On September 6, 2016, we launched this blog, finally giving a home to all the articles I'd been sharing on Medium and in my weekly newsletter. Two years later, we’re still going strong. In honor of DESK’s second birthday, we collected some of our favorite articles and highlights from the last two years.

Since DESK went live, we've published more than 200 articles and launched four article series. We interviewed 21 companies for our How to Get a Job at X series. We talked with designers from 15 different countries for our Design Around the World series. We shared our best advice about freelancing in our Freelance Life series. We wrote about moving to NYC as a designer, and shared everything we know about building a great design portfolio. And a lot in between.

Designing the blog was a surprising challenge, which you can read about right here. But I couldn’t be happier with how it’s worked for me over the last 24 months, and I still love the design with its subtle animations and thoughtful touches (thank you, Lu and Stefan!).

Here are just a few of our top articles, interviews and DESK highlights from the last two years.

1. Design in Nigeria ?? featuring Dá Design Studio

This was our first interview in the Design Around the World series and remains a favorite. Damilola and Seyi’s no-bullshit, eloquent thoughts about design in their country were eye-opening and inspiring. This interview certainly set the bar for the dozens of interviews to follow.

Read interview

2. The Truth About Design Titles

I wrote this one quickly as a lighthearted jab at the self-important titles and terms we toss around in the design industry. Apparently, it struck a chord. The article sort of blew up on Twitter (at least by my standards) and is still one of the top-read pieces on the blog. Glad we can all laugh at ourselves.

Read article

3. How to get a Design Job at Nike

We’ve featured so many fantastic companies in our How to Get a Job at X series, but Nike was a personal win for me. Of course, I love the Nike brand and everything they create, so I was curious what it takes to get a dream design job on their team. Better yet, I heard from a designer who got a job at Nike thanks to this interview. That validates the months of hard work it takes to get even a single interview published in this series, given the busy schedules and layers of corporate approval it often takes. Worth it!

Read interview

4. The Startup That Never Started: Lessons from .Mail

Nearly a decade after attempting and failing to launch my own mail client, I finally wrote about the experience. We often hear that more than 50% of startups fail, but what about the ones that don't get off the ground in the first place? The .Mail story chronicles the slow dissolution of an idea, from the initial excitement and promise, to the struggle and panic, to the disappointing and painful end. It felt good to finally share this story and realize all the lessons I learned from it.

Read article

5. The Only Way to Do An Internship

Got a bit of backlash for this one, so it’s worth mentioning as a highlight. In this article I share the best advice I know for getting the most out of a design internship. Unpaid internships are a big topic of discussion in the design community right now, so mentioning them in this article caused quite a stir. My opinion is that you should never work for free unless it’s on your own terms. But in my personal experience, it pays off to do everything you can to get your foot in the door, then work as hard as you can once you’re in.

Read article

7. The Slow Decay of a Designer

A reflective piece about the disappointing trajectory of a typical design career, and how climbing the corporate ladder can mean losing what we love to do. When the definition of success means ultimately becoming a manager, what are we sacrificing, and are we OK with it?

Read article

8. The Hottest Websites from the Late 90s

This was a fun one. My good friend Rob, founder of FWA, walked us through the best websites from the 90s – back in the good old days of Flash and background music. These were the early days of the internet, when everything was new and revolutionary. Visiting some of these sites still makes my heart beat faster.

Read article

8. Not Knowing Is Power

The Information Age has become the Too Much Information Age, with news and data and updates and notifications coming at us from every direction and device. This article begs the question: Are we meant to know everything?

Read article

9. Obsessed with the Best

Inspired by an episode of Black Mirror, this article looks at our obsession with a five-star existence. Our curated lives feel quite hollow when given the reality: A life of second guessing, of obsessing and ultimately, one of dissatisfaction.

Read article

10. The Imposter Syndrome

This topic has been covered countless times, which only speaks to its relevance. Every creative feels like a fraud at some point in their career, a truth which should help cure the feeling itself. Knowing that everybody feels incompetent makes me feel a lot less incompetent. This article covers other ways I’ve learned to become more confident in myself and my career.

Read article

–

It’s motivating to look back and see all we’ve written in the last two years. I never thought of myself as a writer, but I suppose all the writing I’ve done says otherwise. I’ve been focused on my work lately and even took a long break from my newsletter, but reading through these articles again reminds me why I started writing in the first place. I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog. I could do it without you, but I lost my Myspace password and it would be a lot less rewarding anyway. Here’s to another two years and beyond!

We’ve all come to the point where we’ve had enough. Enough of a specific relationship, job, habit, feeling. The “that’s it” moment, when it feels like something’s gotta change, or you won't be able to go on any longer. So you break the habit you’ve been trying to break. You escape a painful relationship you’ve suffered for too long. You quit your job to pursue a dream.

Unfortunately, it often takes an extreme event to trigger that moment. You get hurt, or your hurt someone else, or you lose something important, and suddenly everything is clear. You know undoubtedly that you need to change, and so you do. But what if it didn’t require something bad to spur something good in our lives? What if we could skip the “last straw” moment entirely and still reach the same positive results?

It’s a question Cesar Kuriyama, creator of the “1 Second Everyday” app, has always pondered. On the NTMY Show podcast, Cesar recalls when his friend’s uncle died of lung cancer. It was what finally made his friend decide to stop smoking. He put down his cigarette that day and never picked it up again.

“I’m obsessed with how you get someone to go through that transformation,” says Cesar. “To trigger that without actually hitting rock bottom first.”

