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Final Thoughts: Making it Count

Hello internet! Good morning, good morning. Morning somewhere, it's 12:02 here in San Francisco. I'm Chase Jarvis, I am the co-founder and CEO of CreativeLive. I'm very excited to welcome you to the stage here to join me and some of my good friends who have been participating in a thing we kicked off this month called 28 to Make. 28 to Make is a very simple, what do you call it? It's not an exercise, it's a Lifestyle lifestyle! (audience laughs) It's a lifestyle of making cool things. Basically, we encourage, we sent out a thing that says, hey, would you like to join us, click this little blue button, and then you get an email every day about making something. It's a little project idea for you to go out and make something. And it turns out, that we had more than 20,000 people from all over the world making stuff and sharing it every day. (audience cheers) That's right. (audience clapping) Those 20,000 people created tens of thousands of hashtags all over the place and today, in th...

is particular broadcast, we're gonna just do a little recap of some of the results for, this is the kickoff, this is the start, this is not the end. I'm also gonna give you a little bit about why I think this is important, and then I'm gonna introduce two colleagues who are gonna come talk to you about where this is going, because, as I said earlier, it's just getting started. Couple of headlines, we had again 20,000 people, we had tens of thousands of hashtags, we had more than a hundred countries represented. So, when you're thinkin' about worldwide, that's monstrous. And, oh man, I think maybe we shift out of the metrics land into what I think is the real critical bit of this, which is, it takes, as they say, 28 days to make or break a habit, and the reason this was 28 to Make is because we wanted to get people into the habit of making stuff every day. And making stuff, it doesn't matter to me if you are an engineer, if you are a professional creative, if you're an accountant, or if you work outside with your hands every day, you can make something. Whether it's a photograph, a drawing, and it's really an intention, and it's important to recognize, in my mind, that, and the science backs me up here, is that making something isn't necessarily just about the thing that you're making. It's not about that picture or that intention that you set when you set out to draw what your morning beverage looks like or sketch a landscape. What it really has to do with creativity and a capital C, that this simple act of doing and making every day, literally, scientifically is proven to enhance your creativity across whatever job you have. So if you're taking a picture every day with your iPhone, you're becoming a better brain surgeon. Mark Runco from the University of Georgia has done this great study, and that's in part what we're promoting here at CreativeLive is creativity with a capital C. Of course this is a community for makers, but we definitely want the world to feel included, and this project is I think a stamp on the beginning of that process. So, those are sort of my little intro points, and I wanted to introduce two colleagues, the folks who were actually behind this inside at CreativeLive. I remember the day they, the first day I heard about it, was that they hey like, we got this idea. I was instantly in love with the idea, smitten with it, and these two folks, the folks that made it possible, so allow me to introduce Lara and Brooks from CreativeLive. C'mon up stage, you guys. (audience claps) It's like Sesame Street, Thanks, Chase. We all run on to the, I'm not gonna stay up here very long, but can you guys give me just a little bit of background and tell the folks, A, how this started, and then I'll get outta the way and you can give 'em a little bit more detail and tell 'em where it's goin', so, what's the back story behind this thing. Well, it started shortly after I started here, and Lara came to me and said like, February's comin' up, I had this idea, what if we just like, invite people to make stuff? And so, maybe I'll get my dumb booty off the stage here. You guys can take people through a little bit of the background, so again, part of the reason you're here is we want you all to realize you're just not in your own little world, that when you're doing this you're part of a global community, more than a hundred countries represented, that are making things every day, and this is the beginning, not the end. Yep. Definitely. So, I'm outta here, take it away you guys. Round of applause for these folks. Thank you. Thank you. (audience claps) Thanks everyone, that was very generous. So once again, to reiterate, we are here to celebrate a really successful launch of a thing that is going to live forever, on the internet. The 28 to Make videos, and projects, are available online for free and will always be available online for free, and we used February because of the whole 28 thing, to kind of kick it off, and give it a little steam, to get people involved, to get people excited about getting into that habit together. We did know that it was a leap year, a lot of people wondered, and we knew, we knew all along That's why we're doin' this thing today. Yeah, yeah, and so we thought this would be a great opportunity to kind of wrap up and just like look at, okay, what happened in this first month of jumping into just making all this stuff. So today we're going to be just celebrating everything that is 28 to Make, which primarily is people. Like a lot of people making a lot of really cool stuff. We never in a million years thought that