Dare to transform fear into permission - Katie Johnson & Ilana Griffo (Goodtype)

Katie and Ilana (GoodType), share their unconventional journey from strangers who connected over art licensing to business partners running a multi-faceted creative education company. Originally founded by Bodhi Robinson as an Instagram account celebrating typography, GoodType evolved into a comprehensive platform when Katie and Ilana took over the reins.

The conversation explores their complementary partnership dynamic, working remotely across the country, and their philosophy of "community over competition." Both founders came from different creative backgrounds - Katie from jazz music and Ilana from interior design - before discovering graphic design and eventually typography. ~

Their business encompasses multiple streams: creative education, art licensing consultation, their own studio work, and community building through their virtual conference. They emphasize the importance of relationships over technical skills, following authentic passion rather than just profit, and approaching business decisions as experiments rather than make-or-break commitments.

Join their 3-day virtual conference - The Kernference - info here 

Key Takeaways

• Community beats competition - When Ilana reached out about the same business idea, Katie chose collaboration over territorial behavior, transforming a potential threat into a life-changing partnership
• Yin and yang partnerships work better than sameness - Successful collaborations thrive on complementary strengths and differences rather than identical approaches and constant agreement
• Relationship skills trump technical abilities - Building genuine connections and listening to people proves more valuable for business success than having the best design portfolio
• Following heart over money reduces stress - While privileged, choosing creative fulfillment over maximum profit leads to better mental health and sustainable business practices
• Permission slips come from community - Seeing peers at similar skill levels sharing their work on social media provided the confidence to start creating and sharing publicly
• Typography intimidation is real but conquerable - The field's intense gatekeepers create barriers for beginners, but finding supportive communities helps overcome the fear of judgment
• Experiments reduce emotional investment - Approaching new initiatives as data-gathering experiments rather than do-or-die ventures allows for healthier risk-taking and learning
• Virtual conferences can fill accessibility gaps - Online events serve people who cannot afford travel costs while creating valuable connections across global communities
• Passive income requires active maintenance - Educational products need ongoing marketing and refinement work, just different from course creation itself
• Art licensing knowledge gaps create opportunities - When information is scarce in profitable a

Daring Creativity. Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

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Transcript

[00:00:00] 

Ilana: the biggest thing is like that common, the other big thing is that common goal, like we are, we have the same vision and we share that with Bodhi as well.  And just keeping that in check. And then the luck I think was like the way we work together we're very yin and yang. It's been kind of crazy to watch it unfold.

Katie: Well, yeah, to expand a little on the yin and yang, I think I used to think compatibility in a partnership would look like sameness and agreeing all the time. And what I've discovered. In trials and errors with other partnerships versus this one is that this one actually works better because we're such a yin and yang with our strengths and weaknesses.

We really fill in the gaps that the other one has and, and like, uh, hold up the other person's, uh, strengths and allow them to step into those. And it's taken time to find out where those things were and to really get to know each other and go through a lot of projects [00:01:00] and, and, uh, you know, a lot of failures too, to, to do that properly, to be able to see kind of where those areas are, where we can, um, lift each other up and help each other out and fill each other in.  Let me begin this episode with a question for you. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

Let me begin this episode of a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?  

Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being.

I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question for you. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

Let me begin this episode of a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?  Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

 Today I'm speaking with Katie and Alana, also known as good type in our free flowing conversation. They shared with me, they shared with me that in our free [00:02:00] flowing conversation, they shared with me their unconventional journey from strangers who connected over art licensing to becoming business partners.

As they both come from different creative backgrounds, they discovered graphic design and eventually typography. This conversation explores their complementary partnership dynamic working remotely across the country and their philosophy of community over competition. They also emphasize the importance of relationships over technical skills, following authentic passion rather than just profit and approaching business.

They emphasized. They emphasized the importance, fuck me. They emphasized the importance of relationships over technical skills, full of an authentic passion rather than just pro, than just for profit, than just profit. Um, they emphasized the importance of relationships over technical skills full of an.

They emphasize the importance of relationships over technical skills, following authentic passion rather than just profit and approaching business decisions as experiments rather than make or break commitments. It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Katie and Alana.

Radim: Katie, Alana, how you doing?

Katie: Great over here.

Ilana: Yeah, we're chugging along.

Radim: Chugging along? It's, it's summer holidays. I'm not sure how relevant that might be to the conversation that will be released later on this year, but we kind of in the elements of like, you know, making things happen and hoping to have uninterrupted conversation.

So

Ilana: Yeah. I feel like summer's always, you think it's gonna be so chill and then it's always nonstop.

Radim: Yeah. Maybe.

Katie: It's fine for me when I don't have kids.

Radim: okay.

Katie: Yeah.

Radim: Well

Ilana: It's a different story for you.

Radim: so one of us has definitely got a chance to have a good conversation. Two of us is, might be like it's 50 50, let's see. 

Ilana: The 

podcast will just be, yeah, the podcast can be Katie and her dog talking to each 

other, and we'll just leave.

Radim: I like it. Well, thanks very much for coming to talk to me today because [00:03:00] as you know, you know, I am currently talking to all sorts of people about topic of daring creativity, daring forever, daring creativity being a topic that is not about jumping out of planes, it's about doing the thing that you wish that you've started and not regret never starting it.

You know, daring forever I think is a sort of summary of we are always creative, we are always trying something, we are always on something, on a mission to, to explore. So what I'd love to know is how did you two form good type? How did this come together? And potentially how is the sort of influences from early, you know, parts of our, parts of your life, um, you know, influencing where you are today.

Katie: Yeah, so I think. The main thing that people don't realize is that we did not start good type. It was actually started by Bodhi Robinson, who lives also here in Austin, Texas, where I live. Um, but Bodhi went on a trip up and down the West Coast, yeah, west coast, and saw a bunch of amazing signage and was documenting it and sharing it in the good type Instagram account in the [00:04:00] heyday of Instagram where you could post things and people would actually see them and respond and oh, I remember those days.

 And she was posting just amazing typography that she was just drooling over on her trip and it caught on and the account grew like wildfire and it turned into just this inspiration account for awesome typography. And so how we fit in to that story. Alana, do you wanna tell that part

Ilana: Yeah,

I guess this, like this,

we actually have to go back even before. Um, we come into this picture because Katie and I already had a business together, and the way that that started was I had seen Katie's work on the good type feed when Bodhi was running it, and I had started following Katie and slid into her dms and basically was like, I love your work, yada yada.

And then she had posted about art licensing, which was how I was making money as an artist. I was full-time freelance at the time, and I think Katie had just [00:05:00] gone freelance. Maybe like a couple years earlier or that year, I don't know. And okay, okay, so like the year before and I had been freelancing for a while, I was doing a lot of licensing and so I slid into Katie's dms and I was like, that's so cool that you're licensing.

Um, you know, she said she was gonna make a class. And I said, that's so cool. I'm hoping to make a class one day. And Katie just had the, um. Lovely idea to say, why don't we try working together on it since we're gonna talk about the same thing. And so we formed a business which shall not be named, no, I'm just kidding.

Uh, we formed a business together to create this course and just had so much fun working on it together that we ended up. You know, forming an LLC and working together in a different capacity. And at that point we reached out to Bodhi and said, Hey, we'd love to bring this education we're doing to your community.