The question is tough, because why would we change if we didn’t have a strong reason to? What’s motivating us? Perhaps if it’s not a specific event that triggers a transformation, then the change needs to be internally driven, instead of external.

"You see yourself approaching that line in the sand, and so you turn around."

Some people have strong personal standards. They know who they are, who they want to be and what they deserve. Others have less clearly defined boundaries. Without that internal guide, it’s easier to become complacent or resigned to a situation or habit. You draw your line in the sand only after you’ve already crossed it.

If you already know who you are and have clearly defined what you want for your life, those moments of change come easier. You see yourself approaching that line in the sand, the line you don’t want to cross, and so you turn around. You change by a calculated decision, rather than in sheer desperation.

Create a clear line of sight and you’ll always have a goal to measure against. That goal will propel you forward. It will keep pushing you, changing you, so you don’t find yourself stuck in a place you don’t want to be.

Years ago, I wrote down my Big List, which includes everything I want to do or learn or experience in my lifetime. I carry it with me everywhere and check it regularly. Is what I’m doing right now supporting any of the items on the list? If yes, keep going. If not, change something immediately. I update and cross items off the list regularly. Sometimes I remove items entirely, if I’m no longer interested in them. My Big List keeps me on track and reminds me who I want to be. It helps me change before I’ve gone too far down the wrong path. It helps me avoid the "that's enough" moment.

But still sometimes I'll pass my line in the sand before turning around, as so many of us do.

Perhaps this is who we are as humans. As children, we touch the hot stove and burn our fingers — even after our parents warn us a hundred times not to do it. We touch it anyway because we need to experience the pain to learn; watching or believing someone else isn't always enough.

As wasteful as it sounds, maybe sometimes we need to hit rock bottom first only to grow.

Have a fantastic week,
Tobias

8:00 AM - My phone buzzes on my nightstand. Dozens of notifications scream for my immediate attention. Good morning, world!

8:01 AM - Oh shit, it’s Rachel’s birthday. Good thing I’ve already drafted a poetic paragraph about our friendship and Facebook automatically created a photo collage of all our good times together. I quickly post it so she knows how much I care. Facebook encourages me to wish 20 other people a happy birthday so I do, sending smileys and well wishes to faces I vaguely recognize.

8:03 AM - I see Tom posted a cat video on Rachel’s wall (how very 2015) which reminds me I haven’t RSVP’d for his housewarming party on Friday. Damn it! He already asked me twice about, not directly of course, but with a “poke”. I scan the events invite list and select “maybe.”

8:04 AM - Cooool, looks like Rachel did a birthday dinner last night and I wasn’t invited. I like the post to make a point. Sam posted a picture from his rescue dog’s Instagram account so I put three heart-eye emojis underneath (she doesn’t get many likes despite dozens of #dog hashtags, so I try to help where I can). Guess it’d be weird if I don’t like the pic of his newborn baby so I do that too. Double tap after double tap I catch up to where I left off last night.

8:07 AM - I can’t avoid emails any longer. I scroll through them quickly, something about the quarterly planning meeting and rotten risotto in the office fridge. There are invites to this meeting and that status call, subject lines like “just checking in” and “thoughts?” and “let me know ASAP.” Tom texts asking why I responded “maybe” to his party invite so I quickly change it to “yes”. I may be lying down, but my blood pressure is up.

8:10 AM: An email excitedly announces that 10 LinkedIn connections have new jobs! Looks like James finally left his agency gig for that shady healthcare startup. LinkedIn says I should send my congratulations and “endorse” them for skills. I tap the corresponding buttons bc who knows when I’ll need them to return the favor. There’s a group email about the Q2 report due EOD today and Lynn has already replied-all three times. Maybe that healthcare startup is still hiring...

8:14 AM - It’s barely morning and Meg from HR is sending messages to the “Happy Hour!” Slack group asking who’s in for drinks after work. My manager said I need to improve my team player skills, so I should probably attend. Sigh.

8:18 AM - Now another Slack message about who’s doing what for the Q3 planning meeting. Tom replies with a GIF from “The Office” (this is 2017, Tom) and I add a “laughing so hard I’m crying” emoji reaction. Just doing my part for the company culture we all value so much.

8:20 AM - Just got six snaps from Tim, who was obviously at Rachel’s birthday dinner last night. I tap through dozens of snaps and reply to each one with a selfie. The dog-face filter masks my anxious expression.

8:25 AM - Another email, this time from the IT team asking me to answer 48 questions about the company’s new infrastructure by end of today, on top of ten 360 peer interviews due at the end of the week. HR wants feedback on last month’s company retreat and team building exercises, and the survey doesn’t allow me to respond “awkward” to all questions. I’ll probably answer my 360 reviews tonight instead of going to happy hour.

I’m exhausted.

___

The piece above isn’t exactly how it happened. But it’s inspired by real events and based on personal experiences. I’m sure you can find yourself in this story to a certain degree as well.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. About how technology and the systems we design force us into completely unnatural social behavior. Most of these things didn’t exist 30 years ago because we either didn’t care, or because we simply couldn’t keep track of it anyway.

But today, we need to be reminded of everyone’s birthday. Everyone’s job anniversary, everyone’s friendship anniversary and even the most trivial things. Most of these social interactions are completely unnatural. I would even go as far and say that most of these forced social interactions are completely artificial, empty and are contributing nothing but anxiety on both ends.

As humans we used to live in tribes with a limited number of people around us. And you might have heard about the Dunbar’s number which suggests the limit of how we, humans, are able to maintain stable social relationships with other people. The number averages around 150, which is how many people we can have a stable and good relationship with (meaning, we know the person and how she or he relates to everyone else in the group. Of course this number is a bit lower or higher for some people).

