M▵RK

TECHNOGENESIS // ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

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You should start creating again

There’s something universal about artists and creators:

  1. When you create, you feel in sync with the world.
  2. When you create only for a living it’s easy to burn out.

Any time someone tells me about a project they’ve been meaning to get back around to or a project they’ve mothballed I always tell them, “you should start that back up.”

The reaction is mostly universal too:

  1. I don’t have the time.
  2. I just don’t have the energy.

All people do is stuff. You’re either doing something creative, or you’re working, or you’re sleeping, and if not those, you might be keeping busy or sitting around. And if you’re doing those anyway, why not add something to this world?

If you start small you have the greatest chance of success. Write a sentence a day. Journal. Draw a quick sketch every single day. Find art or a skill that intrigues you and take it in. If nothing seems to interest you try to understand the things that you like–maybe that’s beautiful furniture and architecture. Actively curate pictures of it. Read about it, talk to people about it. Email people in the field.

The more you understand it the more you will find you can imitate it and express it in things that you make. Once you have the means and the passion, you won’t have to force yourself. It’ll just happen.

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About the Logo

This post originally appeared on the first version of my blog in 2017. I still use it in certain spots even though my new triangle version (M▵RK) is what I use on my blog.

We talked about something geometric, but still very minimal; if it was on the side of a car you’d think that it was going to another planet. This logo would also feature a triangle as part of the theme that I wanted to curate here.

I hired Leanne Bridie of andmethod.com to draft something.

Early ideas focused a lot on shapes and lines and negative space.

When you’re looking for a designer it’s so easy to just glaze over portfolios, but it’s arguably more vital to hire someone you can understand. There’s a magic that happens between a designer and their client when the client knows what they want and the designer knows how to get there. That communication is the basis for something bigger.

After the second round of ideas I needed about 2 weeks to passively sit with these. We iterated some of them and nothing was clicking. With some time away and fresh eyes I noticed that just the “HAMILTON” in the first row by itself is pretty elegant, and with some more slight alterations this became the wordmark for the site.

Some of the best ideas come by chance, but without the skill driving it ideas have less chance of taking hold. Awesome work Leanne & thanks again.