Colin Harman

Some insightful thoughts on the process of reading and writing and how they are meant to work together in tandem. I’ve always thought to read things in their entirety, perhaps discuss them with a friend throughout, then write my own editorial thoughts in some form post-completion. This article (which I’ve quoted below) from A Working Library by Mandy Brown is an eye-opening peek into a few methods and reasonings for reading differently—perhaps more intentionally—than I’d considered before.

Always read with a pen in hand. The pen should be used both to mark the text you want to remember and to write from where the text leaves you. Think of the text as the starting point for your own words.

Reading and writing are not discrete activities; they occur on a continuum, with reading at one end, writing at the other. The best readers spend their time somewhere in between.

Reading must occur everyday, but it is not just any daily reading that will do. The day’s reading must include at minimum a few lines whose principal intent is to be beautiful—words composed as much for the sake of their composition as for the meaning they convey.

A good reader reads attentively, not only listening to what the writer says, but also to how she says it. This is how a reader learns to write.

If a book bores you, or tells you things you already know, or is not beautiful, do not hesitate to discard it. There are better books awaiting you, just around the bend.

Every book alights a path to other books. Follow these paths as far as you can. This is how you build a library.

A single book struggles to balance on its spine; it pines for neighbors. Keep as many books as you have room for.

Read voraciously, many books at a time. Only then will you hear the conversation taking place among them.

The best library contains both books you have read, and books you have not. The latter should grow in proportion as the library expands. A working library is as much a place for the possible as it is a record of the past.

Grit is something that I’ve heard a lot, but not something that I’ve really taken the time to unearth its true meaning. After listening to my fine friends Dan Benjamin and Merlin Mann talk bout it on episodes 87 and 88 of their podcast Back to Work, I began to have a better grasp of what this concept really is.

Grit is essentially what makes you do something when you don’t want to do it. It is the descriptive word we use when describing someone who is motivated to see a goal carried out, even when it sucks to be doing so, because the end goal is enough of a motivation to press on through the crap.

Paul Tough Describes this concept vis–à–vis children in his book How Children Succeed. In his interview on an episode of This American Life he discusses the struggle that children have with the traditional ways we measure intelligence and cognitive ability, but is that really giving us a true picture of what children will succeed?

They talk about the focus on cognitive abilities, conventional “book smarts.” They discuss the current emphasis on these kinds of skills in American education, and the emphasis standardized testing, and then turn our attention to a growing body of research that suggests we may be on the verge of a new approach to some of the biggest challenges facing American schools today. Paul discusses how “non-cognitive skills” — qualities like tenacity, resilience, impulse control — are being viewed as increasingly vital in education…

With that in mind, how are we setting up children to succeed in a world that isn’t going to think for them? I fight this same struggle of hearing that life is supposed to be easier, more relaxing, more comfortable, yet anything worth doing is a lot of work and discipline. Anything worth doing requires a level of “stick-to-it-iveness” that many of us (myself included) don’t just have by default. We have to overcome our nature to be successful.

This whole concept begs the question: Can grit be learned or is it merely something you have or you don’t? Discipline is something we look to others and uphold, but how do we measure the potential for that in ourselves?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that whatever it takes to do more than I’m doing with more purpose, I want to be constantly pursuing that.

When people think of collaboration, they often think of the sharing of ideas together sitting around a table. But often collaboration can just mean working together on a project that has already been defined, and hoping to make it the best it can be along the way by working together. However, actually sharing within that environment requires an extra level of vulnerability. It requires you to risk giving away your best idea, questioning someone else,s, or revealing your secret sources. All too often collaboration is limited to working together to produce something, when really it’s an opportunity create through learning from one another.

Don’t limit yourself to successes.

We all like success stories, especially when they’re our own. We love to celebrate when our team or someone on it succeeds, but do we value the failures as highly? Often these are the lessons and advice that no one wants to learn from, but they’re a crucial part of the creative ideation process. Nothing tells you what could work more than finding out what doesn’t. The more you can separate what won’t be effective, the more you can focus on the right answer. Experimenting in the creative process is essential, and digging into the reason why someone wouldn’t/didn’t work is crucial to a trajectory of continuous improvement.

Don’t just share your successes, share where you’ve failed, what didn’t work, and why. Show people that you value them enough to prevent them from having to make the same creative mistakes that you did. Providing a place of trust and honesty is so valuable in a vulnerable team environment. If people don’t feel it’s safe to fail, they’ll always be hesitant to take risks, and risks are what keep us pushing forward. Give your team the gift of going second in sharing their failures—for me, that is collaboration.

Sharing may result in stealing.