it would be what it ended up being. We were like, this'll be a cool thing, and people will really enjoy it and they'll like, you know, we'll build some community around it, and people just went nuts and completely blew our minds. And so we're going to look at how they blew our minds, specifically. We're going to actually be on Skype with Kate Bingaman-Burt. If you have done the videos for 28 to Make, and done the projects, you will know Kate 'cause she was the leader for week one and we did some amazing doodles with her, and she's going to give you some ideas for what to do with this pile of projects you now have on your desk in your studio or wherever you did them, which is gonna be great. We're also gonna talk about what is next. Like where do you go from here? If you started stirring the pot with your creativity in 28 to Make, and now you have all these ideas, or all this kind of momentum, we're gonna give you some ideas for like what to do next. Where do you point that death ray of creativity and what are you going to destroy. It'll be great. (audience laughs) Lara, tell us a little bit about how it all started. It started with an idea. As per usual. (audience laughs) And it was basically, how do you form a new creative habit? Or just a creative habit in general. It doesn't take a lot of time, and you can form a habit in 28 days, like it takes 28 days of rehab to form that habit of not drinking or using drugs. So we're gonna do that with creativity, right? Through 28 videos. So I just had it in my head, like 28, 28. And so we got together and we developed the plan, which is videos to send out, and the call to action is watch the videos, make things, share it, repeat. So pretty simple to follow, I think. And only take 20 minutes a day. Or more, or less, but the idea is to just do it. Yeah, 'cause if you set your goals too high, it's very easily overwhelming, and we wanted to make sure it was bite-sizeable, even if you, so you could go farther if you wanted to, but you could also just take it in small bites. And 20 minutes actually feels like a lot when you're in it, for these projects. It does. And we had four different instructors, one for each week that covered a different theme, and then we had the weekend instructor, who was amazing, our very own Brooks Chambers. He got a haircut. (audience and Lara laugh) And the feedback, like we mentioned earlier, was incredible. Like we are blown away. Can we show the tagboard? Quickly? Oh, yeah. The number of projects and the frequency of people posting their projects, and the things that they were writing with their images, were just heartwarming. I had so much fun every day looking through these, and I still do. Yeah, basically, the kind of bottom line is that it was amazing. It was awesome, and we have a lot of people to thank for that. 20.000 of them, or more, if you want to get specific. Yeah, so we had 20,000 signups, plus, from all over the world, specifically, over a hundred different countries were represented in the 28 to Make community, which blows my mind. I didn't know there were that many countries, did you? (audience laughs) I did, I did. Currently, we have over 15,000 pieces of original artwork created by students, participants, in 28 to Make, from those hundred plus different countries, currently shared online with the hashtag 28 to Make. And that's only the artwork that's being shared. There's a lot of people, honestly, it kind of rubs me the wrong way, sometimes to share my work online, like I don't know, it's kind of a personal thing, but the fact that that many people are actually putting their work online is kinda mind-numbing. I don't even know how to get my head around that. But it's amazing, inspiring. I also really want to thank our partners. We could not have done this without fonts.com, Tattly, Creative Market, and Field Notes. They jumped in and helped us get the word out, because these are brands that represent that daily creativity to us. They really embody it. And we use their products every day, specifically to stay creative, and to stay inspired, and to recapture inspiration, find inspiration, and create. And they actually did some amazing good by giving gifts to 20 selected winners from the 28 to Make community, who shared their work using the hashtag on Instagram. They were selected at random. There's 20 of you. If you haven't heard from us yet, you will this week. Pretty exciting stuff. So, yeah, once again, thank you, thank you, thank you to our partners. If you're not familiar with them, check them out, get familiar, get cool, cool. Lara's gonna tell you a little bit about the stuff you made. So I can't even begin to call out work from this because it was all amazing, all of the submissions. From all types of people. We had a lot of kids doing this project, families, which was amazing. Dogs. Pets. (audience laughs) That's actually my dog, so it's kind of cheating, but. It's not your cat, though. (audience laughs) And then the mediums. People were using watercolors, they were breaking out their ink pens. people were using things that they had never used before, that they were completely uncomfortable, that they were saying was out of their wheelhouse, but then the results were just mind-blowing. People were doing things digitally, they were doing them analog, they were writing on their bodies. (Lara and audience laugh) I mean like the projects were pretty specific prompts, so it was really interesting to see all of the imaginative ways people were interpreting them. You have to look through them. You have to read what people have written with their projects, 'cause that's really the special stuff. I mean, people were