It's how we met. We'd love to share it with people. And it went so well that Bodhi asked us for a call after and said, I love what you're doing. It's what I've envisioned for good type, would you bring your skillset to good type. So it's like a very, uh, roundabout way of getting there. But Katie and I had started working together first.

Katie: and Bodhi had wanted to [00:06:00] just like fully step away from good type at that point 'cause they just like, felt like she wanted to go in a different direction and like pursue more of their personal artistic practice. So, uh, it, we kind of, it all came together in a very kismet type of way. It was kind of awesome.

Radim:  Ex, oh, stop recording. Alana, you there? Yeah, apparently something's happened. She's not there. Well, she'll come back, I'm sure.

Katie: Yeah. It's not 2025 if we don't have a tech error.

Radim: Oh, absolutely. I mean, apparently it's like, apparently everyone from America has at least one tech issue.

Katie: Mm-hmm. Is it just us in America?

Ilana: it was me.

Radim: yeah. Actually, Alana, if, if you could, I mean, I know your microphone might be in a regular position, but you're coming out a bit quieter, so if you could, you have a microphone a bit closer. So it's good to know that Bodhi step away from this.

Not saying this is a good thing because once you start telling me the story that Bodhi went on a trip and I was like, what happened to Bodhi? Oh, good bodie's. Well,

Katie: We don't talk about 

Radim: it's good to know that bodie's safe.

Katie: her No, it was all in, uh, it was all approved. It was all her idea. She brought us in and wanted to, uh, it's, it was like she had this com amazing community of like a million people that she didn't want it to just, uh, die and crumble with her leaving. So yeah, it was cool that she could pass it on to somebody.

 Two of us who like deeply cared about it and who had like good type was really important to us meeting each other. So it all felt very full circle.

Radim: so this is my question next. So the love of type. Now we are gonna rewind it back a bit because personally, and I'm not gonna talk about myself, but too much. But personally, I was once upon a time obsessed with Type. I was like one of those people that just knew every font and then as someone moved on, I appreciate the type, but then I just moved on.

But I knew how I found my way into it. What was your way into typography?  I mean, I guess you guys, are you surrounded where you live? Or way you surrounded as a, as children, grownups, adults by good typography that you've seen it? Or is it something that actually was potentially the way of internet showing you the good type, uh, uh, that existed?

Katie: Yeah, well I was actually very ignorant of type in the beginning, and I had zero plans to be a graphic designer or do anything design related [00:07:00] until like my senior year in high school. That's when I really discovered that it was a thing that I was interested in. Before that I was on the musician track, I was gonna be a singer and musician like my parents. But my big rebellion was to become a graphic designer. Um, but when I decided to go into graphic design, my, on my schedule for college was, uh, typography one. And I knew so little about typography that I was like, that's interesting that we're delving into like map making this early on in like graphic design that seems like an advanced thing, um, if a thing at all.

So I thought that it was topography. Um, so I showed up ready to, uh, map uh, out some maps. I didn't know what was going on, but, so that's how little I knew. And so it was really school and like my peers and everything that had to show me what was up and help me fall in love with it.

Radim: I like the flexibility of a future graphic designers, like I've come on ready to make some topography, like, [00:08:00] have you done it before? No.

Ilana: it's, it's so true. I feel like graphic designers, graphic design is such a nice umbrella for like literally anything. I feel like you could be like, yeah, I'm a map maker, but I got my degree in graphic design. You know, there's just so many ways you can

Katie: I didn't know I was,

I was like, okay, I'm gonna get my compass. I'm gonna get a straight edge. I'm gonna really, really fresh up on this. I don't know.

Radim: Which, it takes you to graphic design Joes. When you are beautifully ignorant, you really should be asking more questions. But you, you get a, you get a creative brief, which is not really creative or brief. Doesn't make any sense. Can you make it? Of course I can. Do you know what you're doing?

Absolutely not. 

Ilana: I think that's one of the things about graphic design is that people, and I, I think I was ignorant to this one too, is like. You're not just making things look pretty, but like you, you need to have the strategy and the marketing. And I think that's usually what separates good from great is that if you're willing to just make it look good, then that's wonderful.

But that's almost production, like, production is making it work and um, making [00:09:00] sure like things are in where they're supposed to be. But the strategy and the messaging is a really, really huge piece of it. And probably not a piece that gets emphasized enough in any training for graphic design. But I think that's where the like true magic happens is when the like messaging and just like conceptual things happen.

Not to be like content is king, but it kind of is. I mean, it's pretty important, but

Radim: I'm gonna,

sorry, I'm gonna throw in a piece of information I've learned on a few days ago, and it was, it was a conversation between a couple of BBC doctors and a behavioral scientist, or I think if she was a behavioral scientist and she was talking about the fact that we are almost pre-programmed by society to say yes, to come across as compliant.

You know, that's a societal thing, whereas if you say no, that makes you sound like you're defiant and you don't wanna seem defiant, Mr. You want to go with the flow and I think what we sort of touching on slowly and like, you know, vaguely is that as designers. Especially from childhood. If you go into this, your first few design jobs or first few design commissions, you're more likely to say [00:10:00] yes, because that makes you look like you're actually the right person for the job or you're gonna do the right job.

Whereas where we really should go just doesn't make any sense. You know, we should really be looking after ourselves. But how did your topography of thinking that you're saying yes to topography, how did that then turn out to be the next step to, to where you are today?

Katie: Well, I was actually a little bit scared of, and when I say a little bit, I guess I should say a lot, a bit, I was a lot a bit scared of typography once I found out what it actually was, because I, in my school, and I've talked to Alana a lot about this, and just a lot of people in general, they find in, in schools or like, I don't know, there's this weird, the people who do know what they're talking about around typography kind of have a tendency to be a little, Hmm, what's the, what's the right word, Alana?

They're, they're, they're scary. They're very intense. They're very passionate. They have very specific opinions, and they're, I, I think a lot of them, [00:11:00] or what I ran into early on was a lot of black and white thinking. And a lot of this is a good typeface. This is a bad typeface. And if you use the bad typeface, you're a bad designer and you don't know enough.

 Um, so it was very scary to include type in my early designs when I had so little background and I just didn't really know anything about the history of design or what I was doing. And so I was terrified that I was gonna put something on the page that then I was gonna show up in class and put it on the wall and people were gonna be like snickering un under their breath and like, I can't believe she used Euro style.

What the heck? Um, and yeah, so I felt a little bit scarred and like afraid to just delve into that. Lettering was just like a step further. I was like, oh my gosh, I can't, I can't even pick the right type faces. How can I become a lettering artist? Or like, how can I delve into lettering? So I steered clear, uh, for a long time, and I only felt comfortable enough to dip my toe back in when I had more confidence as a designer, like [00:12:00] after school.

And when I started seeing a community of people who were in kind of the same level as I was on Instagram. So that was like a huge cue for me to be able to step in with seeing like, okay, there are other people that aren't the king of the type world, but yet they're still posting their stuff on Instagram and like putting themself out there and just figuring it out.

And so it felt like a permission slip for me to be able to do that as well.

