Permission to be wrong and slow

Oh, and behind on everything, too!!

Hello dear friends!

I have been DEEP in the weeds the last few weeks, designing and coding an early version of a tool to help you bulk print photos for your journal.

For context, a few weeks ago I posted this on my Pouch Instagram. I had made a few fixes to Journal Helper, and at the end of the post, I pitched a few new tooling ideas:

I wrote:

Personally as an analog journaler, I've been aching for tools like these:

🖼️ Something to help you bulk-print (crop, resize, etc) photos for your journal
🔎 Something to help you track and preview your analog sticker collection

LMK if either of these resonate with you, or if you have other analog journaling problems you'd love help with!! I'll be fiddling around with some ideas this month and next 💖

I got SO many comments on this (THANK YOUUU!!), and it’s clear that there’s demand for a tool to help us bulk print photos.

I’ve been working on this bulk print tool for the last few weeks, and today I wish I was writing an announcement declaring, HERE IS A PROTOTYPE or something along those lines!!

But… it’s not ready yet and I need more time.

GAH! I hate needing more time!! 😆

So today I’m going to tell this story: My ongoing attempt to accept the reality that, despite my best efforts to do things right and to do things fast, I will inevitably do things wrong and slow anyway. Despite my desire to be “on top of everything” — to keep up with news, to keep up with the stationery community, to keep up with texts and emails and DMs and newsletters and videos and events and parties and friends and family and everything else — I shall, in fact, be ALWAYS BEHIND.

This is not a story of defeat, though! The more that I accept this reality, the freer I feel. Being wrong and slow and behind is not “failure” because it is not skippable, especially as someone working solo and doing a lot of things for the first time ever.

Hope you enjoy today’s newsletter, and I’ll keep you updated on the tool! 💖

♡ vrk

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📔 A case study in being unavoidably wrong and slow

I’ve already talked a lot in the past about how I designed covers for Pouch: Here I showed the redesign of Pouch Issue 1’s cover, and here, the process of designing Pouch Issue 2’s¹.

Today I want to tell another Pouch cover design story, but from a different angle: Rather than focus on the design process, I want to focus on why my early mistakes were unavoidable.

Here’s the story of how I tried my best to avoid making newbie mistakes when designing my first cover of Pouch, and how I made all the mistakes anyway.

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🔎 SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

To quickly recap my past cover tales:

• Pouch Issue 1’s cover took me 6 months to make, and the process was painful and frustrating.

• A year later, Pouch Issue 2’s cover took me 1 week to make, the process was relatively smooth, AND the cover is (imo) much stronger than Issue 1’s.

Here’s a visual summary, too:

Upon hearing that Cover One took me 6 months of suffering while Two came together in just one week, a natural question might be, How could I have gone faster on that first cover??

What should I have done differently to get the results of Cover Two on my first attempt rather than a year later, and in 1 week rather than in 6 months?

If you look at the diagram above, you’ll see that process-wise, I approached Cover One and Two in remarkably similar ways:

• I started by sketching some possible covers.

• From the sketches, I chose my favorite one, then I drew it properly.

• Both times I made a first attempt to color the drawing, then after coloring, realized I needed to improve the underlying line art loll 😆

• I improved the line art, then colored it again.

• I finished the design.

However, with Cover Two, at this point of the process I had a result I was delighted with, but at this same point for One, I had a cover that I later realized didn’t serve me at all and that I needed to completely redo from scratch 3 months later.

So what the heck caused this difference??

🐣 I didn’t know what I was doing

Well, quite simply, with One I didn’t know what I was doing, and by Two, I did.²

I can tell you now all the things the cover of a magazine needs to communicate:

• It’s the at-a-glance introduction of your magazine to the world.

• It explains who’s the audience for your magazine.

• It expresses the tone and personality of your magazine.

• It’s an expression of your brand. The cover of your latest issue becomes the symbol / icon for your magazine. It’s almost functions like a logo.

• Of course, it also gives a preview of the content of this specific issue.

On top of that, there’s a lot to consider regarding the technical execution of the cover:

• 🖼️ The composition of the cover must consider the composition of the drawing and the text at the same time. You can’t just make a “good drawing,” separately, and plop it into a “cover design” and expect a good result.

• 🖋️ The line art of the drawing needs to support the colors. A pen drawing looks totally different when colored. Mistakes are harder to hide, empty spaces are accentuated and, without care, the illustration can feel really flat.

• 🎨 The colors, alone, tell its own story. You can’t just choose “good colors” for the cover; the colors can dramatically change what you end up communicating. Your colors must be in harmony with your message.

When I made Pouch 1’s cover, I had not internalized all of the above.

For instance, I had sketched several options for Cover One, but I didn’t know what a “good” cover was. I also didn’t know that I didn’t know this! At the time, I thought a cover just needed to be pretty, so I simply chose the “prettiest” sketch and I didn’t consider “communication” at all when evaluating my options. It’s not surprising that the sketch I chose ultimately didn’t serve my communication goals — at this point I didn’t know I had communication goals — and so it’s not surprising I later had to redo this cover completely.