But looking at our current social networks, apps and especially work environments, this number is well beyond 150. Generally there’s nothing wrong with it because you can still maintain your close relationships with this core group of roughly 150 people, and everyone else is just a passive part in your life.

However, the issue here is that most of these social networks, apps or even workplace systems treat every person in your extended network as equally important and therefore demanding your attention and social maintenance. The expectations are high and these systems essentially encourage or force you to maintain a completely unnatural amount of social relationships, even more so when it comes to the depth & detail of which you're required to maintain them.

My point is, maybe we don’t want or need to celebrate that yearly random Facebook friends anniversary with virtual balloons. But having it right in front of us makes us feel guilty so there is this subtle pressure to acknowledge it with a click on a button. After all, feelings not expressed through a virtual reaction don’t exist right?

And maybe we don't want to participate in every team bonding/happy hour event at work without losing any "team player" points in our quarterly 360 review.

I don’t think I want to go somewhere specific with today’s article. Just talk about it, give you a little nudge to think about it and draw a conclusion for yourself. And don't get me wrong, I don’t see technology as the evil here.

The evil we’re left with is a feeling of never being a good enough and constantly running behind. We’re left with a depressed generation suffering from a lack of self worth and low self-esteem, tangled up in an endless search for self-assurance while making our personal happiness dependent on external forces & systems we can’t really control.

But with this, I leave the thought with you (: As always, in case you're on Twitter @vanschneider I'd be curious to hear your opinion.

Have a wonderful week,
Tobias

// HEADER IMAGE BY: Xavier Sotomayor

I honestly would have never imagined that I will ever get here and write this article to you. Today is a special day as it is the 100th Edition of my weekly email I started almost two years ago.

Today, 100 weeks ago I decided to challenge myself and write a weekly email to you every Sunday night (well, sometimes a few days later I admit that).

When I sent out the first weekly email I was anxious but excited. I think on the first day around 30 people signed up, close friends and family mostly. I didn’t have much expectations but I wanted to do this for myself first and foremost. After all, writing for me is an extension of thinking and sorting my thoughts.

Now, 100 weeks later more than 30.000 people signed up and I’m still writing every week. I have to admit, there have been weeks I struggled to sit down and write and on others I couldn’t decide what to write because there was just too much to say.

There are tons of things I learned from writing these articles. Here are some of my favorite learnings:

Lesson Nr.1

I completely underestimated the work to promise a fresh new article every week. It would probably be easier for me to do some reporting on current events or news, or just share some links or write a diary style article (which I sometimes ended up doing). But sitting down for a new unique article every time did stress me out at times. To write consistently every week needs some serious planning especially if it's not what you do for a living and there are other things I need to work on.

PS: For some reason I started this blog on the side as well to write even more.

Lesson Nr.2

Un-Subscribes don’t matter as much as them seem. I noticed that my own expectations to this weekly email became higher and it kind of took the fun away from it. I remember the moment a couple thousand readers already subscribed to this email list and I closely monitored everyone who unsubscribed.

I have to admit it was dragging me down and I felt like I couldn’t make everyone happy at the same time. But even this was a learning phase I had to go through. In the last year I never looked at my unsubscribes again and started to even encourage people to unsubscribe. Because honestly, why force someone to stay on an email list? You either enjoy reading or you don’t. I even started removing inactive subscribers myself every other week. (for example, if someone hasn’t opened my last 10 emails I will remove the email from the list)

The only metric I look at is the open rate, how many people actually open my weekly emails, read them and click on links or engage in any other way. This usually tells me if people enjoyed it or not. I'm definitely invested in keeping a healthy email list, but I'm not obsessed with monitoring who unsubscribes after a certain email was sent.

Lesson Nr.3

The boredom comes fast. After writing this weekly email for a fair amount of time now I also noticed how easily I get bored with one specific format. You might have noticed I tried to mix it up a few times, rotating between unique and specific articles, diary style emails or even including some of my readers questions and answering them here. I don’t think I have fully figured it out yet, but one thing I know for sure is that I want to keep writing and keeping it real, authentic (gosh I dislike this word) and fun!

I want to take this opportunity to THANK YOU for your support and simply the fact that you keep reading every week. There is nothing more beautiful to hear from friends that I made it into their weekly Monday morning routine with this email. A little thing to get you started into a fresh you week.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! The last 100 weeks have been unreal and this little community here is my absolute favorite thing. Thank you for being part of it.

I also have to giggle a bit every time I get an email back that says “This was your best article yet” because it only shows how different each reader interprets each of my emails. For one it might be the worst article yet, an for some it might be the best. But trust me, every week since I’ve started this weekly email it is harder for me to hit the “SEND” button. Even if I try and force myself to keep it casual, I still struggle to hit the send button most of the time.

I’m still reading EVERY SINGLE reply I get back via email, even if I sometimes won’t be able to reply, or it might take me weeks to reply. I appreciate you, your thoughts and your feedback. I'm listening and even if I miss to reply, your voice is heard and does influence future emails or articles.

I promise to keep writing here every week and if I’m overly motivated, I will put it on my blog where I started sharing even more articles. My goal is to keep this email list more private and “rough”. Shiny interviews and articles will go to my blog from now on, more personal and rough thoughts will go on this personal email list.