building things, people were sending us notes in a bottle. (audience laughs) People were making pizzas for 28 to Make. And not, they didn't send us the pizza, though. No. (audience laughs) But it's amazing. (audience laughs) So flip through the tagboard, the student work on social, I could talk forever about this, so. And you're not allowed to. Let's not do that. What's coming next? It's pure magic. To kind of bottle the goodness of this initial launch period of this, of February, we decided to make an ebook. A really awesome little kind of crystallization of all that energy. And what it's gonna include is all the projects, including photos and just everything you would need, if you didn't have access to the internet. Let's say you're on a flight or something like that, you could just have this ebook if you wanted to revisit some of the projects, or do it for the first time, and you'd be able to go through, do the projects. You'd also get some bonus editorial content about the science of creativity. And some of that stuff Chase was speaking to, about how doing things like this, even if it's not directly related to your discipline, will actually cause those neurons to go like, get real excited and be cool, like way better neurons. I don't know, whatever. But we're gonna give you some insight into that science, and how this stuff can help rewire your brain to be more creative, be more prolific. And we're also gonna feature some student work in there, to help fuel that inspiration. 'Cause I really think that ended up being one of the most important parts, at least for me as I participated, was every day seeing the stuff other people were making. There's that layer of accountability and guilt, but then there's more than that, it's really like holy crap, this is awesome, all these people, from all over, like I'm in, let's do it. Yeah, I'm a part of this. Yeah, I've never been a part of something. (audience laughs) Speaking of all these things people made over the last 28 days, what do you do with these? So that's where Kate is gonna come in now, to talk to us about compiling collections. I have the sign in front of me that says Kate is ready. (audience laughs) Hoo hoo. Kate! Hi! There she is. Hey! I gotta look over there. Hello. How are you? Kate! Good, how are you? Good, thank you so much for being a part of 28 to Make and Skyping in today. Oh, well, thanks for having me. This was a really, really, really fun project to teach, and then also so much fun to watch over the last 28 days, too. Really amazing work being made, too. So what's some advice you can give on what to do with all the work, and how to showcase it? Well, I mean you've already make a giant collection of work, which, whenever you are trying to compile a book, or make a 'zine, you always want to have a theme, well, you automatically have a theme of you exploring creativity 28 different ways for the month of February. So that's kind of a perfect, a perfect starting place. You already have the content. Now it's kind of like, what do I do with the content? And there's a couple different things that, easy ways for you to either make a book to share, or you could do that by hand, or you could actually use some online tools, where you can just take all of the Instagram photos that you've already created and publish it online, too, really easily, and have a tangible book, too. Cool. Nice. Do we want to talk about the 'zine today, 'cause I keep hearing that buzzword around? 'Zine. So a 'zine is just short for magazine, and one of the beautiful things about making a 'zine is that it's self-published and it is a really empowering piece of print because you don't have anybody else telling you what needs to go into that 'zine except for you. So your work that you did for 28 Days to Make can just go directly into a 'zine. And if you are, you could lay this out, you could print out your photos if you wanted to, and you could kind of do old school mocking up a book by hand and laying out a paper template, or if you're familiar with InDesign, you can easily drop those photos into a simple InDesign pallette, template, and then publish from there, too. But one of the things that I think you should consider when you are laying your 'zine out is to not just only show the images. I think what's going to make this 'zine really interesting is your, your thoughts about the process of making. You could organize these projects by ones that you felt were the most successful, or ones that you felt like if you never did this project ever again that'd be totally fine. You could also organize them chronologically. You could do the first, second, third, through the twenty-eighth. Or you could even just focus on the ones that you felt were the most successful, too. Personally, I think the most interesting execution for this 'zine would be if you were to kind of like write a reflection about the whole process and include all of the photos, because that's really telling the whole story of this last month of kind of self-discovery journey that you've been on through making, too. Cool. I have a quick question. So I think a lot of times when we talk about portfolios, I think people feel like that's like a black-tie affair, in terms of work, like only the super fancy, super dialed in, 3D, three-quarter perspective view, mocked up screen, whatever, gets in my portfolio. For a real client. Yeah, for, like if I'm putting this out there to actually get hired if I'm a professional. Do you think that stuff like this, like 28 to Make type projects, are fitting in a collection like this for a professional portfolio? I personally, whenever I'm doing portfolio reviews, or if I'm talking, like working with students, I love seeing process. I love seeing people kind of give themselves personal challenges. I love seeing how a person thinks about a project. And I also like to see maybe some ideas that aren't fully thought out but have a lot of potential to them. Because that really, really, really, for me at least, shows how a person is thinking, more so than some glossy portfolio piece that has been so well done and manicured. It's a good balance. You can have those very, very tight, well-executed portfolio pieces, but then I think it's also really nice, just how people like looking at sketch books. This is a really great project to showcase, hey, I wanted to challenge myself to work in ways that I wasn't familiar with for 28 days and not only do that but also open myself up and share that with people, too. 