This weekend I missed a flight and while that sucks, I feel it was the universe telling me to slow down a little bit more. Too woowoo?
This week's edition is really cool with new stuff in Ai and design, a really sick portfolio website, some nature, and some really weird illustration work that I love. I also talk about how to avoid getting underpaid for your creative work so make sure you read till the end.
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: I'll Get You Wascally Ai Wabbit
- PORTFOLIO OF THE WEEK: Paint the Portfolio Red!
- CREATIVE FIND 01: A Wise Mission Indeed
- CREATIVE FIND 02: Croc-A-Cola
- CREATIVE FIND 03: Be One With The Forest and The Trees
- ONE TOK: The Mythical and Majestic "Homse"
- ONE LESSON: How to Practice Valueing Your Creative Work
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Something Gorgeous
I'll Get You Wascally Ai Wabbit
Rabbit R1 Pocket Companion
Uhmmmmm, someone at this company was definitely a fan of Pokemon and always wanted a real Pokedex and made it happen. This little red device is the Rabbit R1. I saw this get announced a few weeks ago and was a little confused for a second. I thought it was like one of those concept projects for funsies but then I kept seeing more press releases and realized the future is here.
btw this is not any sort of ad, I am just very attracted to this little device...
The Rabbit R1 is an Ai companion that puts the power of Ai in your hands wherever you go, packaged in a beautiful tactile device. It's also hot rod red. The keynote presentation showcased all the possible use-cases for a device like this. I really appreciated the tear down of the current state of mobile devices at the beginning. There are some really great moments of design and layout throughout the presentation. The visual identity for this company is really on point.
The R1 itself is also quite elegant. Rabbit partnered with my favorite audio company, teenage engineering, on the design of the device and you can really tell. Whether I used this device or not, I'd be more than happy to just have it in my hand and admire the beauty of it. Thinking of the current state of mobile devices, it makes sense. I think the R1 is a little early in terms of wide spread adoption, but making sure they nailed the aesthetics of the device will definitely help in trying to convince potential users to switch over completely and leave their traditional mobile devices behind.
The interface of the R1 is just flat out gorgeous. I already tried digging for who were the design partners for the visual identity of the company as well as what fonts are used but no luck. I will continue to search and let you know if I find them.
What do you think of the Rabbit R1? Would you consider giving up your current iPhone and switching over to this?
Portfolio of the Week
Paint the Portfolio Red!
María Vargas
María is a freelance UI designer and art director based out of Madrid and WOWWWWWWWW. This is the highest score I have awarded since the inception of portfolio of the week. It makes sense as she has over 10 years of experience in the game we call design so she definitely knows a thing or two about presenting her work.
I'll keep this review quick and let you check out her portfolio website on your own. Here are the things I love about her portfolio website.
First, I love the monochrome red on white. It gives her portfolio website and edge, an excitement, a vibe.
I love the typeface she has chosen for her headlines throughout her portfolio. It is Brut from Off Type. I don't love it just because it's unique. But as I mentioned before, María is a UI designer and art director. When I look at this typeface, I get that. It has both a digital quality to it with it's sharp corners. And at the same time, the tall x-height and slightly condensed letterform gives it that tastemaker attitude. This is something I see a lot of designers just completely missing out on. The type you choose can say a lot about you. I mean think about it. That is one of the major elements that will be used around your portfolio website. Wouldn't you want it to work for you? I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Helvetica. I mean for my website I've chosen a font that has a lot of similarities to that. María pairs Brut with Inter which is a workhouse of a typeface to use for copy.
I love how she has unconventionally split her header section into two parts. One with a quick who you are, what I do. And the other half with a highlight reel showcasing previous work.
María's project pages are also very well done. Nice moments of scroll animations and beautiful mocked up images throughout all of her projects.