Oh, and here are some of my personal favorite articles from the past 100 Editions:

• The Game of Truth
• Every Reason to Panic
• Why you should change your mind
• Not knowing is power
• The Worst Case Scenario
• The Inspiration Lie
• Curiosity vs. Judgement
• “Yeah, but I could have done that too”
• Obsessed with the best
• Be Useful
• The Endless Search for Fame
• What excites you?
• The day you became a better designer

Thank you so much for reading once again and your love and support. I wish you all a wonderful new week,

PS: In case you are not on my weekly email yet, you can always subscribe right here. Every Sunday night (or morning, depending on where you are in the world).

Yours truly,
Tobias

I have to admit I haven't posted in a while here, well, only a couple days really. But my excuse is that I’ve been traveling around Japan with little to no Internet. But today, I’d like to take the chance to share with you a couple of the things I've seen over the last 2-3 weeks.

For this article, I’m choosing more of a diary style format. Makes me remember of how blogging really used to be 10 years ago. Just writing, straight from the heart without making it feel like a perfect "piece" or calling it an "article". Just thoughts, from me, to you.

I arrived in Japan a little over two weeks ago and I’m absolutely in love with it. I’m staying in a friend’s apartment in Ebisu which is pretty close to Shibuya, the city center. As you can imagine, coming straight from New York a 13-hour time difference hits you pretty hard. I spent most of my first week running around Tokyo getting familiar with the city and making the most out of my jet lag.

In the 2+ weeks I’ve been here, I can already rank Tokyo at least on the same level as New York on my list of favorite cities in the world, closely followed by Barcelona. To describe Tokyo as briefly as possible, I’d say it’s a clean and organized version of New York. It’s massive, but everything works smoothly.

This is the subway train plan in Tokyo. Pure madness, but also kind of beautiful.

Compared to New York, the subway is clean, fast and on time. You also have reception on the train, underground. Everyone is extremely polite and respectful. In the last two weeks I haven’t heard one car honk, compared to New York, where you can barely count to 10 before you hear someone honking.

Me exploring the city.

The food is delicious. I haven’t had a single bad meal yet and I’ve had Japanese, Italian, American, French and Israeli. I’m obsessed with Japanese sweets. My goal is to try most of it before I leave the country, and yes, I’m fully aware that I’ll have to postpone my beach body goal, yet again, to next year.

Here are a couple more fun facts and observations from Tokyo:

1. The majority of people I see wear these white medical face masks. I’ve tried to understand why, but so far I’ve heard many reasons. Some people wear them because they’re sick and they don’t want to spread germs any further. Others wear them to avoid getting sick, even though they’re healthy. Pollen and allergies is a big reason. Air pollution is too. Although, according to my research, these masks are pretty useless when it comes to air pollution. Some wear them to obscure their identity, and some wear them because it’s simply a fashion item. Fact is, a lot of people wear them but probably all for different reasons.
   
2. Tokyo, and Japan in general, speaks almost zero English. I did expect that I wouldn’t see people speaking English on the countryside, but I was surprised to learn that people (even young ones) in Tokyo don’t speak English. Or at least, they might not want to. For a massive city like this, it hit me by surprise, but you will get along just fine.
3. Tokyo and the rest of the country still runs on cash. Most restaurants and other shops don’t accept credit cards, which is kinda surprising as most of the country seems very modern to me. On top of it, using cash doesn’t seem to be very compatible with the Japanese obsession with hygiene (nothing worse than touching coins full of germs).
4. More than 80% of all households and pretty much all public bathrooms in Japan have the so-called “super toilets.” They’re essentially a toilet and bidet in one. Gotta appreciate a clean butt.
5. Process, process, process. There is a process and rule for everything. I thought it couldn’t get more strict than German, but Japan is extremely organized and lives on rules. It’s very interesting to observe all the little details. I think for me it's interesting to observe, but if you live here or are born here I can imagine it being quite extreme for some of us who're not used to that much procedures. I mean, I even feel bad in Tokyo for crossing a small street where there is no designated crosswalk. (people just don't do that here). Same goes with crossing a street as a pedestrian when the light is red. In New York you cross anyway, as long as there is no car you're fine. In Tokyo, no one does it. The rules are there to be respected, not to be broken, even if you might think a certain rule doesn't matter that much.

Another thing I’m absolutely obsessed with is the architecture, especially contemporary architecture. There is so much of it. I’ve been hunting down new buildings every day and as you might have noticed, my Instagram is finally active again. I'm planning to put up another article just talking about architecture with some images and a little architecture tour.

Let’s talk about shopping. The city is a dream for those who are into fashion, or anything really. Most places also offer tax free shopping which makes it even more worthwhile.

The best areas to shop in right now are Ebisu, Shibuya, Daikanyama, everything around Jingumae and Kita-Aoyama. The best way I’ve found to shop is to explore based on the “brown” pockets you see on Google maps. Those are usually the nice streets filled with interesting things. I’m thinking about another article that only focuses on good stores for shopping; it would be just too much to list them all here.

Last week I had the opportunity to go sightseeing on the two islands Teshima and Naoshima, both filled with dozens of museums and beautiful art. I will be sure to include the best of both islands in my architecture/art article.

The Teshima Art Museum

After seeing the two islands, we went to a brief trip to Kyoto which was even more beautiful and had a more traditional feel compared to Tokyo. After that, a quick trip to Gifu to check out the Site of Reversible Destiny, a hidden gem far away from the city.

I’ve been traveling with a Japanese friend of mine and have learned a lot about the culture (thank you, Ayaka) while traveling to more countryside destinations and staying at traditional ryokans. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese hotel you could say, but more like an Airbnb with an active host that might even cook for you. I quickly learned how incompatible my body is with traditional Japanese houses. I kept bumping my head and had a hard time sitting on the floor eating on tables that are about 50cm high. I’ll admit that I’m not the most flexible person, so that was a big challenge for me.