And that’s ok. Your ideas may get taken when you share, but isn’t the purpose of a team to run with the best idea possible? If you’re keeping great ideas to yourself you’re not only cheating your team, you’re cheating yourself. Our ideas can feel like our currency in a creative world, we can feel like it’s what gives us value.

It’s not about us, it’s about our team. Giving away your ideas keeps you creating by forcing you to come up with new ones. If you always live in the world of giving away your best ideas, you’ll always be looking for another one, in which case everyone wins. Giving away what you think is your best idea often is what makes room for your next one. Creating a culture where there is value to giving away your ideas helps your team realize that it’s safe for them to give their best idea to you.

Sharing your thoughts on someone else’s work is essential to them improving. I can’t think of an instance when someone has given me brutally honest feedback on something and it didn’t make the design better. It can confirm a suspicion you were trying to ignore, or at least make you question the ‘why’ behind what you’re designing. The truth, the best, the greatest has nothing to hide. Question everything and naturally the greatest ideas will float to the top.

Share Inspiration.

We all have places books where we go to be inspired. For some it’s a location, being around certain people, a folder you have stashed in Dropbox, Dribbble, or some other well-curated website of visual goodness. While it’s tempting to hoard that inspiration to yourself, we have to share it. We’re in this together, and what good are we if we don’t keep the greater goal in mind. Akin to the idea of sharing your ideas, it gets the best ideas out there, keeping you on a constant pursuit for what’s next. That my friends is what keeps you innovating, what keeps you searching, learning, experimenting.

Don’t just work beside the people, work with them and learn from them. Being a part of team can be the most valuable asset of a creative, don’t squander the opportunity to improve with the help of those around you by trying to go it alone.

I’ve come to realize that having high expectations is not a bad thing. It forces me to demand more of myself both creatively, physically, spiritually, and mentally. Pushing beyond what you’re comfortable with, or farther than you’ve been willing to go before is rarely easy, but almost always worth it.

The trouble with a mindset or desire of going beyond your prior limits is the fear of failure. In fact, failure is inevitable. This is where having high expectations can really stifle your creativity. Like the unemployed guy who is always holding out for a management position, you can be always aspiring for something you haven’t earned. Creativity, problem solving, new ideas, innovation all require countless amounts of failure. The failure isn’t for nothing though, it’s there to be your friend by showing you won’t work on your path to the right solution. Failure is the friend we all need but no one wants to listen to.

Let’s be honest though, failure sucks. It’s discouraging, frustrating, and deflating. So how do we continue on this cycle of failed attempts always striving for the hope of success without losing our minds and just giving up?

Tolerance of frustration.

It’s easier to give up. It’s easier to quit, to do nothing, to just lay back on the couch and watch another episode of The Office on Netflix. Is that 24 minutes really going to be fulfilling or is that just what we choose to prevent ourselves from the hard work demanded by things that matter?

We have to learn to tolerate frustration. Many choose to lower expectations and be content with a bunt, but while there are places that compromise is essential, it can’t be a way of life. If we’re able to raise our frustration tolerance we can learn to really roll with the punches. We must strive to become more aware and in control of our ability to deal with things wisely when they don’t go as planned. Seek positive reactionarism.

Because frankly, lots of people who are less qualified, less educated, less resourced, with less free time, and who are less intelligent than you (and me) have figured out how to do things beyond what we’ve done. It’s not because they have a magic potion, it’s because they can tolerate the failures that will inevitably come, because they know it’s a part of the process of getting to the answer the desire. It’s not what you have, but how you use it.

Keep trying, don’t give up. Learn to be in control of your frustration and become tolerant of the inevitable changing of course in any problem. Expect to fail and value the lessons that failure teaches, don’t just count them as waste. You’re going to fall down, but as long as you get back up and try again you’re not letting failure rule you. Failure is your most honest friend, you just have to be willing to hear him out.

Who is Mark Boulton?
Mark Boulton is a graphic designer living in South Wales with his wife and two daughters.

He currently runs a small design studio, Mark Boulton Design, where he works with clients such as ESPN, Warner Bros, BBC, British Energy and Drupal. In the past, he has worked for the BBC and Agency.com designing wonderful experiences for all manner of clients and people across the world. He is also co-founder of small publishing imprint, Five Simple Steps, where they publish practical design books for the web community.

Mark has gifted the typographic community with an abbreviated but insightful series of writings about how to better one’s typographic prowess. They’re from a while back, but quite worth the read if you ever spend time setting type in any form, whether for print or web. It has definitely enhanced the framework I use to set type. I’d say more, but I would rather you spend the time reading the articles.

So without any further rambling I present the “Simple Steps…” series:

• Part 1: Measure the Measure
• Part 2: Hanging Punctuation
• Part 3: Ligatures
• Part 4: Typographic Hierarchy – size
• Part 5: Typographic Hierarchy – weight