But with Two, before I put pen to paper, I already had a much better understanding of what a cover needed to accomplish beyond looking nice. From that foundation, I could pick a sketch that served my goals much better, and I ended with a much better result much faster.

🤷‍♀️ What would I change?

If I could go back in time and change how I approached Cover One, what would I do differently? What would I change?

A better question is, what could I change? And the answer to that is nothing.

The only thing I’d change — the only thing I could change — is my hubris in thinking there was any way I could do things “right” on my first try!

The journey from the sketch on the left to the cover on the right took roughly 1.5 years, but now I believe that’s the fastest I could have gone.

I mean OK yes, in the last section I explained what I didn’t understand when attempting Cover One, and I claim this knowledge marks the key difference between past-me and now-me. But even if I could somehow send this information to me-of-two-years-ago, it wouldn’t have helped. It’s not like simply understanding a concept is the same as internalizing it and being able to execute upon it.

The hours and hours I spent on Cover One was not me being inefficient; it was me taking the time I needed to learn and improve.

Early in my journey to become a better artist & designer, multiple people told me the story of “1000 pots.” The saying goes, if you’re trying to master ceramics, you shouldn’t spend months trying to make 1 single perfect pot — you’ll end up with an overworked pile of clay, and a really bad pot. Instead, you should focus on making 1000 pots. Quantity over quality. By your 1000th pot, you’ll be making pots perfectly.³

I heard this story and I believed it — I still very much believe it!

Yet, despite knowing and believing the whole “1000 pots” thing, I still spent waaaaaay too long spinning on the same design for Pouch 1’s cover rather than moving on and trying something new.

Yes, I realize this is super meta: I’m saying that even with the “1000 pots” lesson, the parable that illustrates how you need lots of experience repeatedly doing a thing in order to master it, I NEEDED TO EXPERIENCE A FAILURE TO FOLLOW THIS LESSON in order to properly understand its message 😭

The actual act of drawing something, coloring it, and going WHOA that looks way different than I thought it would —

The actual act of spending weeks finishing a cover that looks good but isn’t communicating what it needs to —

The actual act of looking at the calendar and realizing HOLYYYY did I just spend 6 months on the SAME DESIGN???

These collective acts of trying and failing and making a million mistakes: This is the only path!

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🪞 The permission to learn

Why am I talking about covers today?

In my intro to today’s newsletter, I explained the situation with my bulk print software tool. I’m currently in the weeds putting it together, and man, I really want to do things right and fast.

My burning desire to do things right means that I’m constantly questioning, “Am I doing things right??”

Every step of the way, I second-guess myself. After the Instagram post, I wrote a simple product document outlining what might go into a bulk print tool:

Immediately after writing it, the cacophony of second-guessing began:

• 🤔 Everyone says when you’re designing products, you need to talk to lots of potential users first. Have I talked to people enough? Is it too soon to write a document like this?

• 🤔 Should I have done more user research before making these product decisions?

• 🤔 Should I have conducted interviews? But wouldn’t that take forever? Wouldn’t that be way too much talking and planning and not enough doing? Shouldn’t I be 1000 pots-ing this?

Next, I sketched some ideas in Figma for what the tool might look like:

The second-guessing swelled louder:

• 🤨 Am I ready to design yet? Maybe I should get feedback on my product ideas first.

• 🤨 Are these designs too high-fidelity? Am I zooming in on one design too soon? Should I make more possible designs?

• 🤨 Should I be getting design feedback before I continue?

After sketching one viable design, I decided to start coding a prototype:

This is a screenshot of my current work-in-progress tool!! Not working yet and VERY UGLY but getting there lol

The second-guessing has now reached max volume:

• 🧐 Aren’t I coding way too soon???

• 🧐 Everyone tells me that jumping to code too quickly is a mistake. This feels like “too quickly,” right?? Shouldn’t I do more validation?

• 🧐 But how do I do more validation? If my designs look bad, and I don’t even have a prototype, what the heck am I validating??

Meanwhile, in the background, my desire to move quickly is also shouting at me:

• 🗣️ ALL THIS THINKING IS SLOWING YOU DOWN

• 🗣️ YOU’RE SO SLOW

• 🗣️ GO FASTER

• 🗣️🗣️🗣️ GO!!!!

(It can be VERY LOUD in my brain sometimes!!! 😆)

I happen to be working on software right now, but my inner monologue sounds very similar to what I remember hearing while making Pouch Cover One: Why does this look so bad? Why are you doing everything wrong? Why are you going so slow?

But I can look back and know now, with confidence, that there was no other path for Cover One. I made mistakes because I didn’t know how to avoid them yet. I went slow because that was the only speed available then.