Overall I’m in love with Tokyo and can easily imagine living here for a little bit longer. Luckily I still have 10 more days to stay and hope to share with you much more over the course of next week. Watch out for another article soon, diary style again. And of course, the two articles, one about shopping and one about architecture. 

Talk to you soon again,
Tobias

 I've been thinking about this topic a lot the last couple weeks. I've seen it happening with bigger companies, smaller companies or even in politics.

I even recently caught myself saying this exact phrase after someone asked me why we do certain things at my company. I replied with: "Well, we've always done it that way." And in this moment, I felt the stupidity of my answer. I couldn't fully justify what I just said.

Sure, sometimes it can be a legit answer. Tradition isn't anything other than "Because we've always done it that way." There is some kind of peace in consistency, keeping it the same and doing it the way it always has been done. We're creatures of habit, after all.

But I'm beginning to think these seven words are what's wrong with pretty much everything. Just because we've always done it like this doesn't mean it's the best way of doing it. We've become a slave to rituals when we have no idea where they originate from.

You might have heard about the story with the five monkeys. It's a simplified story about a research project G. R. Stephenson performed in the 60's on a group of monkeys.

Disclaimer: The story below is highly simplified. It's been told many times, and chances are high that someone on the internet tried to debunk it. In any regard, I think it's a perfect metaphor.

Here is how the experiment went:

1. Start with a room containing five monkeys. In the room, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. You don't need to wait long and a monkey will go to the stairs and start climbing towards the banana.

2. Now, as soon as the monkey touches the stairs, spray all the monkeys with cold water as punishment. After a while, another monkey gives it a try with the same result – all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water.

3. Next step, turn off the cold water. If, later, another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it even though no water sprays at them.

4. Now, remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be punished.

5. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

6. Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

7. After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkey, all the monkeys that were sprayed with cold water have been replaced.

Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs, but no one really knows why. All the original monkeys who experienced the water-spraying punishment have been replaced.

What we're left with are five monkeys who know that they can't touch the banana, but they don't really know why. Because that's the way it's always been done around here.

__

Now of course, this study is supposed to be a metaphor for humans. We live in times of complex structures, both organizational and political. And in many cases, we justify specific behavior with: "It's always been done that way."

Not many of us question WHY, and even fewer of us try to challenge the status quo. Because all we know is that we're not allowed to go close to the stairs and eat the banana. We don't know why, but we conform to these unspoken rules.

Having learned "the rules" we accept them without witnessing any personal experience that either confirms or denies the existence of them. In the end, we become resistant to change simply by submitting ourselves to unjustifiable rules.

I personally like to remind myself of the monkey story every other week to make sure I know why I'm doing certain things.

It's of course OK to follow protocol if there is a particular reason behind it, but if the reason is simply "Because we've always done it that way," there might be a huge flaw in the system that no one is aware of.

Keep creating & have a wonderful week,
Tobias

Hey friends

I'm Tobias, you probably know me or some of my articles if you've been reading this blog for a while. I wanted to give you a quick status update on how things are going.

My writing has been around for a while now, but this blog is fairly new and I can tell you I LOVE writing for it every single day. It's next to my weekly Sunday email, my main medium to communicate with you and express myself.

It's hard to put this blog into a category, but looking at the last couple of months, most of the writing on here is about design, productivity and self improvement.

My ultimate goal with this blog is to create a platform and archive of articles that talk about design & making things, but from the perspective of a maker, not a writer.

It's one of these things I dislike the most about the majority of design magazines or design blogs out there. Most of them are owned by publishing empires and articles are written by random self-proclaimed "journalists" with zero insight into the design or maker community. They're mostly trash, they're fast food.

This blog should be the opposite. Real people working as real designers or makers who also happen to write articles and share knowledge once in a while. The goal is to share a healthy mix of philosophical articles and articles that are a bit more about the nitty gritty of being a designer or maker. For example articles about great Typeface resources, or how I edit my pictures for Instagram.

Over the past weeks you probably noticed how I'm experimenting with the content on this blog. There are also now multiple contributors sharing different kinds of articles. For example Lu started sharing our monthly portfolio inspiration articles, and Nika and I are planning on publishing a whole new series on being a freelancer in the coming weeks.

And then there is Lizzy, who just published an article on the beauty of wasting your ideas.

With all these articles our aim is to cover a fairly large field of interest, but still targeting you, the individual reader who is probably some sort of designer or creator (even if not, I'm glad you're reading). I believe that being a designer is a lot more than just being interested in colors, typefaces and shapes.

In the end, this blog is meant to motivate you and inspire you. It's meant to lower the entry barrier for people who like to get into design, become better at design or simply just want to create their own products.

I'm constantly working on new improvements for the blog, little code adjustments and little design tweaks. And more recently, adding guest writers I personally collaborate with to give you even more content to enjoy & inspire.

If you like to support this blog, all you have to do is just sharing it with your friends and hopefully it provides some value to them. As of now, this blog will remain advertising free and if this will ever change, you will be the first to know.

Stay awesome,
Tobias

This blog exists for two reasons. One, because I love writing. It helps me process my thoughts, form my own opinions and communicate them better.

Two: I believe that people, including those within the creative community, could stand to help each other out a bit more.

Humans have this idea that if others get ahead it means that we have to fall behind. If a coworker or close friend becomes successful, we become anxious. If we receive important information or learn a valuable skill, we keep it to ourselves so we can get a leg up. We instinctively look out for ourselves and often pursue our own interests at the expense of others. As if there’s a well of good fortune that might run dry before we get to it.

