day, or having weird professional interactions with folks that I love so much. Eventually, those guys just talked me down from the ledge. They said their first priority was keeping our friendship solid — and they thought we could make some really cool things together. They said we would only work with brands and strengthen and nurture connections to the natural world. They said I could go climbing. That was it. I ended up leaving the big agency and joining Duct Tape to develop a brand strategy offering so that we could answer the brand questions before the topic of the creative output was even addressed.

Before a creative expression (film, messaging, campaign) is ever decided upon, we crystallize emotional ideas that will elicit action. How will we express an emotional idea? Maybe a film. Maybe a podcast. Maybe new headlines or messaging that gets rolled out over a few years. Maybe a social media campaign. Maybe an event. But we always start with clear, emotional ideas.

There aren’t many projects that come through Duct Tape Then Beer that I don’t have some sort of hand in. But you could say that about all of us — we all touch every project. Our skills overlap and are complementary. I make all of the pitch decks. I don’t like to admit that I am a writer — it was always so hard for me — but it has flowed as I’ve gotten older. If it’s a story that Fitz discovered, he’ll write it up and then I design a compelling story deck — sometimes with infographics —  to get our ideas across. I do a lot of strategy work for us internally and for our clients. I do the graphic design and edit the photos that come out of our office, functioning as the art director and social media person. But my official title is Director of Brand and Creative Strategy.

Our podcasts need a good bit of overarching creative strategy. We don’t just haphazardly assort stories and guests. We look at culture and we try to understand what’s going on and try to actively seek out stories that express complex, emotional topics in today’s world. I’ll work to help shape this topic mix.

At the helm of Duct Tape, we’ve got five full-time people. We are all seasoned creatives and high-functioning human beings that love to contribute and work hard for each other. I think that’s what makes project good  — when several smart people contribute in a considered way.

ON SNOWBOARDING VS. SKIING I snowboard. I skied when I was tiny in Canada a couple of times. Since being in Colorado, I’ve been a snowboarder. More and more, I stay out of resorts and am loyal to my splitboard and to snow that makes no noise. I’ve had three torn ACLs on one leg. I’ve torn my meniscus three times. So yea, I ride snow that makes no noise. Luckily, soft snow is usually easy to find in Washington.

ADVICE It was scary and hard for me to leave behind a profession that I’d put a lot of time and energy into. But I knew, deep down, that I didn’t enjoy it. My advice? Take some time and be really honest with yourself about what you like doing (and why) and what you don’t like doing (and why). Because every job is going to have something that sucks about it. Really anything worth doing is going to be pretty hard at some point, so the answer, “I don’t like doing this because it’s too hard,” is bullshit.

But I do recommend that process that I went through. Visually mapping out what filled me up emotionally and what depleted me emotionally. Visualizing that was so helpful. And clear. And it helped me realize what I wanted to be spending my time doing. Continually revisiting those two questions: What do I like doing and why? What do I not like doing and why? Continually revisiting those has been the most helpful thing for me over the last ten years.

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