Books of 2022

In 2022 I didn’t read as many but I read widely.

If I had to choose themes –

Career & Business – The 7 habits of Highly effective people*, Wolfpack*
Design – Design Justice*, Hello World^, The Brand Gap^, Paul Rand Conversations with Students, Drawing on Courage*, Super Normal*
Film, Art & Creativity – Art Matters, Creativity, The Creativity Leap, Wes Anderson^
Fiction – Pixel^, Tell me How to be, Carrie Soto is Back^, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, The Christie Affair, Bright Lines, অগ্নিসম্ভব and অগ্নিকুসুম*
Graphic Novels – Pablo^, Esther’s notebooks, The Best we could do, I was their American dream, The Butchery^
History – A little history of the world, Broad Band, The Equivalents, At Home in the World*, Man’s Search for Meaning*
Physics – When we cease to understand the world^
Poetry – Very close to pleasure there’s a sick cat^, I hope this finds you well
Travel – Dark Star Safari
Uncategorized – Visual Thinking*, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction*, In the Shelter*, The Right to Sex^, The Book of Hope

*These books were life-changing – impacting the way I thought about myself, the world, how I live and work, what I choose to do

^These books were excellent. Some of them I gave as gifts to others, and I would probably re-read later in life.

The path to your artistic voice

Where does your artistic voice comes from? It’s your story – and your story could have anything, from memories, obstacles, truths and morals. It’s important to know yourself and listen to yourself – even though it hurts. And also, hours and hours of craft and expression so the craft becomes part of your body and your expression can break through. the journey to finding your voice comes with a lot of risks and failures – but trusting that you will always find the way to your voice.

These are the resources that I’ve found useful – The Artist’s Way, Find Your Artistic Voice (which I may be quoting above), and doing Lynda Barry’s exercises.

Books, Design

Making ideas happen: My takeaways

[I first read this book Making ideas happen: Overcoming the obstacles between vision and reality in 2013, and since then this book has been my daily guide, often standing in as a coach for my day job. Scott wrote this book while working at Behance: “I realized that creative professionals are the most disorganized community on the planet! But they are ultimately responsible for <so many things> that bring meaning to our lives…

I saw not only an opportunity but also a responsibility to help them overcome the obstacles to make them happen

…as such I committed my professional life to organizing the creative world.” The book is guidance and wisdom on every page, but here are three of the ideas that resonated with me:

Capitalize on healthy conflict: Use disagreements to foster valuable insights that would otherwise be inaccessible. Make your creative team resilient to advocate for their perspectives while respectfully considering that of others, until breakthroughs are revealed.

Short-circuiting the rewards system: Achieving a creative vision also demands a long term focus and sustaining your energy for the long term. Scott’s recommendation is to unplug yourself from the short term reward system and the desire to the validated in the long term.

Seldom is anything accomplished alone: One idea that stood out for me was that of Dreamers, Doers and Incrementalists. Find out which one you are, and then find the right partners. Serendipity comes from differences.]

A book worth reading if you’re a senior designer or in a creative leadership role, or a design entrepreneur; whether in product or services or consulting – you’ll find it useful. Follow up with the more recent book The Messy Middle, another useful companion for building resilience, staying inspired and bringing the best of your creative self to the “hardest and most crucial part” of any project.

Reflection, Technology

The brother summer

Life, People, sketchbook

Doing what you love

If you’re like most creative people, you probably have a latent desire to do what you love for a living. The other day my friend Sumeet and I were talking about the very same thing –

TRANSCRIPT
The mistake that people make when they start to do something the love, is that they start equating that with success. But that’s not right – when you start doing something you love, your goals should be self-awareness, self esteem, the joy of work, and finally, creativity through play. Then, if success comes from that, very good. But if not, at least you enjoyed yourself and probably learned a little about yourself in the process.