'Cause the sharing process of that, that's actually a really brave thing to do, to kind of put your work out there and be like, hey, I made this, ahhh. I feel like that really, that's a really good thing to demonstrate, too. Yeah, I like the idea of a 'zine because then it becomes this thing within the larger context of your portfolio, and I love it when I'm doing portfolio reviews and there's something that is analog and it feels like the person who's portfolio it is. 'Cause otherwise it's like a lot of times you're looking at projects that they didn't generate, or they didn't really have a voice in. But this one it's like 100% ownership. Absolutely, because I feel like being able to demonstrate your point of view, and being able to demonstrate the special and interesting qualities that you're bringing to the work, it's actually a really difficult thing to do, and I think that this project is perfect. It's set up for you to demonstrate what you're thinking about, what you're making. Again, also, it's not all of the projects are going to be completely refined and perfect. I don't know, I think it demonstrates a lot of really good qualities. Well, I really liked your week. Yeah. I loved drawing my beverage. And I loved seeing what other people were drinking. It's almost like a great way to get this select piece of data on what people drink, what people listen to, what people have in their bag. Yeah, yeah. It's like doing kind of like a data mining, but in a really fun and non-gross way. (laughs) I love the music portion of, and so you know, I love the music, I was like, oooh, I need to listen to that album, oh, I forgot about that album. It was a really, selfishly that was really fun for me. We have an online question that came in from Tim, and we can get all three of your feedback on this if you want, but curious to hear Kate. So Tim wants to know, what's one of your biggest takeaways from being involved in 28 to Make. And I think from your perspective, and also Kate from being involved, I'm curious to hear if you have any different takes, and what you really took out of this that's most memorable. Kate? Well, I can speak from my perspective, is that it was so much fun to see all the activity, and then to also just see people just diving in and trying it and doing it and sharing it. I wasn't sure what the response would be, but there was such a fun response, and so many, so many really wonderful executions and takes on the individual assignments. I was really happy, really happy to see the wide variety of media and styles, too, so that was exciting, as well. And it was so cool to be a part of something that was so much bigger than yourself, as well. Right, yeah, that was a huge takeaway for me, was like, I really feel like I have a refreshed sense of the value of creative community and the possibilities for online community in a way, and I've always been a little bit skeptical, you know, of online community, I think. Maybe it's just that introverted part of me, but I'm just like, I don't know, that's not real, that's not really real. But I was drawing real inspiration from people's work, and I actually, I feel like I kinda became friends with kind of a lot of people. You'd see the same people liking your stuff. It was like you'd know kinda what time they're checking (audience laughing) and then you know that their project is gonna post like 30 minutes later or whatever, and you're like, that's kinda cool. I'm actually gonna put myself out there. Is it Tim Needles that asked the question? It was Tim Needles. See? (overlapping chatter) Because he's one of the people that posted every day, and I liked his stuff and he would like mine, and I'd be like what's up, Tim? (audience laughs) Tim, the second Saturday, 'cause we did the same videos every Saturday, and we just wanted the weekends to be kinda chill and whatever and just like keep it simple, and he like (fingers snap) first thing Saturday morning, I was like, I wonder if that's gonna be confusing, if people are gonna think it's like a glitch, gotta tweet from Tim Saturday morning, the second Saturday, and he was just like hey, Brooks, just not sure if you knew it's the same video, and I was like, thanks. We also knew it's a leap year. (Lara, Kate, and audience laugh) No, honestly, going into it, it's kind of this meta story of, it was, for us, I think it was a pretty vulnerable, kinda scary thing to be honest with you, 'cause it's like, it's kind of like throwing a dance party, at your house. It's like a really cool idea when you think about it. When you're like, yeah, everybody's at my house, and they're dancing. But then you have everyone over, and you're dancing. (laughter) And that's it. And even like getting Kate, getting you involved, it was like, oh man, that would be so cool. And like getting Ryan Putnam and Erik Marinovich, and