First of all – watch this video – in it’s entirety:
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU7E2vRuGk4&feature=player_embedded

Dedicated to you. Clearly, if you have been reading this blog for more than a few months, you know I LOVE philosophy. That’s part one. Part two: I love design. They are equally the most important things in my life. Now here is something interesting: I refuse/d to study either one of them formally. [Or informally for that matter.]
I believe they are two things that you can not learn. You are either born with them or not. Now the following words are just about me and how I work. They are not intended to cast judgment onto others or whatever. This is just a story about my own weird way.
I like doing things on my own, I like to be pollinated by the things I keep around me. But that’s it. I’m aware of very pretty things. I like to know who designed them. Furthermore, I like to know what makes those individuals who they are – the fundamentals. The essence. I don’t care to know about how they create their art or anything more than that. I like to know a very few select things, then I like looking at their creations.
I like doing things on my own, I don’t like learning how other people do things. Their creative process is theirs. Whether it’s screen printing, making a dress or editing a photo on a desktop. I can truly say my design process is MINE. The fundamental element of my process has and will always be: Doing it myself, learning it myself and struggling. It has never been shaped by a professor or colleague.
I don’t want to study philosophies outside of mine. Because I want my thoughts and theories to be genuine. My finger prints all over them. I like sorting through everything and trying to make sense of things on my own. The great puzzle! Who wants a cheat sheet?
I don’t read the blogs of those who I look up to because I don’t really want to know too much about them… If that makes sense. I want to do things on my own, then look back and THEN see how they did it. You know? And see how my dots lined up with theirs. I like that Tom can tell me that jeffstaple and I have the similar outlooks on certain things rather than “trying to have the same outlook”.…. I like that jeffstaple and marc ecko are in the same room and 5 years ago I put them in the same room with Left Field Project. I like to live 5 years from now. I like when I interview someone and they tell me “how do you know who I am?” then 5 years later they’re being interviewed by everyone.
Finally, I enjoy blowing things apart. Perhaps this is one of those things I inherited from my father. It’s rad that Marc ends the interview expressing the same thought. I looked at the design industry and threw a grenade in it. Picked up the pieces and rebuilt it how I wanted to. I looked at the publication industry 5 years ago, lit it up and surgically placed a sizable payload right into its heart. I’m still trying to find all the pieces. But one day I will see how it works. I don’t like the idea of following in someone else’s footsteps. It angers me really. When you do things your own way, you find opportunities that have been passed over by hundreds. You avoid trends. You create your own look. You create something that is truly YOURS. There is no greater success than creating your own LOOK and making it work. Right? You will never get there unless you fall on your face. You have to fall on your face so fucking hard your teeth shatter. You pick yourself up, you pick up all the shards of teeth, you’re covered in blood and all you CAN DO is try again. This time, when you fall, it will be on something else. But you just pick your shit up again and this time, you’re a seasoned “fuck up” so it’s not as difficult to muster up the strength and charge it again. Success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm. That’s the thing about making your own trail, you’re going to fall (a lot), but that’s what makes those who do it so amazing. That’s what makes it successful and unique. If it were easy – everyone would be doing it. Including all those unoriginal bastards who are watching from the sidelines wishing they had the courage to fail. Everything in the video that is reiterated in this post makes me happy. To see and hear others that I look up to and have worked with feel the same way about life and business. Gives me a little more confidence to jump off of things. It’s in your blood you know, not everyone can do what it is that we do…
So, here is to you.
Cheers.