I try and use self-critique of my older work to improve the fundamentals of new work. I feel like my understanding of how people see and react to work is steadily improving. It's hard though; there are a LOT of factors.

Well that's certainly a tricky one! Again can only speak for myself but I have found I can look back on old work and more easily see why it might have been a 'hard sell' - usually comes down to missing fundamentals of design: clear focal point & easy to read shapes, good colour theory, etc

It definitely helps me. With my 'design head' on, I'm very good at looking for problems/flaws to fix - but I need to actively practice switching that off the rest of the time, and looking for positives to appreciate. Hope it helps you too mate. :)

When you say you're 'trying not to fail', what is your definition of failure in that context? Is it to do with how you feel about your own work, or is it to do with connecting to an audience or sales? It's easy to get a bit mentally stuck with both those things!

I also skew quite negative with my thinking, so I practice gratitude. I list the things I'm happy with at the end of a day; this helps me develop a mindset where I am actively looking for positives. It doesn't always come naturally to me.

For me, I feel 'successful' when I'm achieving good work/life balance. If I'm overworking (which is sometimes the case with client-work/deadlines) then I can feel the potential for burnout and my eyes & brain get fatigued. It's harder to enjoy the work. Balance is good for me.

I'm going through old punk LPs at the moment and really enjoying some of the amazing 'fuck it' design choices for inlays and artwork. Definitely a charm to it!

Good work John!

Ha, I've began a few but never finished - I always seem to have deadlines with other work!

Somebody set up us the bomb!

All the best for today John and lovely to meet you yesterday

We're going on an adventure...

That's a good reminder I need to read the third book...!

Liking so I can come back and check reccos! Definitely not new but I recently started Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. So far so good.

I've only ever listened to it just for one day. 🙃