getting our favorite artists involved, and it was like what if they, oh, they're coming to the party, too. Then people will probably dance. They'll dance, right? (laughter) Well, if we don't screw up the videos. And then people just like came, and they danced. (laughter) To carry the metaphor, forever. Good, that's good. Great, alright, we got one more question here, for Kate. So first off, one viewer says, I loved Kate's week. It was so much fun. And then, a question for you from Julia, Kate. She says, how did you come up with your ideas? They were very creative, and I'd like to know a little bit more about your process, of how you were coming up with these ideas for people to make. Well, the ideas that, the prompts that I was using for my week were based off of a drawing series that I already do for myself. And so they were already really drawn from, I make a lot of work about objects and how we engage with our stuff, and personal consumption, and then also just documenting the everyday through the simple act of drawing, too. So it was easy for me to kind of like think of these prompts because I'm like oh, I'm already doing this. I already have work, and so just kind of being able to think about the stuff that I was already doing over the last several years. It was really fun to be able to share, and then to see all, all of the people also doing work that I had been working on for a long time, too, was really fun, as well. And I think, I also hear one more prompt from you, which is, make a 'zine of your 28 to Make. Yeah, a lot of people online wanna know more about 'zines from you, Kate. (laughter) People are interested. (Kate laughs) There's a lot of really good resources out there for making 'zines, from simple to really complicated. It has a very easy entry point for sure. They can be really cheap, they can be really not cheap, it's up to you and how you want to make it happen. Yeah, and there's a very active community around 'zines as well. It's definitely a thing. Yeah. Yes. It's a scene. And it has been for a long time. A 'zine scene. It's fantastic. Yep. Yep. Cool. Well, thank you, Kate. Heck, yeah. Yeah. (all clapping) Thank you! See you later! Bye! Cool, so that was amazing. Those questions were really helpful, too, in kind of revisiting a lot of the kind of marrow of what 28 to Make was about, and what made it feel so fun to go through the first time, and my thinking is I'll probably end up doing this almost every other month, or at least like pulling a week of the exercises out every now and then. I think that for me, having that daily expectation. Like I know there's gonna be a thing for me to do in the morning kind of thing was really helpful for me. Sometimes it's hard when it's just like I wanna make more stuff, yeah, cool. So in the morning I'm like I gotta make, what, what am I gonna make, I gotta make something? And then, but if I just start drawing my cup of coffee or whatever, usually that will give me some other idea for something I wanna do. I think that's always the hard part for me, too, is like what am I gonna make? I could spend all my time thinking about what it is that I wanna do, and then I could've been doing it. Times ten. Totally. So in that vein, we want to talk about what we have next for you, for the 28 to Make community, and the CreativeLive community as a whole. And for all human beings in the world. If you signed up for 28 to Make, you will be automatically signed up for some weekly project ideas. And these are gonna be most of the time videos in the very same style as 28 to Make. And they'll be emailed to you, just like 28 to Make, every Monday. And the idea here is we're just gonna keep giving you little sparks to play with and some of them are gonna be things exactly like that. (audience laughs) Just get that motion down, muscle memory. And most of them are gonna be things that you can do pretty quickly, like 28 to Make. Or you can blow out into massive kind of tent pole projects. They're gonna be exploring a variety of different topics from drawing, to poster design, to interactive design. We're gonna be doing some with app icons, as well. So all kinds of fun stuff that, once again, not the kind of thing, definitely, if you woke up and you were like, I think I'm gonna make a thing today, I think I'll wire frame a to-do app, or something like, if you're a product designer, yeah, maybe you would, but if you're like a surface pattern designer, that might not occur to you. But doing it might actually cause some ideas to fire and spark and develop a new perspective. 'Cause if you've never tried it, how do you know whether or not you like it? Exactly, yeah. So it's all about maintaining that regular rhythm that you've created with 28 to Make. And for those of you who are starting it now, or will start it in 15 years when you find this video in the archives of the internet, (Lara laughs) you're going to use 28 to Make, it's like this tool that's always there, to just kind of get going. It's like that more aggressive daily cadence, and then these weekly project ideas will be sent to anyone who signs up for 28 to Make, and that will give you a regular, maybe more sustainable rhythm, and maybe you spend the whole week working on that project, and taking it a little bit farther. So this is gonna be really instrumental in building your portfolio. Now for some of you, you might have a job doing something that you really love and you're good, and that's fine, and you don't really want to develop a creative portfolio. Some of you are creative professionals, or you're aspiring creative professionals. Maybe you're a graphic design student. Maybe you're one of Kate's students. I