Radim: Uh, before I ask Alana about the same thing, I had a conversation with. Jim O'Brien, who started Herx on a creative journey and, and typography. I spoke to Eleni Beato, who's very much at the forefront of typography, and I was trying to, I mean, I used to find typographers intimidating or intense, or shall I say, because it it, as you said, like they, it was a black and it feels like a black and white thinking.

People are lovely, but they just, apparently they care. They care about, you know, what they do, how they do it, what we should be doing, potentially care about how we should be, you know, perceiving typography as society, [00:13:00] but maybe do it a little bit less intense. And I I think, think it's changing. I think, I mean that's, I think that's definitely changed, but it was, I think we all have a collective idea that sometimes you think like, have I got the only impression of this?

But no,

Katie: well, you know what? It's funny that when you actually then go and meet these people that are like killing it and that are actually the people who are, um, most active in the type world and, you know, at the top of their game. Like 80% of them are not so intense about it. So it's like the people that are in the middle kind of protecting their view of what typography should be.

 And then there's people who are like at the top and I think they get to the top because they're like personable and and friendly and they have that relationship piece as well. I mean, there's definitely like protectors of type at the top and people who care and people who are passionate, but they're way less intimidating.

I find when they're like tippy top of the, the career ladder than they are kind of somewhere in the the middle land. It's funny.

Radim: [00:14:00] Maybe it's just a good old insecurity manifesting itself in such way, you know, maybe it's

Katie: You know what, I think that's,

that's the hitting the nail on the head right there.

Ilana: Yeah, for sure.

Radim: I mean, so we've heard that Katie wanted to be a musician and I've got questions about that, but Ana, what was your creative background? Did you grow up with creative parents or what Yeah,

Ilana: I did. my mom was very creative. She had a business where she would go into museums and basically, or like any place doesn't have to be a museum, that's just a significant one. She would find a way for education to meet creativity, and so one of the projects she worked on while I was growing up was.

Taking this museum, um, from a doll museum and turning it into the National Museum of Play. And so their job was to figure out how do we display things. They worked with a graphic designer,  um, and strategists and how do we display things so that kids can learn while they're having fun and while things look kid friendly.

And so that kids are interested in learning. And so she was always like doing projects. I mean, we would come home and like walls would be painted, [00:15:00] furniture would be taken apart, you know, very, very creative. And my dad's an entrepreneur, so I feel like I got a really, really amazing mix of the two. Um, and my sister's a fine artist, so there was definitely a lot of creativity.

And I found myself glued to the show Trading Spaces, which I don't know if you had it, uh, if you've ever seen it, but it was terrible.

Radim: Okay. No, uh, I, I, I, I grew up in a non-speaking, non-English speaking country, so I, I would've potentially seen it at some point in the last 25 years since I lived here. But yeah.

Katie: Clips of it are resurfacing. Again, I keep seeing it pop up.

Ilana: Yes, but I for sure thought that I wanted to be an interior designer because my room was like my space to do whatever I wanted and express myself. I knew I wanted to be like in the creative world in some fashion, and design felt just so much more me. Uh, and I thought it would be interior design, and I just liked that it was like clean and like getting my hands dirty wasn't always the thing.

Like I liked doing pottery and painting, but like not at the level that maybe my sister would've liked it. And so when I went to school, I [00:16:00] knew I was going for fine art. And then pretty much the same as Katie. I took my first type class, I interviewed at both departments and I just fell in love with graphic design.

And I think like every graphic designer, my first project was designing like a CD cover or like an album cover. And I just was like, that's so cool. It's, yeah, it's on the computer. You don't have to get your hands dirty. Like it's, it felt organized in a way that was like something I craved, like that system where, you know, you just had a file and everything within the file could be named.

And it just like had a structure that I craved. I loved everything about it. And so I was like hooked from then on. Um, so yeah, definitely was like in my blood, I think.

Radim: I think joining the dots from your parents to where you are now, you're kind of doing the same thing. You're helping people, you know, through play to learn and you know, whilst they're having fun and, you know, doing the thing that potentially can really enjoy. 

Ilana: Uh, I'll make sure I tell my mom that she'd be so proud.

Radim: she should be Absolutely. And Katie, you wanted to be a musician.

What music was, was, uh, making you [00:17:00] excited?

Katie: Well, I grew up around jazz. My dad was a really big jazz fanatic and still is. And both of my parents are also classically trained, but that wasn't so much my jam, so I was really gravitating towards jazz and I thought I would be a jazz vocalist. Um, yeah, my, my dad played Tempe and drums and, uh, he played with like the Brazil Philharmonic Orchestra and he was bopping around playing with a lot of cool people.

And my mom, um, was an elementary music school teacher, but she had this amazing background and a, a beautiful singer and, uh, sings in church choirs and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, they, they constantly had music playing in my house and it just seeped in. And I still, uh, get that out with writing and singing mostly for myself.

And it, I have a big store of stuff on my computer that I've written, and some of it's out into the world, but most of [00:18:00] it's just for me because I feel like I needed to keep some kind of play precious and not, um, exposed or monetized in a way. And maybe at some point that'll evolve. But for right now, I'm just kind of enjoying creating for me.

And just my husband, he works with me on those as well.

Radim: That's amazing. Um, I was like, you can see my eyes when you say jazz. I was like, oh, right. Okay.

Katie: Yeah. Are you a jazz guy?

Radim: Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm a full spectrum, but anything that sort of comes from jazz, it's, it's, yeah. Uh, it's always the best music. And I, I was listening to an interview with Chet Faker just yesterday, and he was talking like, how he started listening to a lot of jazz and realized that jazz is not just the sort of choice of music you wanna play, it's just the way you express yourself, but actually it feels more in line how your soul wants to, you know, come out rather than, you know, how do I need to form this pop song into the format that potentially TikTok is, might use it.

 Um, um, so we got quite diverse backgrounds, but they come together in a perfect concoction and perfect mixture of, of influences and in, and information. So [00:19:00] you got the Rainin study account from Bodhi, and it was good to know Bodhi safe. Um, um, you set.

Katie: telling. At least

Radim: I mean, yeah. I mean, is this the next sort of, uh, what is the next edition of Serial?

Is the serial, the podcaster back? Where we gonna retrace it back? I'm like, sorry, this is, this is an NPR production about type and, uh, missing person. But, um, so you guys come together and obviously at that point you, before, before this point, you didn't work with anyone on any type sort of businesses together, so you don't live in the same place.

Am I right?

Katie: Correct. We're on opposite sides of the country. Alana's in Rochester, New York, and I'm in Austin, Texas.

Radim: excellent. So working together remotely, having a business together remotely, how does that work? Work?

Katie: That's a great question. Alana, you wanna start and I'll fill in.

Ilana: I think,

Katie: That was a good example right there actually.

Ilana: think it works because we've, uh, worked really hard at it, but I think also we got really lucky. Uh, I don't know, like what else to say besides luck, but I think the stars aligned somehow for us and we are really compatible and we really seem to bring out the best in each other. But that has also come with like tough conversations and, um, our hearts are in the same place, so we, we really want the best for each other.

 And I think actually not being in the same city. [00:20:00] Probably has been to our benefit because we built a relationship based on business first and a common goal, and from there realized.

