Four years ago I remember stumbling upon a “Brand RMX” interview featuring Jeff Staple. Believe it or not, I watched it about 90 times. For a fresh out of school designer, this was my TED talk and Jeff Staple was my new hero. In a way, he was a reflection of someone I COULD be. An Asian hip-hop dude who created with Common and Talib Kweli, owned his own agency, designed for Nike, and has possibly done everything else a young HypeBeast was dreaming to do.
What I learned from the video was to seek my individual path and to fight even the smallest battles with my largest drive. It taught me to take pride and find joy in my work. No matter what scale it was, there was always something to learn and eventually it will make something of itself.
“ Little things adding up to the big things. That is probably one of the secrets to any of the success I’ve had. Any deal that gets made. Any of the positive things that happen, it’s all because of 20 little things that added up to that one great thing.”
- Jeff Staple
At the time it resonated so much because we were going through a recession, work was falling through, I was browsing craigslist for Photoshop touch-up jobs and loans were knocking at the door. At your lowest point as a creative, when big things came in VERY little it made the little things microscopic. Trading your passion for things that did not keep the lights on and food on the table was not tasty nor palatable.
Not to blab on with my SOB story, but it was this point in my life, after listening to Jeff that I re-found hope and motivation for design. Refreshed my perspective on all the little battles and fought them until the greater jobs were ready to come back around.
A couple ago days I had the pleasure to meet the man in person at Agenda so I thought I’d share a little back story. :)