know a lot of her students from Portland State were involved, which was really, really fun. And it's really important if you have aspirations in that vein, that you build a portfolio that shows the world what you can do, but also what you wan to do. So doing these weekly projects and kind of continuation of that rhythm will give you a steady flow of things that you can work into your portfolio. And like Kate said, they don't all have to be perfectly polished, but some of them, this is a great opportunity to see one and be like okay, that gives me an idea, I'm gonna go just down this rabbit hole forever, and just make this really big awesome thing. Or, I'm gonna build a collection of smaller things, that could sit in there as well. It's also like when you have that layer of inspiration from these videos, this layer of your portfolio's kind of like the final product of showing it. We really recommend undergirding that with consistent, regular education. Of course, the guy working for the online education company says that. (Lara laughs) Cool, yeah. But I'm not just talking about online courses. I'm talking about in person courses, workshops, talking about that community we were talking about. Like being active online and in person through organizations like AIGA or CreativeMornings. Like be in conversation with people who know what they're talking about. Even if they're just talking about their own process. You can glean, you can learn, from almost anyone almost anytime, and it's really important that we do that. One final kind of fun thing to throw out there, is that because of the flurry of activity around 28 to Make with our Instagram, we've realized there really is enough of a community around the CreativeLiveDesign catalog to start talking with you guys in a new way. So we're putting together a CreativeLiveDesign Instagram account. It's just Instagram right now, but jump on there. I think I'm one of two followers currently, (Lara and audience laugh) because we just turned it on this morning, so feeling pretty privileged. (Brooks and audience laugh) It has its perks. But seriously, jump on there. We're gonna be sharing work from our creative studio, the people who work on our brand, and they are fantastic. If you enjoyed any of the creative surrounding like that promo video and like, they're, oh man, their creative vision is pretty rad. So we're gonna see stuff that they're working on, we're gonna feature stuff you're working on when those weekly project ideas start rolling out in March. We're gonna be conversing on that platform so please, go to Instagram, follow it. Right now. Right now. Before you forget. We'll wait. (audience laughs) We'll wait. (audience laughs) We waited. (audience laughs) Cool, anything you want to add about any of that stuff? No, I'm very excited. You should be. So while we're, do you wanna open it up to Q and A? Let's do it. A little bit more Q and A for all of you? I've got lots of stuff here from the audience? You do? Whoa, really? Yeah. Hey, I think we should pull up tagboard while we're. Yeah, let's get tagboard up on the monitor while we do this so people have that to check out. Don't post anything weird. That's beautiful. (Lara and audience laugh) Yeah. Alright, so first, Brooks, I want to ask you something. We got a comment here from Barb Levitt, and obviously we know a lot of people have been following 28 to Make, but we also have some people who are just discovering it now, and I wanted to clarify. Barb says, I love this. I'm so sorry that I missed this series. It sounds like so much fun and it's just what I needed. I just RSVPed and will it start up again soon? Could you explain that people who are just finding this now, if they RSVP today, they can still do this. Barb, have I got great news for you. (audience laughs) We used February as a way to launch the videos and kind of reveal the videos and jump in together to get a lot of examples all at once of people doing this and seeing what that work looks like, but these videos are there forever and the whole idea was that this is a tool that people can use and return to whenever they need it to start their 28 to Make. Because it takes 28 days to make or break a habit. This was not, we used February as like a fun kinda tie-in, but it's not a February thing. This is a you thing, whenever you need it. So jump in, start your videos, share them, share your projects as you do them, and we'll be following along and rooting for you and commenting and liking. But not creeping. (audience laughs) Highly recommend that you start on a Monday, because then the Saturday and Sunday videos will be in sync, so start right now, after you finish watching this. Yeah, 'cause today's Monday. In case you didn't know. (laughter) Ah! We got a question from Chase. First of all I wanted to say thanks to everyone, again, for tuning in. The question, so I was Facebooking when we started this broadcast and there was 12,000 people who are watching this as well, and a lot of the questions that I got were specifically about how do I start if I'm just now finding out about this thing? And so I think you just did a great job of answering that. Again, anyone can start at anytime, ideally on a Monday, but a follow on is like, what else do you guys have in store, which is, that was a big part of the questions, of the 279 questions that I got in that 10 minute broadcast. Can you talk a little bit about where this is goin', and then I have a little thing I'll throw in at the end of that, but, tell us where it's goin'. Yeah, so like I mentioned earlier, we're gonna be sending you a weekly project idea, so that's like the most direct descendant of the 28 to Make content, will be these weekly project ideas that give you another prompt to get started in exploring a different area of your creativity. It's all about maintaining that creative conversation with yourself and we'll always be 100% committed to putting together the best online graphic design and general creative educational content on the internet. So we're already working on tons of new classes for 2016, so stay in the loop on that and you will, as we send out these weekly project ideas, we'll send you out updates, let you know, in tandem, we're not gonna spam you. Promise. 