Katie: required boundaries too.

Ilana: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think because we were business first and common goal, it was like we were working on a collaborative project and then when it ended we were like, that was, that went pretty, pretty well, don't you think?

Maybe we should do it again. And so I think a couple things that we've like taken away are, the first thing is when you're working with a partner, making sure that you are equally invested. And I don't mean just financially 'cause that's a big piece, but also emotionally. Um, and thankfully Katie and I, I mean, I have two kids.

Katie has a dog and two cats, and a wonderful husband. And we've had to like say, these are my personal, this is what's really important to me personally. And we have to respect that about the other person, even though we have very different lives. And so that's, that's first and foremost is always like making sure our humanity is cared for and our self-love is first.

Um, but I think the biggest thing is like that common, the other big thing is that common goal, like we are, we have the same vision and we share that with Bodhi as well. [00:21:00] And just keeping that in check. And then the luck I think was like the way we work together we're very yin and yang. It's been kind of crazy to watch it unfold.

Katie: Well, yeah, to expand a little on the yin and yang, I think I used to think compatibility in a partnership would look like sameness and agreeing all the time. And what I've discovered. In trials and errors with other partnerships versus this one is that this one actually works better because we're such a yin and yang with our strengths and weaknesses.

We really fill in the gaps that the other one has and, and like, uh, hold up the other person's, uh, strengths and allow them to step into those. And it's taken time to find out where those things were and to really get to know each other and go through a lot of projects and, and, uh, you know, a lot of failures too, to, to do that properly, to be able to see kind of where those areas are, where we can, um, lift each other up and help each other out and fill each other [00:22:00] in.

Radim: Such a good thing to hear that is the yin and yang and, and, and more. Because in our naive early stages of our lives, you think I need someone who's like me for relationship, for, for well being in bands or doing, you know, potentially starting businesses. And then you realize you don't need a number on a view.

You don't wanna be looking in the mirror or going all the time, you know, so some, let's say some designers be like, oh, this is my work. I need to clone myself so I can do more of the same thing faster. Then you realize, actually, you know what, being pushed and being challenged and being shown that there's another option.

Once you get that initial, once you get past that initial mindset, it's so liberating because in your case, did you have to initially decide. Or how, I'm sorry. In your, uh, in your case, did you assign, uh, your strengths and weaknesses and did you decide like who, who's gonna do what Or did you delegate your tasks or how was it in your, what I, what I've written down a long distance relationship.

Katie: yeah. That's really what it is.

Ilana: I think they unfolded naturally and we just said them to each other. Uh, so Katie would say like, Hey, you were really good at this. And I would [00:23:00] say, I really hate doing this. And she'd be like, oh, I don't mind doing that. And just that like. Willingness to be honest with each other about things. Uh, but there are things that I now know about myself that I am good at that I wouldn't have known if Katie hadn't pointed them out.

And that also gives me the confidence to do them.

So I

Katie: Yeah, same. I feel like I know myself so much more now after this working relationship than, you know, kind of any other period of my life has exposed that to me. So it's been really, really helpful.

Ilana: should we divorce

Katie: Should we get married? Is that Yeah, sure, sure.

Ilana: like it's working very

Katie: This is, we'll just have them listen to this podcast and that's how they'll find out.

Sorry.

Radim: I am just thinking of, I'm just thinking of my producers, but they make, they make up what you just said. Um, so, um, you totally now snatched my question because you guys bonded over licensing. Is that right?

Ilana: Yeah.

Radim: That's the juicy topic. That's, that's how marriage is that how, how long distance relationships are formed.

Licensing, so who, who started it? Who was first?

Ilana: Well, Katie posted on her stories that she was gonna talk about. She was gonna do a class on art licensing, and I wrote her and said, that's so cool. Like, it's been on my list. I have like some, you know, notes written down about what I'm gonna talk about. I can't wait to like learn from you, you know, [00:24:00] see how our experiences are different.

And Katie, instead of writing back like, screw you, that's my idea. She wrote back and said, wanna do it together

Katie: Well, I should be honest and say that I had that thought, the thought went through my head when I got the dm. I was like, darn it. I thought I had carved out this niche. Nobody was talking about lettering for art licensing. And I thought I'd found this special thing and somebody else is in my dms telling me she has the same idea.

Well, I had, you know, the opportunity to just be like, forget it, and kind of throw in the towel to be mad at her to like look at it as a competitive thing. And I let all those feelings pass through 'cause I'm human. And then I was able to, once I was less emotional, pull back and just be like, Hey, aren't you always talking about community over competition and, uh, aren't you about, you know, a rising boat?

Or a rising tide lifts all sales, that kind of thing. And so this is [00:25:00] probably not the behavior that you want to act out. You probably want to do something more aligned with what you say your values are. So that snapped me out of it. And then I rethought it and realized, you know, we could make something better.

And from two different perspectives of two artists who'd had this foray into licensing. And that would, and we'd have twice the reach. And you know, this could be an actual better situation than the one that I was in. And it turned out, it literally changed my whole life. So, yeah, I think I'm really, really glad that I took some time and rethought it.

Radim: That's excellent. So having an licensing experience, obviously you don't come to it as a sort of fresh topic because you kinda, you have to, am I right to say live it before you can teach it? Right. Obviously you, like you learn, do, and share. So what was your experience? Yeah. So, uh, what is your experience or what was your prior experience with licensing and why did you, I guess you must have realized it's quite a topic that [00:26:00] could be valuable to many.

So what was your experience with licensing and how did you, how did you get to that point that you thought

Ilana: Yeah.

Radim: need to know about it?

Ilana: Well, I think both of us. We both fell into licensing by like a client basically saying, great, we wanna license this. And then we said, absolutely. And then we Googled it and we realized there was very little information. So it was really based on our own experience when we were trying to find the information and it became a huge part of our income stream.

And we realized we were doing so much work to try and figure it out, that there were probably plenty of other artists just like us who were also trying to figure this out. And if they weren't trying to figure it out, they probably didn't even know it existed. And it had been really lucrative for us, and it just seemed so silly that no one else was talking about it, or that we couldn't find people specifically in the lettering world that were talking about it.

Um, and I think we've, I think we have done that. I think we've opened the door for other artists. I mean, we see so many more artists licensing their work now, or at least understanding what a license is. And I think it's [00:27:00] definitely much more spoken about. It's still a weird kind of closed door industry, but I, I do think it's definitely more prevalent and yeah, it, it was really impactful to us and our careers and opened a lot of doors for us, so it seemed only fair to, to spread that wealth with other people.

Radim: Absolutely, and you're right about the information being sparse, especially. Some years ago, because I learned, I learned about usage when I had Myin as an illustrator in advertising. And then you get to hear like, oh, you're gonna pay, you're gonna get paid usage fee. And I'm like, what? No one ever told you that?

You know, am I? And then you realize, oh, this campaign's being renewed. I was like, Hey, I need to pay for this thinky. It's just like, this is, this is fun. You know? And you kind of like, I remember watching this campaign, it was for, for a lotto here in the uk and I had a big poster campaign, like a big key visual, which was going for a year, second year.

And I'm like, that's a lot of money in the usage fees. And I'm literally looking at my watch, like in two day start, it's even gonna come down or I'm gonna get paid again. It's come and it came down.