Letting others stand in the spotlight does not mean we sit in the dark. If the people who surround us are happy, we will be happier. When we choose to share knowledge and kindness, we receive greater joy than when we keep good things to ourselves. Jealously and fear, on the other hand, only hold us back. This is no revelation; we all know it from experience.

I do not pretend I am not privileged. I do believe that sharing my knowledge, my skills and my ideas with others can be a small start to pursuing equality, at least within this niche circle of my online friends. When we speak of privilege and tangible resources, where consequences of imbalance are greater and can even mean life or death, the solution may not be so simple. Sharing what I know about design may not save lives or fix injustice, but it might help someone else grow and be better in some small way.

In my writing and in general, I strive to be useful. I live by this rule. Often I am qualified to do little else but offer help. So I try to help, however small the impact may seem. I hope that my musings on life and work and happiness can open a door to conversations we may not typically have in this community. Conversations that lift you up so you can do the same for others, for those inside and outside of your circle.

There is plenty of good in the world to go around.
We just have to share it.

Have a wonderful week,
Tobias

One of the questions I get the most is how I became a designer. To be honest, my story isn't really something you want to follow and it's everything else but romantic. But let me tell you the story as good as I can remember (it's a compressed version).

At 15 I stopped going to school. I was a troublemaker in school and constantly at the edge of repeating the class due to horrible grades.

I think generally there are many reasons for it, but one of them was that I grew up in a rather "poor" family, well financially at least. I'm not taking this as an excuse, but let me give you some more context.

We just moved from Germany to Austria into a tiny village. And besides having little money, this of course made me & my family the perfect outsiders. I mean, just imagine this German family with a strong German accent moving into a tiny village on the Austrian countryside. My nickname was essentially "Nazi" or "Piefke", which is a slightly friendlier version of  calling you a Nazi. Getting insulted & called this way was kind of part of my childhood there, but I eventually got used to it. It also started to get better once I learned the proper Austrian dialect so I could hide the fact that I'm from Germany.

Probably one of the first pictures I took in my life. My mother, my two brothers and my sister. And of course, the house we grew up in in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I figured early on that these kids are just being kids and have no idea what they're actually talking about. So I mostly just ignored them. Yet, I do believe all of this made me become someone who always rebelled against something.

I rebelled against everyone, especially teachers who also loved to make fun of me. Ultimately, this influenced my grades & willingness to be part of any system that I increasingly started to dislike very much.

Another reason might be the fact that my father passed away very early on and I grew up without a father figure who could guide me in the right direction. But honestly, I still try to deny the truth of that. I'd say I was pretty okay with not having a father. I did have the best mother I can imagine. But still, rebellion was deeply ingrained in me, and my single mother very much supported that.

At the age of 15 I didn’t really know what to do. My main interest was skateboarding and being outside. I loved skateboarding because in the skateboard community no one gives a shit where you're from. Everything that counts is that you skate. Skateboarding is the ultimate sport for outsiders. You don't rely on a team and other skateboarders are usually also outsiders who can't deal with arbitrary rules or organized team sports.

Like I mentioned, my single mother was busy raising us four kids. I still don't know how she managed to do that. We struggled to pay for the books we needed for school, so you can imagine going to a more fancy school wasn’t even an option for me. Besides that, it was clear that "school" wasn't where I will stay for long.

But still, a couple friends of mine went to a college highly recommended by my high school teachers, otherwise “I wouldn’t be able to make it in life” they said.

I decided to give it a try. But my grades were so bad I had to do an application test first, which I of course failed at and got declined from entry into the school.

My only alternative was to join a special school made for the so called “trouble maker kids”. The school seemed promising with the hope to find a job after just a year or two — At least that’s what I thought.

After about 4 weeks at this school I just stopped going, it was horrible and I felt like a criminal for just being there. I mean, I thought I was a trouble maker, but this school was a whole different level of teenagers I could not identify with. The teacher told me that if I drop out now, I will never be able to make it and won’t find a job in the future. Staying true (or dumb) to myself, I said fuck that, and dropped out.

At the time I had a high interest in everything technical, I loved taking computers or other devices apart or repairing them. This mainly came from my passion for playing computer games such as Half Life, Counterstrike or Warcraft.

Me, around 2003. Damn, beardless, naked.

So I figured, maybe I can do something with computers? My new goal: Find a job in the IT industry, some sort of apprenticeship maybe? At the time there were only about 2–3 companies in my country who hired apprentices for these kind of positions. I sent an application to each company.

I never heard back from any of them. I mean it makes sense, I had absolutely nothing to show. I was devastated.

At the time, I had to move out of my mothers apartment. She simply couldn't afford us four kids anymore and I was now an annoying 17 year old.

I honestly don't even know how I survived the first couple months, but I think I had about $500 available from savings that helped bridge some time. These $500 mostly came from child support. Because my father died early on, the government in Germany helps single mothers with a little bit of money until the child is 18 years old.

My new apartment room was $250 a month. So I figured I can survive about 2-3 months if I make sure to only eat instant noodles for 99 cent a package. I was also in front of the computer most of the time, so my body didn't really need much. Internet and instant noodles, I was so low maintenance, it was almost funny to watch. But I didn't care, I was playing computer games and hanging in IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels most of the time.

After I did some research, I found out that there is a program led by the government that hires you as a “fake apprentice”. It pays you about $150 a month and basically bridges the time while you’re looking for a real job. It's like a welfare program for young people who never even managed to get a job in the first place.

You have to show up every day eight hours a day and they do weird team exercises with you, help you with writing application letters and stuff like that.