'Cause once you sign up through the 28 to Make course page, you're on that special 28 to Make email list. So you'll be getting all of these special weekly projects. So it starts out daily. Basically you go 28 days and after you finish the 28, then you're in this. You'll get a weekly prompt. I'll also add, this is like a little hint for what's coming, is that I've been interviewing creative luminaries, literally the best of the best, on just a little interview show that I've had for a few years, and that's now on CreativeLive. And starting in April, the people that are on that list will get a little notification as a part of that daily or weekly email about some conversations, hour-long inspirational conversations, with like crazy, crazy luminaries, and the bigger that you can dream, the better we've reached out. We've got some super big names. I don't wanna blow the lid off this thing right now 'cause that'll take a little bit of the thunder out of the launch, but keep an eye on that. It is just another benefit to 28 to Make. It doesn't replace anything. It's just a little, what you call that? A little sugar. Mmm. It's a little sugar. It's a little sugar. Yeah, we'll go with sugar. (Lara laughs) Great, thanks, back to you guys, appreciate it. Cool. Thanks. We've got some more comments and questions comin' in here. I want to read this comment first. It's from Chandra who says, yes! I've been a gajillion times more productive on the mornings that I did the prompts. I'm halfway there. Thank you all of CreativeLive. It's been a phenomenal experience. So, Chandra's really been enjoying this so far. Go, Chandra. Chandra. And lots more comments like that. Here's a question for the two of you and this has been posed a couple of different ways, but the gist of it is, as Meeda posted it once, and we got a couple of votes on it, but, what was the most fun task that you've done? I mean, you must have had a favorite, or a couple of favorites that you've been doing over here. Anything that jumps out in your mind? (Brooks sighs) In terms of the projects? Yeah, the projects. Any one that's really memorable, that you enjoyed? I liked Notes in the Wild, 'cause I got really addicted to putting notes in strange and secret places for people to stumble upon. Yeah. So I'm actually doing that all the time now. (audience laughs) So that was kinda my. That's a good one. I had a lot, though. Yeah, there's a lot in our office now. (Lara and audience laughs) I think mine, honestly, was kind of the whole doodling thing. Like it was kinda crazy. I didn't, so I used to draw a lot, and then I kind of, you know, your life just takes weird turns and you end up doing stuff you never, I never in a million years I thought I'd end up doing what I'm doing, and I love it, but I haven't drawn in years, and I used to draw all the time, and I kind of forgot. And after week one, I actually neglected a lot of the projects, and we always recommend that you do this. If you find inspiration in something, follow the white rabbit. I keep using that imagery, but why not? Follow the white rabbit, and do the thing that's grabbing you in the moment. Don't feel like, oh well, today's lettering thing, I have to do the lettering thing. No, the whole point is to get you to that place where you're into doing something. And for me, I've been doodling like crazy. I went through I think three notebooks in February. Through three Field Notes and went back over it, because I ran out of paper and I was on the bus one time, and I just doodled over all my actual notes from meetings that day. (audience laughs) But yeah, that just really got me going. So I'd say the doodles. Yeah, I liked that first week, too, because I used watercolor, and I don't think I ever really used watercolor, in the way that I used it, and so now I've bought that extra sketch book with watercolor paper, and I'm actually making things that I wasn't making before. Cool, good question. Great. I wanna read this comment that came in from S.C. Seward who said, Lara was nice enough to like my daily projects and that made a huge difference. And the second part of this question, I think we really answered it, but she wanted to know, any advice for continuing on in the future. Other places for inspiration? I mean, they're gonna keep getting emails. The inspiration's gonna keep coming from this project. But any other sources of inspiration that you guys have that you might want to share with people out there as they're working on things like this? You want me? Yeah, you. Okay. (laughter) Yeah, so, obviously I told you, we're gonna be sending you ideas, inspiration, but like, I really think, for me it keeps coming back to this community thing. It's really easy, especially with the internet being the way that it is now, you see, even Kate, for example, right, you find Kate's Instagram and you're like oh my gosh, this has so much cool stuff, it's so interesting, and then you're like, but she's so famous and she'll never talk to me. This is a community of artists, that like internet fame is such a weird thing where it makes people seem