 But I [00:28:00] remember like, how about I was, I knew to the, to the date that if it was being renewed, it would be renewed by that day.

 But yeah, I mean this, so this is, this is great because you guys still talk about licensing and it's still a core on one of your core messages because we got influx of new people. We always get new people to come into the game that, that need to know this. So it's always gonna be valid and, and, and useful to many.

But you are also sort of putting focus through, through your platforms and through your messaging into actually getting people to and better and actually sort of decipher the, the business of creativity and creativity of business. Uh, then just take it for the face value because. Again, it's so easy to sign up for typography class and be ready to do, you know, a maps.

So when did you realize other, when did you realize that other avenues of, of sort of education and creativity and business should be sort of taught and, and, and, and explained to people?

Katie: I think about the same time or whenever we were going out to start our own art businesses in general and support ourselves, um, I, Alana did have entrepreneurs in her family, but I did not. And I have, um, my dad is my biggest supporter, but he's also, he like very risk averse. And so, um, my kind of, not he, he, he's, um, very much about calculated risks.

Like he wants me to find the things that I love but be really reasonable while I'm trying to achieve [00:29:00] them. It's like a, a parental keeping me safe kind of thing. So my ki my kind of goal, I guess going out on my own. Before I left my, my original nine to five job, I made like a 40 page business plan. And because I wanted to be able to pass it around at our, like, weekly dinner and see my dad be like, okay, she can do this.

She's got this. Because it was really a reflection of my own fears. Um, but yeah, around that whole time, just delving into entrepreneurship, not having known anything about it. And I have this art education, but I don't have a business education. I felt very, very intimidated by that. And um, there, the way that business is usually taught is usually for more, uh, it's not typically geared towards artists or creatives.

Um, so I was finding a lot of it very cold and not aligning with like, how much of art is about following your authentic self. And a lot of the business advice I was seeing was like, um. You know, cut and [00:30:00] dry, follow the money kind of thing. And that just, there was a layer missing. So, yeah, I, I felt that, uh, what's it called?

A dis disparity, that's the word I'm looking for, and knew that I needed to fill it in.

Ilana: Yeah, I think for me, um, I had this idea, it's actually an idea. I pitched to a project ca Katie and I like applied for the same, uh, residency before we met each other. And my idea was to create a workbook for, because I had that like was raised in a house, that entrepreneurship never felt like this thing that was on a pedestal.

It was just like another option. Like it always felt like something that was in my reach because I grew up in a house with entrepreneurs. It, it was never like on this pedestal, it was just one of the options. And so I had this idea to write a workbook and it would be about how to make business more accessible for creatives.

Because when I went freelance, I felt like really equipped to go freelance. Like I felt like I knew what I was doing. I definitely didn't have a [00:31:00] 40 page business plan like Katie, but I felt like I had the tools I needed and that I would figure it out. And I did have a business plan. It was just like five pages and, and jumbled.

But uh, so I had pitched that for a residency and then when I didn't get the residency, I pitched it to publishers and I got a book deal. Um, and it went on to be right, right when I met Katie, I think it was already published, but it was like starting to like pick up traction. Right. Was it published?

Katie: Yeah, you were just like releasing the 

photos, I feel like, and

I, I remember seeing them for the first time  being 

Ilana: Yeah, so it ended up doing really well. It was sold in like, you know, obviously where books are sold, but it was sold in anthropology stores, which was like such, felt like such a big win 'cause it was such a demographic I wanted to tap into. It was like an Amazon bestseller featured in a Forbes, um, article.

And like that was like deep in my course, something that I wanted to do, and Katie just shared that exact same, all the thoughts from it. And when we did the course, the whole same message was [00:32:00] like, at the core of it was helping other people feel more secure in taking creativity. In, in by means of business and merging those two worlds.

And so I think really in everything we've done, that's been like our deep down in our core, what we wanna help people with, whether it's for licensing or bettering their lettering skills or bringing them together and connecting them with people who, uh, they can collaborate with or like suggesting people for jobs or referring people.

It's like always been about helping other people to pursue something that, uh, for Katie didn't feel, like, felt maybe inevitable, but like less risk, risk averse. But for me, like I, think just felt something that I could access something that was available to me and it doesn't seem like it was available to everyone else.

Radim: Katie, you said your dad was? No, he came across risk. Well, sorry, you said your dad was risk advised, but did you see him that way?

Katie: Y Well, he, he makes like, I, I, I kind of amended what I said because he makes calculated risks. I think he just, uh, needs to have the [00:33:00] logic and the plan to back things up. But I mean, he did some really amazing things in his career that were not. Easy steps to make. And he did. He's done some very courageous things.

So, um, yeah, I don't mean to sound like he is ever holding me back, it's just that he instilled in me the importance of having, um, strategy behind the things that I do. Yeah. And, and sometimes my anxiety takes it a little further than perhaps is, um, actually healthy. But I've, I've been really working on toning that back lately.

Ilana: but Katie's strategy is like one of the things that you're so good at. Like we, we were talking about our roles earlier and like my role is very rarely strategy. My role is like get out there and get it started and Katie will be like, just like a friendly reminder. Where are we going? She has to pull up that all that she learned in her topography class.

Like the map, the PU is pointing the opposite direction

Katie: Yep.

But I struggle with [00:34:00] getting it started because I'm too busy writing my 40 page business plan. So that's how we each other out.

Ilana: exactly.

Radim: The reason why I ask how you saw him, because most people that we know and admire that have done some amazing things, have openly said, I'm risk adverse person. And you'd be like, you've seen as one of the most bravest people because you've accomplished X, Y, Z. You've done all of these things, you've done things that you've been to places where people haven't been yet.

You don't see yourself as a trailblazer. You don't see yourself as a pioneer. You don't see yourself as, as one of the first people doing this. And whenever I hear those words, I was like. How, what effect did it have on you? And actually it turned out to be a very much a positive because if you've got someone who is rooted in the logic, even though you know you've got the jazz world and the logic, you wouldn't really put those two together.

But, you know, with, with jazz, you have to have a, yeah, as they say in jazz, every mistake is an opportunity, but sounds like your dad was always, um, on, on know, uh, within a key and a note. Um, so you are juggling, um, quite a few different things because obviously you inspire people through your Instagram.

You've got your community, you do your education stuff, and you've got your studio. You got, you talk about quite a lot about licensing and I what I want to know how much of focus and time and split sort of, and percentages you've got actually for commission work and how much do you actually pre-make work for licensing, if you know, if that's still the case.

Ilana: Yeah, that's a good question. I think it comes down to the season. Uh, so, you know, we have, like you said, we're juggling a lot of things. I think we all are as creatives, I think we're always jumping around and that's probably what makes us candidates for self-employment. But, uh, in this current season, you know, right now we're working on our book that comes out in the spring.

We're working on our conference, which is our virtual conference. Um, and we're. Not making as [00:35:00] much art as we did two months ago where we were pretty much solely focused on adding pieces to our portfolio. So it really comes in waves and I think we've got a pretty good mix now of like 20% of this, 20% of that, but it just comes in like every week looks a little bit different and I, I think that's, that keeps things chugging along.