Most people who end up there come from much more troubled backgrounds, kids on drugs or with really serious family issues. I was certainly not one of them, well, unless you count my Internet addiction as a problem. My plan was to get out as soon as possible. If I would stay there, I would probably get into heavy drugs myself.

I finally found an IT company who said they promise to take me on as a real apprentice after a one year unpaid internship (while I still stay on the government program for $150 a month).

I obviously agreed and started working at this company as a "computer scientist" intern. Or let's put it simple: Work as a second level support person fixing blue screens for "old people" (for me at least) who can't use a PC.

Unfortunately that company went bankrupt 10 months later, right before they promised to hire me full time. I quickly found a new internship at another company, but they kicked me out ofter 3 months. I found another one, they also kicked me out after 2 months internship.

I first got into design because of computer games. I designed websites for my own Counterstrike clan or clans of other friends. I loved it!

Then, I found another company, but this time they promised me to take me on as a real apprentice and pay me $350 a month in my first year. Unfortunately they said, it's not a computer scientist apprenticeship and I have to learn software engineering.

That was fine with me, I was just happy to finally find a job.

One and a half years later I was almost at the end of finishing my software engineer apprenticeship. To successfully finish your apprenticeship you have to do one final exam  at some government institution, otherwise it’s not official and not valid. I failed the exam and decided to not repeat it. You had to pay $1000 for the test, and I simply couldn’t afford it. Did I ever mention that I really suck at exams in general?

My old boss told me that if I don’t repeat the test, everything is for nothing and I won’t be able to find a new job.

At the time the company I worked for also threatened to let me go because I was such a horrible engineer, which I can't even disagree with. But because I was already teaching myself on the side how to design (Photoshop & Dreamweaver), I convinced them to give me a chance and find a role in marketing for me. My interest was mostly print & web design so marketing seemed like an obvious fit. I was very thankful that this company gave me this opportunity, for the first time someone treated me like a normal person.

Some of my first professional design work. Here some interface/software design for the healthcare industry.

Fast forward a couple months, I decided to take a huge risk and quit the job anyway. It just didn't really work out, I was unhappy and depressed. But within a very short amount of time and lots of responsibilities I learned a lot at this company. Mostly because they pushed me a lot to learn myself. My boss (who wasn't a designer) would say "Design this marketing folder" and I would just do it. I was the only designer there for a while, so I literally designed everything. The software, the marketing materials and even the door signs in the office.

After I quit, I had very little savings left and needed to apply to welfare for the time being. That looked familiar to me. If you would have asked some of my non-existent friends, they would have told you that I’m crazy for quitting my job and going on welfare. Welfare works fairly well in Austria if you had at least 10 years professional experience, which I didn't have. So for me it wasn't really paying the bills.

Because everyone told me I won’t be able to make it as a designer without proper education, I tried to apply at a university to study design. As you can already guess, I got declined because my work wasn’t good enough and my portfolio was lacking "traditional drawings". I also didn't had a high school degree and I lacked pretty much all requirements.

So I started to apply at some more design agencies for a traditional design job, no one got back to me, which made sense. It was a hard time for me, I essentially had zero education on paper, no portfolio and just quit my job. I was an idiot.

Then I found an educational program provided by the government which would cost me about $2000 but promised to train me as a designer within 10 months. It would also give me a certificate (if I make it) that is validated by the government, exactly what I needed I thought.

I took all my savings, borrowed some money and joined the program. I never spent this much money in my life so far. Everyone around me told me that I NEED to do this for my CV, otherwise I can not prove that I’m a certified designer.

The program lasted 10 months, I barely showed up 3 months which was the minimum required to receive a “Participated” confirmation. When I was there I felt like I was back in school, with arrogant teachers telling me how much I suck and that I will never make it as a designer. I was easily the youngest there as well, most people there were in their 30's. I had a hard time to connect with people. Everyone was just trying to find a standard job, but I really wanted to design some cool stuff. The whole thing was too much like school, too theoretical for me with weird tests I needed to pass every two weeks.

So far everyone always told me what I cant do, but never what I can — I don’t blame anyone, I didn’t know better at the time.

During the 10 months where I was supposed to be at the program I started to work on a lot of side projects to build up a little portfolio. Deep in my gut there was this feeling that I CAN do it, even though everyone else was telling me the opposite. I knew I wasn't a bad designer, I just needed to find the right opportunities.

The moment the program ended, I knew I have no more options available. I was back on fucking square one again. I did some research and found another program offered by the government, but this time it was a program that teaches people about business and marketing while paying them, but with some strings attached.

At that time I was in full survival mode. The requirements for the program was that they will pay you for 10 months $500 each month if you deliver a fully written business plan within the first 3 months, but also commit to attending 70% of the marketing & business classes they provide. The goal: Make you a business owner after one year.

If you don't attend 70% of the classes and don't finish your business plan within 3 months, you will get kicked out the program. That was the deal.

I applied immediately - All I saw was $1500 for three months. Fuck the business plan, fuck the classes. I joined the program, attended roughly 70% of my classes for three months, never wrote a business plan and then got left  the program. But I still cashed in the $500 for each of the first three months. And I can tell you, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't write a business plan, but I had the business in my mind. I knew what I'm going to do.

These $1500 plus some of these classes eventually pushed me to open my own studio. So after all, the program achieved what it was meant for. I opened my own business after 3 months, rather than staying 10 months.

While attending some of these business/marketing classes I also met some other people who planned on opening their business. Two of them became my first clients, because they needed a logo and a website. The first website I did I charged $400 for design, coding and everything. The second project was a logo for $150. The third was a print magazine for $300.