inaccessible. You would be really surprised. I would really just recommend putting yourself out there, and starting conversations with people that inspire you, no matter what their following size or whatever. But take inspiration on their pieces, maybe do like riff from one of their ideas. So like if you were really inspired by Kate and you saw her drawing your beverages, you're gonna be like, I'm gonna draw a stranger's shoes that I see on the bus or whatever, and then like mention her in that, you know, show her and stuff and I guarantee you, like you just heard from her, she would be so excited to see that and maybe even give feedback. That kind of conversation, it's really important that you're not creating in a vacuum, and so I would say the community side of things, and obviously, you can go Google design inspiration and, bye. (laughs) That's a good one, too, but honestly, I think that that community and that conversation with yourself and with others is really, really key to staying inspired. And I think one thing that I'm gonna probably do is take a week of the assignments, like Kate's week, and do a daily drawing based on an everyday object. Are we gonna hold you accountable to that? (laughter) Is that what's happening? Yes. You heard it here first, people. (laughter) Lara McCormick. @LaraMC, or is it Lara Macaroon? Lara Macaroon. Lara Macaroon on Instagram. Follow her now to keep her accountable and guilt her if she doesn't do it. Yes. (Brooks laughs) Thank you for that. You're welcome. Yeah. Alright. Any more questions? Yeah, I'll give one last, anybody in the room have anything that they wanna ask, before we read some final comments that came in here? Everybody good? Well, alright, I wanna share some more positive comments. This one comes from Mark Rodriguez who says, after the first day, it jump started my illustration work, which had stagnated, and since then, I've created at least seven or eight new T-shirt designs since the beginning of this project. (clapping) Yeah! So that is proof people are creating actual, tangible things here. And Charlotte says, this was the coolest course. I even ended up with an idea for a novel. I'm very excited about the ebook, as well. So yeah, who knows? Sometimes you have an idea for a drawing, it turns into a novel, you never know where these ideas are gonna go. I think that we took the image out of the slide. Oh, it's actually right there, bottom left, that one. So, that post was really inspiring, in that vein. She shared that she was feeling friction to continue the projects and finish all 28 and it was feeling kind of dragging, 'cause it's hard. 28 days is a long time when you start trying to do something like this. And she was making a friend do it with her, and she was like why am gonna keep, why am I pushing myself to do this? And she shared a quote from this book that just shows how important it is, yeah. Like the things that people were writing and they're championing it on, you know? Like even if you missed a few days, that doesn't matter. You can pick up where you left off. You can jump ahead. Just as long as you're making. Yeah, and that woman was a photographer who was doing these kind of drawing and design projects and just that connection, connecting those dots is so important, and sometimes when you're doing it, it doesn't feel good, kinda like eating your vegetables sometimes. But it's giving you, But then afterwards. What you need. Yeah. Yeah. They're great. Great, let's do two more comments that came in here. One from Twitter, people still using the hashtag #28tomake, and this is from Catherine Short who says, I'm lost without 28 to Make, it's a sad day. But it's really not a sad day because it's gonna keep going, but for people who have finished it, some of them are sad that this is coming to an end, but lot's more creativity to come. And then a comment from MWS Designs who says, this course has been such a great opportunity, and I've loved being a part of it. I definitely want to keep going because I'm realizing that it's true, that the more creative things a person does, the more ideas are generated. So thanks CreativeLive for all of this. I could keep going on, there's tons and tons I know! coming on, but I know Awesome. I want to give you a chance to kind of wrap things up. Any final comments from you as people go out? I just, thank you for participating. All of the work was amazing, and all of the comments that went along with the work were so heartwarming, and you know, it's just like you said, like we are throwing a dance party, and are people gonna come and dance? And they danced. And they danced. (audience laughs) And they should start. And they're still dancing. Keep dancing, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I would say, make it count, whatever that means for you. You've made all this awesome stuff, now understand that what you made has immense value, and only you could've made the things that you made. I mean, it's so easy to hear someone say that or whatever, but when you really latch on to that, really let yourself believe that you're producing things of real value, the ideas will just keep coming, and people will want more, because that's what fuels us. We're social, communal creatures. We really feed off of each other, and we want to see what's most you about you. So keep making, we'll keep giving you ideas. Feel free to send us ideas. Once again, follow us on Instagram, CreativeLive Design, and keep that conversation going, let us know what you're making, @ mention us, and we will be right in there with you. But yeah, more than anything, thank you, it was really fun. Thanks you guys. Alright. (clapping)