Katie: Yeah. I think the biggest thing to explaining here too is that working with. Growing the education side of our business and all of those offerings, we had less and less time to do our own art. And I got to a place of a bit of burnout from all of that, just not attending to some of my own creative needs as much.

And that came at the end ish of last year. And so we, uh, we only opened, quote unquote, our good type studio at the very beginning of this year and have started to try and refocus so that we can intentionally make space and [00:36:00] time to make the art. Um, this comes though knowing that some of these choices aren't.

Uh, based in that kind of logic I was talking about earlier, where businesses are usually taught to follow the money. Um, some of these choices that we want to make, that's going more towards the art. Sometimes that's at the expense of other, doing other things with our time, taking on sponsorships, taking on, you know, creating more courses, things like that, that could technically create, uh, a larger financial impact.

So yeah, that's something that we're figuring out how our business looks with this new model, but with our mental health and our happiness at the center,

Ilana: Mm-hmm.

Katie: I think that's, uh, the, the older I get, the less I'm willing to sprint towards a hill that I know when I get to the top of, I'm just gonna look around and be like, well, now what?

Radim: My question would be, and sorry, let me agree with this, what you said quite nicely, it was like. Not necessarily following the money is a more liberating [00:37:00] choice. It's not what, it's not what many people want to hear, but when you don't follow the money, you find yourself being a lot less stressed because you are actually focusing on what really is what inside you.

How do you wanna express your soul? What you wanna do with what, what you wanna do with your creativity or what's, how much of dopamine you want to get back and how much of sort of return on that sort of emotional investment you're gonna get. Because I think we live in a sign of times where we, we live in times where it's a, it's a sign of times where you get designers posting about their wins.

Like there were bankers or some sort of entrepreneurs and saying how much they're billing and what they're doing. And I'm thinking. It's great you're making money, but have you thought about doing nice work or decent work or like something that would actually make the world a bit better because it's great that you're earning, but it looks a bit shit.

You know, like, I mean, you can do both things. You can, you know, you can actually do good work and earn well, I mean, you know, this is each I wrote, but personally learning from the fact that when you follow your heart, you know, when you follow your soul, money will follow in certain way. Like, I mean, you always do that, but, um, it's, it's a, it's in my long sort of segue to the fact that I want to know in the world that still profess you to be singular and position yourself as a type a typographer or type designer or illustrator or this, you've got four, five different things that you do.

How do people find you that you're available for type? Do you go out to them? Do you, do you, do you get work for licensing contacts? Like how do you do this because. You know, you can make it too busy for yourself, but you can make it rewarding for yourself or too busy for the others to understand it.

Ilana: Yeah, I think something else to say is just that we, we, it, it's a huge privilege to be able to say, we're not gonna just follow the money, we're gonna follow our hearts. And we've worked really hard not to say that like, you work hard and it'll happen, but like, we have worked hard. And [00:38:00] really focused on setting up our education to be, um, more passive.

And I think that there's like a real big misconception with passive income,  uh, because it's like we're never not working on it, but we're just not building a course. We're marketing our course and that's just like a different way to, that's a different type of work. But we do a lot of outreach and because there's two of us, we can focus on different things.

So if we have a client deadline, um, one of us might work on that while the other one is working on marketing. And one of us might work on outreach while the other one works on something else. And so that's worked in our paper. But we also have had I think, what, 20 years of. Uh, freelancing between the two of us before we started working together.

So we have a lot of contacts and, uh, past clients that we can tap into as well. And I think there's like something about freelancers where when, when you're like destined to work for yourself, I think you're just like, you're gonna figure it out. Like, I don't know if it's that we're like, willing to do things to make it work or, um, we're, we're gonna make it happen.

 And so I think a lot of it is like throwing [00:39:00] spaghetti at the wall and then when something sticks, we go in that direction for a little bit. I dunno, Katie, did I forget anything?

Katie: I think Alana's really, really great at the relationship piece, which is arguably the most important piece, uh, of finding work. Everything is based on relationships and, oh, I know this cousin of this, this lady that I met at the 

Ilana: I, I  I literally,

I literally just did that.

Katie: Is the actual queen of that.

And she, um, she, and, and you do that just by being a good fun person, like a good kind hearted person who like listens to other people and engages. And I think, um, that's, those are skills that aren't emphasized very much in typical graphic design education. Um, but they have served us the best out of any skills.

Like it's more important to have that than to have the best design skills in the world. Like if I had to pick between which one of those I wanted to crank to a hundred, I would crank the relationship skills for [00:40:00] sure.

Radim: The listening. The listening itself is a superpower, absolute superpower. What you describe, and I know the 20 is it combined 20 years or 20 years each.

Ilana: Probably combine.

Radim: Combine. Okay, so the combine 20 years of, of experience and relationships. This is, this is your momentum. This is your, this is your plane taking of going through the bumpy bit and, and, um, at the cruising altitude going, we, we've worked on this.

We like, we actually got somewhere where we can enjoy potentially doing other things and art, you know, interesting things to the mix. And it's some of those relationships were, were created and, and a slightly noisier times where you, you've got time to, you know, yeah, okay. Instagram's been around for 10 years, you know, like we've been doing sort of things on the side and promoting ourselves, but it feels like the relationship were slightly more, I want to use the word easier, but they were like more human, more or less

Ilana: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. Instagram is so surface level. I feel like you think you know someone, and I'm just realizing that this, there's probably a perception that Katie and I are like new at this. And because we're new to good type, I mean good type was around well before us, and you know, we're, we're not coming to it and just like overnight a success or anything like [00:41:00] that.

Um, but we're not new at this. We, we've been in this field for a long time, um, and. I think there's, like, there's misconceptions when you, uh, judge someone by their internet presence for sure. But yeah, we, we've been at this for a while, but I think, like Katie said, like we're not afraid to go out there and, and ask for something.

But I think because we're also leading with heart and community and enjoying what we do, we're not trying to be the biggest agency. We're not trying to make a billion dollars overnight. We're not trying to get, uh, the biggest Instagram following. We're we're just trying to like 

Katie: happy. 

Ilana: just wanna be happy.

Katie: I just wanna feel creatively fulfilled

Ilana: Yeah.

Katie: my family.

Ilana: Like we didn't go into a field where we're like, wow, we're gonna be loaded. Like we're gonna make the most money of anyone. Like we just want to make a great, a good living doing something that we love and it's not a trade off, one versus the other. Um, yeah, we would probably offer different services if that's what we were looking for.

Radim: but what, what are you approaching it with is questions. It's constant [00:42:00] questions like, how could this work better? How can we better someone else's careers? How can we better the industry? How can we do this because. I, I, I, I, I may have repeated this recently on my podcast, maybe more than once, but the quote is, the sale happens when you're listening.

Like when you listen to someone, when they tell you everything about this and you ask them more and more questions, they were more or less bring themselves to asking for a solution. Rather than going, Hey, I'm a graphic designer. What can I do for you? They're like, what do you actually do about when you listen to someone all the time?

And sometimes you can apply this, this method, which is called questions only. So you don't say anything about yourself, and you just ask questions and ask questions. I do it a lot with Uber drivers, and my kids hate it.

Ilana: Dad, you're embarrassing us. 

