Periodperiodperiod blog — matters to me
Article on Authenticity & Fathers, Padres, Babbos Day soon!
Yesterday, the good folks at GFDA featured my article on creating from a place of authenticity. There's a snippet down below the photo, you can also find the whole thing here! And, a little reminder Father's Day is coming up, June 15 - if you need a card we have a lovely one for you & also a free shipping on orders over $20 offer  w/ the code 'popsmatter'! We can ship until Tuesday to arrive in time for your Papi, Vati, or Babbo. If in Detroit, I'm excited to be a speaker at ACD's 'Emergence' Conference June 12-15, here's a sneak peek of my talk. Hope all is well in your world. Summer seems to grabbing hold in New Orleans, soon to be hot, hot, hot! All my best & cheers, Tippy
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Creating from a place of integrity:
Dig deep—what would you do if you let yourself do anything?
It’s scary to trust yourself, to take risks, and to be honest with yourself, no matter what it is—professionally, creatively, or emotionally. When we do though, the most wonderful things happen. I believe that if you’re scared in some way, it’s likely that you're on the right path and the best things are ahead.Is it hard? Absolutely.As in anything, it takes the trying, doing, and practicing to achieve. When you allow yourself to be you, you will take more risks, create the best work, and discover true gratification. Curiosity, motivation, and enjoyment are unparalleled when being true to yourself.
My 2 cents on creating authentic and genuine work
1. Trust yourself. 2. Don’t compare yourself to others, don’t rush, pay attention to the details, try new things over & over & over again, don’t give up, and if something bothers you do not ignore it. Also, don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back or buy yourself a beer sometimes for keeping it real.
Create a toolkit for yourself
We have many toolkits and shortcuts given to us in our lives, sometimes it’s easy to forget that you can make your own too. I believe that life comes down to making a lot of decisions. For the tougher ones, I will lay out the core of each route and pick which makes the most sense, seems the most exciting, or is actually feasible at the time. To help in creative projects, I have ingrained these pairs as guides for my final decision making process for concepts: risk|unique + genuine|details + authentic|longevity = good to go. There is beauty in honestly feeling good about what you’re spending your time on and the great thing is, we can all have that beauty.
14 days in to our new year of 2014.
This was a special holiday, my family, gentleman friend, beloved furry friend Tonto, & I traveled to Key West. We roadtripped down and back from New Orleans, checking out Florida's west coast along the way. Having never visited the Keys, the Everglades, much less Florida below the panhandle area, it was exciting to explore and make the trek down to the southernmost point of the U.S. I even discovered a fellow Tippy in the middle of the everglades! Pic below, his name was Elvis Tippy, founder of this shop & restaurant and also chief of the local Indian tribe, unfortunately he has passed along. Hemingway, alligators, and swamp boats beckoned and biking the island, taking in the sea, and hanging in salty dive bars was a true treat and am SO grateful to have spent a great time w/ my dear ones in such a relaxing, beautiful place.
2013 was a challenging one and I am all the more determined to create a timeline for this year (and stick to it!!) allowing for lots of 'X-factor' time to meet/get well ahead of important deadlines throughout the year & creating new products at smart times. (Noticed these cool calendars on design milk, ordering a BIG one today for the studio!)
For the new year I'm also determined to take better care of myself, exercising more, more vino than beer, writing more, & allowing myself to take more regular breaks/relaxation. Part of this too is also allowing/creating more quiet, creative thinking time - and drawing. I really miss drawing & want to promise myself to let my creative mind wander, pen in hand more often. I've started protecting my morning time, when my creativity is at its best & leaving the nuts and bolts for later in the day.
Having enough money to do new projects is also a constant challenge, as part of my plan for the year I also want to tackle finding grants and indiegogo campaigns (earlier in the year) as part of my schedule and not an add on for evenings and weekends.
All in all, I'm grateful and excited for the year ahead. To begin, I'll be working more on three new topics which the three interns via Tulane's service learning - Sally, Taylor, & Elizabeth - made some great discoveries last semester on the following: Water, Bees, & Gun Violence.
I should get back to it, I hope that your year is starting off happily & wishing you all the best, cheers from NOLA!
Proud to be part of GOOD Ideas for Cities/Neighborland in New Orleans. Woohoo Broad to Bayou Bikeway + bikebusnola.com!
I was honored to be selected to be a part of the Neighborland + GOOD Ideas for Cities Initiative & part of the Better/Safer Biking Team this summer! Each team received $500 & a few weeks to spend on their group's project which started from Neighborland posts on city needs. Our Better Biking project resulted in the Broad to Bayou Bikeway & the textable bike to bus directions app & website bikebusnola.com! See our presentation video at NOMA here on GOOD.. don't worry it's not too long.
More about our process on guerilla signage & bike to bus app: To begin we created a survey of 'hotspots' for people to name the troublespots found on their travels through the city. With these results we then visited each site to see how we might help. Many of the trouble points or 'hotspots' were at sketchy or stressful intersections. We also found that better signage to help cyclists avoid stressful streets all together would be a big help safety-wise.
This led to thinking of bikeways throughout the city. These bikeways could be better highlighted, promoted, and developed. We re-named the Jeff Davis Parkway 'Broad to Bayou' to better illustrate which parts of town this bikeway can transport you to. Traveling again to the 'hotspots' we listed the signage needed & were lucky to find artvertising on Magazine could make our signs beautifully, on reflective aluminum to boot! they are such a delight to work with!
The bike to bus app/website helps everyone achieve cross-town destinations more quickly. Lucky to have team-mate Joel Carranza [app developer & web-guru] on board, he was able to use the recently released RTA data for bus info! If streetcars could add bike racks [especially from mid-city] this could also be added to this new transport web. The app is not only for smartphone use, as it texts you the directions, making it accessible for more people.
Big thanks to GOOD & Neighborland for making this happen, absolutely happy to be a part of! See a full list of projects here. Also, one of my fave signs below, this was later voted to be changed to 'stressy route' to be a little friendlier to the younger folks..
and one of our early tests up in the LGD creating better communication for cyclists, equalizing the information given regularly to cars.
Also, we got tagged! We feel legit : )
design love: just take a minute, or two!
can you do it? the challenge to simply take two minutes to enjoy the digital ocean break, thank you donothing for2minutes.com!
basics: food manifesto
please read this food manifesto by mark bittman - i wish these changes could all start and be underway tomorrow! why wait? why not today!!
i wholeheartedly and stomachly agree, this is incredibly important to our health and the good of the world.
gandhiwarmer DC, 2011
This weekend I visited DC to install the second gandhiwarmer event. It was truly another heartwarming success, still feeling the gandhiwarming buzz. [Last year this extra happiness stayed with me a couple of weeks!] We got some great press while there, thank you NBC Washington!
What matters to me?
Things that matter to me shift according to the time, but 4 things that matter to me always are [in random order]:
1. feeling fulfilled 2. my sweet doggie 3. friends and family 4. nature/the universe