Her portfolio website is built on Wordpress but it uses a "plugin" called Semplice. I actually have used it for my portfolio website in the past and have nothing but good things to say about it. It's built by designer, Tobias Van Schneider and at the time, in my eyes it was the best solution to build your portfolio website since there were so little options available. Ultimately I moved on to newer platforms since Wordpress was such a pain in the tuchus to navigate and is why I avoid anything involved with it now.
What do you think of María's design portfolio website?
PS. Should I do a deep dive or a video on typefaces and what they say about?
Score: 9.7/10
Built with: Wordpress
Creative Finds
A Wise Mission Indeed
Wise Mission Days 2023
I can't believe I never shared anything around the visual identity created by Ragged Edge for Wise but this application for their internal event will have to do for now. I absolutely love the headline font throughout the whole vis id. Groovy futura vibes ftw.
Croc-A-Cola
Crocs x Coca Cola Collab by Chris B. Murray
I love the artist and tastemaker editions of Crocs so when this showed up I had to add it to the newsletter. Exquisite illustration work by Chris and not a bad Croc design overall.
Would I buy them? No. Would you?
Be One With The Forest and The Trees
Tree.fm
I went through a phase where I loved listening to natural ambient noise on Youtube while I was designing and I thought this was a tasteful version of that so here you go!
One Tok
The Mythical and Majestic "Homse"
@rainy\_daze\_arts
Tiktok is a wonderful weird place at times especially when it shows you magical creations like this "Homse". A horse like creature except it's head is it's entire torso. Whether you like it or not, I think this is a great example of how the things you least expect can get you eyes on your work.
One Lesson
How to Practice Valueing Your Creative Work
I made a video not too long ago about a project I recently finished for a client and charged $6K for. The project is one that I am very proud of and enjoyed working on the entirety of the campaign. Whenever I post a video like that I get a lot of questions and comments from designers that are getting underpaid for their work so I thought back to some of the things that helped me get better with this and here they are.
1\. Get Comfortable Talking About The Numbers
This is something that as an entire industry, we don't do enough. In the last week I have had to have some difficult conversations with clients about budgets and costs. Yes, no one likes to hear you asking for more money then they originally planned for. I'm glad I've learned to get comfortable doing this because otherwise I would be asked to sacrifice and compromise a lot. This week I explained to a client that if you want me to do the work we discussed for less and faster, then I would either have to stay awake 24 hours for the next few weeks or we would have to double the timeline so I can actually function as a human being.
Additionally, start asking people what they want to pay. Or just start telling people how much you want to get paid. I understand some may need the money more than others and the possibility of scaring away clients frightens some. But you have to know that the worse thing that can happen, is only that they will say no. Or potentially be outraged and freak out on you which is not cool and in any situation would be a blessing because then you would know for sure you shouldn't work with them.
2\. Recognizing the Size of a Business
This is a big thing that I think a lot of people tend to forget. Not all clients and businesses are created equally. Being able to understand and recognize the size of a business or it's potential reach helps so much when thinking about how much to charge. If a small brand on social media reaches out to you for work and they are just getting their company off the ground. You can understand that every little penny is going to be important for them and that they would want to spend it wisely. Of course they are going to want to pay a little as possible and get the most bang for their buck. On the opposite side, if a company's size is big and their business is performing well, this may mean they will have more room in their budget but don't think for a second they aren't gonna try to also save as much as possible.
3\. Create Warm, Welcoming, and Trusting Relationships
Pricing is always a trendy topic amongst us creatives but no one ever talks about this other thing that is really important. Relationships. Yes relationships with your clients are super important. This is the thing that has gotten me through the good times and the bad times. Creating respectful, trusting, warm relationships with your clients will make your creative path so much more enjoyable and bulletproof.
The design industry and selling your creative services isn't exactly the most direct environment. It takes some to understand where there is room to wiggle and when you should turn the other way. I hope this helps you a bit more to better understand how to get better at valuing and pricing your design services or creative work.
PS. What are you currently working on? Shoot me a reply and let me know and feel free to send me images that would be awesome!
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