Radim: does, 

Ilana: sure

Radim: does, why does Daddy talk to everyone all the time? Uh, because dad was once upon a time, quite shy. I was like, Ooh, the questions are for grownups. You know, whatever. I mean, it's a different era, right? We, we've, we've, we've changed, but. I love the fact that you get so much more trust and value from people just because you care about, you know, who they are, what they want, you know?

And I think that's, that's, that's the kind of superpower because in, in creativity [00:43:00] itself, when you think about creative blocks, those just unguarded thoughts that are conflicted, unguarded thoughts. Whereas if you had to question just like you're gonna walk out of your front door, you're gonna, if I'm gonna do one step, I'm gonna be okay.

If I do another one, I'm gonna be okay. And you kind of, you plan it, you think about it like, how to do this and questioning the process is such a beautiful thing because it's, it's, it removes you from the core of the problem and puts you on the outside of it. So with your creative education and with your processes, how much of this sort of approach to curiosity do you sometimes feel like you need to almost instill into your students or into your community group?

Like.

Katie: Well, this year we've dubbed the year of experiments for ourself. Um, and that's exactly the mindset that we're kind of trying to take on and then share with other people. So we've been trying different experiments where we are not so invested in the outcome [00:44:00] and so like, tied into it and emotionally invested.

It's more about, um, approaching it from like a scientific way. So, you know, one of the things that we're facing is getting really fed up with social media and, you know, everybody's been feeling so. Unseen and buried and um, just like grossed out by the vibes. I think that have, uh, come about with social media.

So like we just did, um, a 30 day experiment where we tried LinkedIn and we just posted on there for 30 days and we were looking at the analytics and like what worked and what didn't. And one of my posts went semi viral and how did that happen and what kind of inquiries did we get out of it? And then we've been sharing it in like a lab report kind of style.

 Um, we just, uh, our podcast episode about that one just came out and we, we literally put, uh, release like a little lab report on Instagram in a carousel that had like little graphs and stuff just to kind of point [00:45:00] to. Hey, this isn't about, um, showing you the next hot thing or like giving you five steps to, uh, a hundred K.

It's about, uh, approaching things with curiosity and seeing what happens and reporting back. And, So I think that that is something that we're actively trying to, you know, get in our own heads and then instill in students and viewers as well, because I think it's just a really, he like much healthier way to go through life, uh, as an observer as, I mean, you're gonna have emotions and you're gonna have things cycle through your head.

Um, kind of like my initial responses to Alana's DM where I was insecure and upset and then I took time and viewed the facts and saw that, you know, if I actually put this together with the, the things that I have at my disposal, I can actually make this a better scenario for both of us.

Radim: What's interesting about your findings, and it just goes back to very much the thing we talked about a second ago. You said LinkedIn is for planting seeds and nurturing relationships. It just goes back to the very core of what it is. Like you, not you, you, you might not find too many people to fall in love with what you do, but it's more about a conversation starters.

It's, it's definitely there. Hoping that someone like-minded with a smaller quantity rather than having gazillions of likes go in, you know, I mean, you guys saying that you've had, let me find the right number. 138,000. 346 members reached, but the number of new followers is less than 1%. It's like, it's actually, you know, potentially those are the beginnings of, of the, of the right conversations and new relationships because the number obsessed society, generation, whatever you wanna call it, time is like, how many needs can you get?

How many of this can you get? How many of this? And you get that because I believe if I wanna write, if I wanna work with someone, I just send them a love letter. I literally, I just literally focus on one brand, one person or someone who runs this and I say, I love what you're doing. I wanna work with you.

This is the reason why. This is what I can do for you. And it saves you press in, you know, go on your merging campaign going, Hey team. It's like, and, and, and it al always goes, I think before we get in here. It's like, let's you say your year of experiments. It's like it goes back when you, you can try lots of different things, but the fundamentals might not never change.

Katie: yeah. Totally.

Radim: Sorry, there was no question. Um, so year of experiments, so view, experiment, lemme change. So with your year of experiments, I get to see this as, as, as alignment with daring creativity because you're doing things you might potentially would've regretted not [00:46:00] doing. What else have you tried or what else is on your radar of, of things that you might, uh, do that you wish, um, to start?

Katie: Well, I think starting our studio is definitely one of them writing a book. We are currently in the experiment of, and I'm trying to, yeah, I have the emotional ups and downs of the feelings during it, but I am trying to also look at the, just the experience because I think we're going to try and repeat, like, like, do it again at like, we have lots of book ideas.

So now that you know, we're paying attention to the process so that we can refine and make it better for ourselves in the future. What are some experiments that you wanna do? We have specific clients that we want to, um, do outreach to and more outreach experiments in general. But what are some others, Alana.

Ilana: Yeah, I mean, I have been doing my own experiment on TikTok, uh, which is like iffy to do in the US because we don't really know. We just don't really know. Um. So I've been doing that and just seeing [00:47:00] like, how do I feel? 'cause I have a very different like, emotional tie to TikTok and I find that I really enjoy creating things for that platform as opposed to, um, Instagram.

And we've also talked about doing it on Pinterest as well because Katie's had a lot of people reach out to her from Pinterest. So we're like, oh, you know,  you know, what, what way of connecting with clients and building relationships feels the best for us, I think, I think is like kind of our ongoing experiment.

Um.

Katie: We had some, uh, I have like a bunch of small ones that were on my initial list that it's just felt like such a. A hectic year, but I just need to make some time to do these things. Like what if I did like Pomodoro sprints for a whole week and just did nothing but that? Like would I hate my life or would I be more productive?

Um, and it might very well be, I might hate my life. Well, lesson learned. Um, and you know, little things like that. Like what if I  uh, just set aside a week to just make art for no one but myself, you know, those types of smaller questions that can lead to a bit more playful kind of findings. I [00:48:00] think I wanna sprinkle more throughout our workflow.

Ilana: we've also,

decided we wanna see what working with other people is like, like not, this is a, um, this is just like a two person. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I wanna make it clear it's not, but together we'd like to, we have a, this really great photography duo that we knew, that we know, and we were like, what would it be like if we did a passion project with them, with like no client, with no, like, just for fun.

Like, what would that look like? How fun would that be? And I think, um, yeah, we've, we've just got some things that we wanna try. I mean, like personally too, like I was like, what if I just like pick up crocheting again? Like what would I make? And I set like, um, a reading goal for myself for the year. I mean, I love to read, so it's not so hard, but.

Just like little things like that where we just are leading with more curiosity and questions than we are. Like, my goal for the year is to accomplish this and if I don't accomplish it, I'm a failure. Um, and I think just that mindset has helped us a lot to try things and be okay with whatever [00:49:00] findings we have in making sure we look at that as data instead of, defining success.

Radim: Excellent, Stan. Well, Katie, I can tell you that I've just been rereading 4,000 weeks by Oliver Berkman, and he was a productivity geek, and he said basically doing the Pomodoro technique is pretty much a, a version of insanity. So I think, see, 

Ilana: Oh, 

Radim: see if you

Ilana: yikes.

Radim: if you can replicate it, but,

Katie: You know, I, I could see that I've, I'm such a person who's, doesn't seem like I would fit into Pomodoros at all, and I've only tried it one time and I actually got a lot done. But I think if I did it for a whole week, I would rip maybe all of my hair out. But, you know, we could try a couple days to see how she goes.

