This week's edition of Creative Juice is packed with self-initiated projects and how one of my fake design projects helped my career out tremendously. Enjoy <3!
Creative Juice is a weekly newsletter published every Monday morning so you can start your week feeling inspired creatively to make cool sh*t and get paid for it. Every Monday I share something gorgeous, a portfolio of the week, three creative finds, one amazing post from social media, and one lesson I learned recently.
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TL:DR
SOMETHING GORGEOUS: Ceramics That Would Make Bauhaus Smile
PORTFOLIO OF THE WEEK: I Want To Marry This Design Portfolio Website
CREATIVE FIND 01: A Fictional Bar Inspired by The Supermarket
CREATIVE FIND 02: This E-Commerce Canary Is Singing
CREATIVE FIND 03: Not Your Grandma's Notary
ONE GRAM: Sleep in This Metapod to Become Butterfree
ONE LESSON: How a Fake Design Project Made My Design Career
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Something Gorgeous
Ceramics That Would Make Bauhaus Smile
Not Work Related Home Goods
Hailing from one of my favorite Brooklyn neighborhoods, Greenpoint. Not Work Related is a studio creating 'Home Goods for Good Homes' inspired by the Bauhaus movement and Memphis Design Group. They create gorgeous mugs, pots, bowls, and cups lined with beautiful patterns and gradients that turn whatever you're drinking into a full sensory experience. Unfortunately, it would seem that their shop has been completely cleaned out but I'm sure they will be working tediously to replenish their inventory very soon.
Portfolio of the Week
I Want To Marry This Design Portfolio Website
Trionn Design Agency
I have scrolled from the top to the bottom and back about 50 times looking at this design portfolio website and I am still not tired of it. Trionn is a design agency in India working with a variety of companies in the digital and branding space.
While I have stated before that building a portfolio website for an agency versus for an individual has it's differences, there are so many good things going on here that I want you to take away for your own portfolio. We're going to be focusing mainly on the homepage here as this is where I spent most of time admiring this beautiful portfolio website.
**Starting from the top, **the header of this portfolio website welcomes you with a beautiful animation with Trionn's tagline and description. They are using this typeface from Dirtyline Studio as the hero font-family if you are wondering. You'll also notice when you're on desktop there is a cursor animation happening that resembles some magical energy smoke As you scroll past the header, they have a showreel that animates into view while scrolling.
After passing the showreel you will find the recent work section that again utilizes a beautiful display of scroll animations for the section header and all of the work project thumbnails. Below the work section is an about section, followed by a testimonials section, socials section, and contact form.
I strongly advise you to view this website on both desktop and mobile and admire the smoothness of this portfolio website. Every section of Trionn's website introduces a new animation that keeps you engaged and captures your attention. Additionally, Trionn has done a great job keeping the overall design simple so that the work and writing shines through.
With all that said I am awarding Trionn the first 10 out of 10 in the history of Portfolio of the Week.
Score: 10/10
Built with: Custom Code
Creative Finds
A Fictional Bar Inspired by The Supermarket
The Aisle by David Huang
Illustrator David Huang goes above and beyond creating an entire visual identity for a fictional bar called 'The Aisle' inspired by supermarket signage. This project showcases the depth of exploration ideal for self-initiated work.
This E-Commerce Canary Is Singing
Canary Brand Identity by Adrien Porcher
Want to promote your business with some stunning swag? Fly right over to Canary. Another fictional visual identity by designer Adrien Porcher. I love the cuteness of the logo and you can't ever go wrong with Futura Bold.
Not Your Grandma's Notary
Inkredible Notary Website by DesignCraft
I only learned about digital notaries in 2024 but if I was ever in need of having something notarized, this is the one I would go with. Jen from DesignCraft really shook the dust off those ancient quills bringing this service into the digital age.
One Gram
Sleep in This Metapod to Become Butterfree
@superd0ne
Ever wanted to crawl up into a cocoon and sleep? Did you also watch Pokemon as a kid? Well how about falling asleep at your desk with this Metapod sleeping bag. I still have shoe boxes filled with old Pokemon cards at my home and while those may remain there for quite some time. I will definitely be incorporating more adult-like Pokemon home goods like this into my home when I can.
One Lesson
How a Fake Design Project Made My Design Career
In 2018 I worked at a company where I felt very out of my league. My previous full-time jobs consisted of very repetitive tasks that didn't really require me to put too much thought into them. When I joined this new company in 2018 I worked with different teams that involved me working with video, audio, motion, strategy, and pitching. This was a completely new experience for me and an amazing opportunity as I worked with award creatives that pushed me to grow as a designer.
To get over this feeling of imposter syndrome I decided to initiate a project of my own that would allow me to practice and get better in all of these different areas. That project was called Wellfed. It originally started as a podcast that later turned into a blog and eventually turned into this newsletter. You can listen to all of the episodes of Wellfed here.
Wellfed was one of the most fulfilling projects and also one of the most important projects I worked on in my design career. This project would later reward me the amazing opportunity to work at PepsiCo and one of the biggest media companies in the United States.
But why? What was it about this project that it made such a difference for me in my design career and afford me the ability to now travel and work from where I want?
Well for starters, I put my everything into this project. The wonderful thing about self-initiated projects is that there is no one to tell you no. Whatever you want to make happen, you can do. Secondly, because it was a project that I was so passionate about, I was always so excited to talk about it when speaking with hiring managers and recruiters. I believe that during those conversations, they would learn so much about me as a designer and could see that I put so much of me into it. And finally, sharpened my skills and readied me to take on even bigger opportunities as a designer.
If you have ever spoken to me over a portfolio review or seen my videos ok TikTok, than you know that I am a big advocate for self-initiated projects.
Are you thinking about starting your own self-initiated project? What kind? Send me a reply and let me know.
PS. If you want to start your own self-initiated project and don't know where to start, feel free to send me a reply here.
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