My "Studio" website around 2008-2009 - A few years after I went freelance.

In between I did dozens of projects for free to build my portfolio and just try to "get in". From there the rest is history, all I did was working day and night as hard as I can. It was a slow, painful but steady process. But somehow it didn't feel like that most of the time because I really enjoyed it. It was fun.

I did went into a little bit of bank debt the first few years, but luckily I recovered. The good thing in Europe is, if you have no money, banks won't give you any credits anyway. So the system is set up in a way that you can't really go much below zero.

In the first years, even well before I started my apprenticeship as software engineer, I loved designing the most random things. I was part of many "GFX forums" where I designed banners for peoples signature. I designed Clan websites, icons, Winamp skins and probably re-designed my own website every second week.

Luckily my burn rate was very slow. My apartment/room was $250 a month. I never went out, so the rest of the money I spent was on food. I mostly lived on instant noodles (99cent for 6 portions) or other frozen instant food.

I also remember eating McDonalds for one year straight. (the quality of McDonalds in Austria is surprisingly good by the way, and it's cheap!)

The reason why I wanted to tell you this story is to show you how I became a designer. At least for me, there was no perfect way and my path couldn’t be more weird and unromantic. Don't follow it!

In the end, everything that counted was that I trusted myself. Or let’s say I was too stupid to know what is right or wrong anyway. For me the obstacle became the way and the art of not knowing how to do things “the right way” helped me to think differently.

I'm very thankful for all these programs offered by the government and everyone who did support me. No one owed me anything and I'm very happy that I met people who did trusted me, especially that first company who let me design their marketing material. They kept me alive and especially the last one helped me take the jump and open my own studio. Ironically, opening my own studio was the only path that worked out for me, even though I'd have never thought that this is what I want.

My story shouldn't be a template for anyone. Everyone has a different path, there is no right or wrong way. But I hope this story gives you a little perspective and maybe helps you with some of the decisions you are facing today.

Thank you for reading & keep creating,
Tobias

A couple weeks ago I tweeted something along the lines "I feel like the older I get, the less fucks I give". It was a spontaneous observation of my behavior, especially the last two years.

Shortly after, someone tweeted this image at me.

It really stuck with me and made me think a lot about this topic. When I was younger I always gave tons of fucks about everything. I always wanted to be friends with everyone. I gave lots of fucks about what other people think of me.

I always used to be the clown in the class who entertained and made everyone laugh. I used to be friends with every group in school, even if those groups who didn't like each other. I put an effort into making it that way. I gave a lot of fucks.

When someone didn't like me, it gave me stomach pain and I invested tons of fucks into making sure we find common ground and sort things out. I just couldn't understand when someone didn't like me. (what did I do wrong?)

Over the years in my career, I learned that there are some people who just don't like me, no matter what I say or do. I invested even more fucks to change their mind, bring them over to my side, for no specific reason.

I wasted so many fucks over the years on people I don't even like, and I still don't even know why.

Today I find myself giving way less fucks, because my budget of fucks to give is slowly getting smaller. Probably one of the benefits of getting older.

But the thing is, I like giving a fuck. It makes me who I am and it shows that I care. I'm disappointed in myself because I wasted all these fucks as a teenager and in my early career. All these fucks I could really make use of right now, but instead I don't give a fuck, because I feel like I have so few left.

What I'm trying to say is, I don't want to be that guy who gets older and give less fucks every year. But at the same time, I like the feeling of not giving a fuck, because it conserves my energy and keeps me sane.

There is a positive and a negative side to it, and it has never been more clear to me than today. When I was younger, I didn't think of it this way, but I wish I had because holy shit I would be rich of fucks to give today.

So, my core message to myself & maybe you is: Make sure to manage your bank account of fucks you give. Don't waste them on people you don't even like, or people who're just haters for the sake of being haters. Spend them on people who deserve them & trade them with you.

Have a wonderful week,
Tobias

Hey friends! It's only been a little over a month since this blog launched and so much has already happened.

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This is probably an unusual article for me to write, but in the recent light of political changes and many other reasons I feel inclined to write about this topic.

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Last week in Review

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As you might have read in one of my earlier articles, I dropped out of high school when I was 15 and started working as an apprentice for computer science, which left me with very little traditional education.

Because of that, one of the things I always struggled with was writing. It was hard for me not only in my first language (German) but also in my second language (English) which I never really learned in the few years I visited high school.

In a world where making a typo or grammatical error seems almost on the same level as committing a crime, I felt intimidated even thinking about putting some words on a page. It seemed like I had to follow established rules that everyone else knew, but I did not.

I believe the reason why I became attracted to the creative industry (as a designer) at that time was because “doing it wrong” wasn’t something you got punished for. There was no one who knew better. The rules weren’t yet established, and they hopefully never will be.

"While others are complaining, you just created something out of nothing. You are one step ahead."

When it comes to writing, things are different. Our written language follows strict rules and people love to call you out on it. But these people are really the only obstacle to overcome, nothing else.

I didn’t know how to write, but I still did it. I didn’t know how to design, but I tried it. I was doing it “wrong” for many years (I still am) but I’m doing it — and that’s what counts for me.

Every time someone complains about your writing or any other things you make, you have to understand one thing:

While others are complaining, you just created something out of nothing. You are one step ahead.

For me, the willingness to do it wrong is a gift. There are not many people who have the courage to do it the wrong way, just for the sake of doing it. The moment we understand that “the wrong way” just means “doing it my own way,” we know we’re on the right path.

As Albert Einstein already said: “The only source of knowledge is experience.” So instead of doing nothing, do it wrong.