As I write my software and hear these familiar voices in my head, I’ve found that this time I can speak back to them. I find myself repeating, like a mantra, “It’s fine. I’ll just do it wrong and slow. It’s OK to be wrong and slow.”

And, “This is the learning. You can’t skip the learning.”

I really wasn’t being facetious when I said if I could change one thing about how Pouch Cover One went, it’d be to confront my hubris that expected me to do things right the first time — the hubris that thought I could somehow outsmart the whole “being a beginner” thing. This is what I want to do differently: I want to give myself permission to take the time I need, make mistakes, and learn.

I’ll do things right once I learn how to do them right. I’ll do things fast once I learn how to do them fast. In the mean time, I’m… just gonna do it!!!

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📚 PS: I’m also behind on everything

WELL!

A consequence of doing things wrong and slow is I’m also way behind on everything I want to get done lollll.

But I reiterate: This is not a story of defeat!! It’s a story of acceptance.

What changes when I accept being wrong, slow, and behind on everything?

1. I am physically a lot more comfortable 😂 I’m less stressed about all the mistakes I’m making, how slow I’m going, and how behind I am. It’s happening and it’s unavoidable! There’s no need to stress; this is all to be expected.

2. I have more energy. I’m spending my energy planning for this reality rather than wasting my energy trying to prevent it from happening.

3. I say no to way more things. I NEED to protect my time. Because not only do I need time to make things, I need time to make things slowly and incorrectly and then I need even more time to go back and fix my mistakes. That means I MUST clear my calendar to focus on building software, even if that means dropping a lot on the floor. For instance, I haven’t posted on Instagram in 3 weeks — oh well!! My Substack is a bit late — oh well!! I can’t work on Pouch 3 right now or other related fun things — bahhhhh I wish I could but I can’t!! I’ve had to say no to some exciting opportunities with Pouch because I can’t right now! I need time!! I need to be extremely selective with how I choose to spend my time, forgive myself for dropping the ball constantly, and let go of FOMO. I can’t do everything. Actually it’s more extreme than that: In order to have time to do just one thing well, I need to do very little else.

4. Yet I’ve also given myself more time to meander. This point is weird and contradictory to the previous one, but… I notice I am also more open to the occasional meandering. Within reason, of course!! I still gotta make sure I’m spending enough time doing the thing. But when I know that I’m gonna be wrong, slow, and behind anyway… I can let go of discipline and follow my zoomies sometimes!

I’ll leave you with two such meanderings from last month.

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🌲 Two meanderings

1) A talk I didn’t give

In June, there was an event for a “creative technologists show & tell” happening near my apartment. I felt the urge to give a tech talk for the first time in years! Specifically, I wanted to give a tech talk presenting Pouch magazine as a technical product, because that is another angle through which I view Pouch myself.

I prepped a talk, but the event ended up not being a good fit for it, so I dropped out.

Still, I’m proud of the talk I cobbled together!

The talk: https://vrk.mmm.page/jun0305-demo

It’s pretty easy to follow along if you want to read the presentation. I’ll work on it again at some point, probably when I have an appropriate venue for this. Feel free to comment below or reach out if you have any ideas!

2) A zine for a friend

My friend Michael Hsu became a US citizen last month, and he and his partner Julia invited me and other friends to witness the occasion. It was a complex day, as the nature of the task, especially at this particular moment in America, felt equal parts celebratory, unsettling, and absurd.

But there was an unambiguously fun aspect of the day: Because phones aren’t allowed in the courthouse, we drew pictures to capture what happened!

The day had so much meaning and emotion, and our drawings were so fun and lively, I felt the urge to capture it in a zine! I combined the drawings along with quotes, photos, feelings, and memories from the day to create a zine called HSU-S-A.

I printed 20 copies and gave 15 to Michael & Julia, kept 5 for myself and fellow zine friends. It’s not for sale, but you can read most of it below.

Read HSU-S-A: https://leaflet.pub/f35bca05-1cf5-4e32-b51f-e1168bca1f8f

It felt wonderful to take time to celebrate a dear friend of mine, and to make something to help us collectively process and remember the moment. We love you, Michael!! 💞

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Alright, that’s it for today! I’m going to do some stretching and get back to coding. Tool ready soon, I hope!! Well I guess if I learn my own lesson, it’ll be done when it’s done 💓

Till next time!! 🐤

1. Though, misleadingly, my essay literally entitled How to draw a cover is not really about drawing covers lol

2. Probably obvious but I’m not trying to say that Pouch Issue 2’s cover is PERFECT and now I know EVERYTHING there is to the art of cover design 😂 I am still, all things considered, a beginner to the craft. But I have a significantly better grasp of what I’m doing than I did before!!

3. Tried to find the history of this parable, and many people online attribute it to this quote from Art & Fear. But in my reading of it at least, it seems like Art & Fear is also retelling an old parable, so I suspect that’s not the origin of it, either. Let me know if anyone can confirm or deny!