Radim: It is the continuous repetition of it. I think it's just like doing it once for 25 minutes or over, Yeah,

not a problem. But actually

Katie: yeah.

Radim: stick to it.

I think it's, it's,

Katie: Well that's the experiment. At what point do I start to pull the hairs out?

Ilana: It is interesting too because like I've always thought it was interesting and it, it really depends on like your wiring. Like if you [00:50:00] suffer from like getting too tight and tunnel vision and then you forget about the other things that need to happen and maybe it could be worth trying, but also some things do require just like a lot of your attention

Katie: Yeah, I'm, I'm

the apt to just stare at my computer in the same thing for the entire day and forget to eat and sleep and pee.

Ilana: Yeah. I mean that can be okay. Yeah.

Katie: not all the time.

Ilana: maybe it's a longer pomodoro.

Radim: yeah.

Katie: Yeah. We'll, we'll report back once I've experimented with it.

Radim: Well, I'm looking forward to reading a report on the Pomodoro on your, on your website. But before I let you go, tell me more about your conference because it's, I mean, I'm not sure I can get this episode before it goes out. So tell me more about a conference and why'd you do it? Why you started, I'm sure.

No, that would be generalizing how much work goes into creating something like Con Conference and yeah. Would you, what are the benefits? Would you get out of it and what would you potentially warn people against If something wanted to start something similar?

Ilana: Yeah. Katie, you take this one. 'cause I think it was your idea from the get go.

Katie: Yeah, I think I was reading, um, the, how I built this book. I, I think that, yeah, I think that's what was happening. And they were just talking about like, um, the importance of bringing your community together in one space and how that can really impact, um. Your, the [00:51:00] future of your community and your brand and everything.

And I was like, absolutely. This feels like such a natural fit, um, to kind of bring everybody together. And we picked virtually at first because, um, post COVID world, first of all, and like keeping, uh, expenses down. And it's just kind of work like we did look into, well, I guess I should backtrack and say it's a conference.

It's a currently a virtual conference that's usually about three days. And it just brings the global type community design nerds, uh, artists, anyone interested in art, entrepreneurship of any kind can really benefit from coming to this summit. And we just gather a lot of amazing speakers and teachers and people in the community who are out doing the things that we really admire and who are, um, teaching really important concepts.

And, um, we've really had a vast kind of variety of speakers come in and teach from their various [00:52:00] standpoints. We really want it to be something from a lot of different perspectives. So there's something that will resonate with everyone and so we're not just hearing the same thing over and over. And so it's not just also.

Basically portfolio pitches over and over because, you know, conferences can be that sometimes. Um, and that's not what this is. And there's a lot of, we really put stock in having actionable, uh, things that people know what to do next. Like, I learned this information, so what, what am I gonna do with it?

Because I think the kind of general feeling that we have after conferences is overload, overly inspired, and then we don't do anything with it because there were too many, uh, routes that our brain was going in. So I think, you know, really honing in on, on those takeaways and the, um, focusing on like, okay, now let's do something about it.

Um. Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and then as far as virtual goes, I think for the foreseeable future we're probably gonna keep it [00:53:00] virtual because like you said, how much goes into it? Oh my gosh, just running a virtual conference is like a full-time job and we work on it from the second, it ends pretty much into the next year.

So, um, yeah, it's a lot of work and then bringing it in person, we've looked into it, but just financially it doesn't really make a lot of sense. Um, for us right now. We so appreciate the people who do, uh, invest in the in-person conferences 'cause it's awesome. But yeah, not, doesn't work with our current business model.

Uh, maybe a smaller version someday.

Ilana: Well, and I think there's so many conferences that we've gone to with the people who we'd want to join, and there are already great conferences out there. And so I think by doing it virtually, we can fill a gap for the people who can't afford to, to travel to one, um, and bring people together that definitely wouldn't be meeting at these in-person events.

Um, and so I think we can, we can bring something to the table in that sense as well where we're like creating a virtual room where everyone can get [00:54:00] together, um, even though we'd all love to be together in person.

Radim: I mean, the lineup looks fantastic. And I can see Julie Alstrom. You can see Julie's work behind you. Uh,

Katie: noticed that

Ilana: Right

Radim: worked on my, she uh, she worked on my.

Katie: brand.

Radim: Yeah, I mean, what a person. Yeah. It's just so dedicated to her crowd. And of course I can spell lots of other familiar faces like Karen Fong and James and Meg.

Yeah. This is it. It's fantastic. And, and yeah, it's, it's, I always say the unsung heroes of our industry are the people who bring us together, because I think the word community has been bounded about in a, with a different meaning these days, especially for people who just look for a following and they say, well, I've got this community of people who follow me.

Whereas the community really is where people feel safe, when they feel heard, when they feel seen, when you can build trust, when you can ask questions. And I think this is something that, yeah, when I see those people who put money and their neck on the line and build something in person, and it's, you know, 50 50, if it's, if it's gonna even break even realize those are the real heroes who actually push out together because it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of work, as you say, virtually, let alone doing it, you know, in person and dealing with all sorts of, you know, bills and politics and, and people.

Katie: Yeah, the more conferences we go to, the more we just appreciate the heck out of it. 'cause we see now that we have this insight, even just from a virtual standpoint, we're we like laser focus into every detail and like, oh, I bet that took forever to figure out. Or like, oh, that's a really nice detail that probably costs a lot of money and they're getting no return on that.

So then I just appreciate it so [00:55:00] much

Ilana: Yeah, and like

the logistics even like, I think we could pull it off, but like, it doesn't sound that appealing. It's just so, there's so much work in, like Katie said, we have so much respect for, um, our pals who have done it in person because it's totally a different beast for sure.

Katie: Yeah.

Radim: Guys, thanks for coming to talk me today because. From my, from my point of view, how I see your world, it makes perfect sense because I'm a big believer in trying lots of different things, you know, daring creatively and, and exploring and, and finding ways that potentially can change someone's view on creativity, on, on entrepreneurship, on business.

Like what is possible because the world is no longer linear and potentially never was. And it was only our perceptions how we decide to see the world and potentially zoom in on just the one thing and find an absolute magic in it. But I believe what could then potentially could seem like sort of multifaceted, complicated world of doing too many things at the same time, and having that sort of experience of being thrown around by all of the experiences going, is this secure?

Is this [00:56:00] right? Am I doing this, should I do this? You know, do that. Ultimately, it's the process of discovery and looking for all of these things and finding your way because. The magic's usually hiding behind a corner. And when you learn to see round those corners, it's where the good stuff is. So thank you so much for what you're doing, what you're doing for the community, being dedicated to it, and, and hearing about the fact that it's not an easy ride, but it benefits a lot of people.

So thank you so much for what you're doing, and thanks for coming to talk to me today.

Ilana: thank you 

Katie: Well, thank you. 

and back at you. Thanks for your podcast and 

all you 

do.

Radim: Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, and suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes. So please get in touch via the email, in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me. Rad Malid.

The audio production was done by Neil [00:57:00] Mackay from 7 million Bucks Podcast. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode.