Debbie Millman: Why Design Matters—and the Courage to Create New
“I think what makes it much more difficult have the courage, to continue to experiment, you know, look at somebody like Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones, people that at their moment of peak success, commercially said, you know, I'm going to do jazz now, or I'm going to do instrumental now, or I'm going to do something else now. And you know, the word once again, you know, that changed the world. Even Dylan, when he went electric, you know, the world hates that, you know, we're supposed to be able to deliver an expectation that people are used to and feel comfortable with. And I think any type of huge success like that really sets you up to feel like you can't veer from that without either disrupting your level of success, or disappointing people, or outraging people, you know, the very things that thrill and delight and excite. Some people are the very things that outrage others. And once you start to have to gauge where you're going to sit in that continuum, you know, I think the original work is then pretty much obliterated.” So says Debbie Millman, author, educator, curator and host of one of the first, and longest running podcasts, Design Matters. Debbie is a creator to her core - she started her career at Sterling Brands, one of the world’s leading branding consultancies, and for twenty years led the company as President, working on the logo and brand identity for some of the world’s most prominent brands, from Burger King, Hershey’s, Haagen Dazs and Tropicana, to Star Wars and Gillette. Her writing and illustrations have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, and Fast Company. She is the author of seven books, the co-owner and editorial director of PrintMag.com, and co-founded the world’s first graduate program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her podcast, which has been nominated for six Webby awards, has been highlighted on over 100 “Best Podcasts” lists and was designated by Apple as one of their “All Time Favorite Podcasts”, has spent the past 17 years interviewing nearly 500 of the most creative people in the world.
Today she joins me to discuss her most recent book, Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People. This book, Debbie tells us, was born of her desire to stoke her own creative fire in a time when she was working as a creative but feeling artistically dead. Debbie regales us with tales of the creative processes of the greats, including the inevitable failures, rejections, and obstacles that are part of any creative journey, showing us how they persevere to create beauty in the face of adversity. In our conversation, we discuss the danger of expectations, the courage it takes to create and questions around who gets to call themselves an artist. We talk about the stereotype of the pained artist, finding inspiration, and how she teaches her students to refine and create their original voice. She leaves us with her thoughts about personal brands and the way in which they limit our identity and our ability to continually pursue the new or experimental.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Fear around the new…(10:15)
Who gets to call themselves an artist?...(17:50)
The courage in experimentation…(22:52)
On personal brands…(43:00)
MORE FROM DEBBIE MILLMAN:
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
Listen to Debbie’s Podcast, Design Matters on Apple Podcasts
Follow Debbie on Twitter and Instagram
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN:
Going back to this idea of the first podcast too. I loved that it was, it was kind of a con job, right? Like they convinced you to do this podcast and then made you pay for the airwaves.
DEBBIE MILLMAN:
Yeah. I mean, I don't think that they were doing anything nefarious. I just assumed they were offering me a job, but this was their way in which they were creating a business model, and I just sort of got suckered into it. But you know, there there's a cost to everything/
ELISE:
They buried the lede.
DEBBIE:
But it was money worth spending because of how long I've been doing it now.
ELISE:
So interesting to me, obviously you're highly visual person work, you know, your career is in design, and yet there's so much power in audio. And in this idea too, of letting people imagine, right? Like when you hear someone's voice, there's no, there's nothing attached to it. It must've felt well, I guess I'm curious, like, did it feel like a departure? Did it feel like a natural extension? I know you wanted to re-ignite your own creative fire?
DEBBIE:
I really wasn't thinking long-term about it. I wasn't thinking about ramifications or possible obstructions in terms of seeing versus listening. I was really just looking for a way, as you said, to reignite my creative spirit and this was the only opportunity that was provided. And so it was, as I've said in the past a Hail Mary to my creative life. And at that point, you know, beggars can't be choosers, so to speak. And this was all I was being offered and thought that it was something that could be fun and then started doing it.
ELISE:
Yeah, well maybe it was a divine intervention, you know, I think like sometimes when you're paying attention, these moments come in strange places and we're always obviously taught to recognize them as like in a celebrated or grand way. But the reality is you put yourself in motion and then things start to happen.
DEBBIE:
Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting. I was just watching the TV show Devs. I don't know if you've seen it at allwith Nick Offerman. It's about a sort of fictitious AI technology company that figures out that there are multiple universes. So the multi-verse theory and many, many worlds. And what is free will and what is determined. And it's something that I think about all the time, really this show was just a treat for me to be able to watch, but this is something I think about and wonder about, you know, how did we get here? Why are we here? Who else is here? And the idea that this could have been one of my big life's purpose is, but I ended up stumbling into it from a cold call just feels way too haphazard.
ELISE:
No, I think that that's how it is. And it's interesting reading. I haven't read every interview yet. I love just sort of walking by, picking up the book, opening it, actually haphazardly and being like, who am I supposed to hear from today? But there are so many stories of failure, rejection, which seems to be part of any creative path. It's like detours, cul-de-sacs, dead-ends, and rejectio,n and failure. Um, I loved like, um, uh, who was it? He was saying, she was like, I'm just so happy that my work was received while I was still alive.
DEBBIE:
This is just my, I'm sort of endlessly fascinated by how people overcome their obstacles and end up still, despite it all doing something beautiful.
ELISE:
Meaningful. Yeah. I want to talk about the difference between art, design, the work. Um, and then I also, I want to go back to something that you just said, which I think is interesting too, about how this comp this difference between free will and predetermination. And I've always found like it's somewhere in the middle, right? Like there is, of course we have choice and we can make things as difficult for ourselves as we choose. And we're given many hurdles struggles, traumas, both big T, little T, but that it's also available. Like you can either step into sort of what's available or you can avoid, I don't know, that's how I've always experienced it. And that the door I have to imagine with you, like this was one lob and that maybe it would have come back around in some other version and you just answered an early call.
DEBBIE:
It's such a mystery to me. And I guess that's why I think about it as often as I do, which sort of seems kind of depressing because I'm never really going to have an answer. That would be too much to ask for, I think, but I also am really, really, fascinated by the theories that are put forth in the movie Arrival, about time being really circular, circular, rather, um, cyclical, um, as opposed to linear. And I can't help but wonder if this notion of being able to understand a life is something that we are born with, but ultimately can't realize until were.
ELISE:
I mean, these are some of my favorite conversations. Why are we here? What's the point? What is the nature of time? I can really take us on some wormholes, but I think what's, what's what I sense in you as, and it's interesting to me that you were working as a creative, right? Like you were working as a designer, you theoretically had this dream career as a creative person that provided both some version of an outlet, though I know you were always constrained by what the client wants and the paycheck. But sort of the structured life of creativity and that you still felt creatively dead. And that you've managed to find, or maybe I don't wanna put words in your mouth, maybe not dead, but that you wanted to re-stoke some sort of fire and that your work now, so much of it is in examining the creative process with other creatives. And so that's interesting. Is it like, do you, is it a search to understand where that creative impulse comes from? Like what it is that drives people to bring matter really or make matter or make matter of matter, like bring stuff into the world? Like, is that what's, is that the deepest curiosity?
DEBBIE:
I think that certainly a big part of it. I think I'm fascinated by, or in, the sort of magic of making something that wasn't there before. You know, how do you create something from nothing? And then what is the journey to do, making that, to doing that, to fulfilling that, what does that look like for people? Because it was so, because I struggled so much in my teens and my twenties and my thirties, and really didn't get any kind of traction to my career until I was in my forties. I am really interested in how people find the courage to make their lives, what they want them to be at any time but particularly when they're younger. To be able to step into the courage of the unknown in a way that I really had a hard time doing.
ELISE:
It's interesting. So you find inspiration in younger people who are fully creatively expressed, like, do you, I feel like, I didn't know Jack shit when I was 20. I certainly thought I did.
DEBBIE:
I know. And I look at artists like Billie Eilish or athletes like Simone Biles. And I'm like, how did they find this courage to live in the life that they fantasize or envision? Like, it just doesn't even seem possible to me. And even in the young students that I teach, they are beginning in their senior year of college, which is when I get to them, they're already starting to edit what is possible in their lives before they even try to see if it's possible, because they have self doubt or self-loathing or insecurities or shyness. And so I feel like my job at that point in their lives is to say, no, this is the time when you can try anything. It's never going to be any easier than it is right now to fall flat on your face. Little to no consequence.
ELISE:
Yeah. I mean, don't you feel too, like life is, is an it's constant resurrection, right? Like it's just, you fall, you get up, it's constant transition, resurrection, remaking yourself. So I think two of them, as you think of someone like, Billie, who is in so many ways as a voice for a generation speaking, maybe a new language, the person I was thinking of was Marilyn Minter. And she talks about like, you know, finding those new languages. I thought that was such a resonant moment of how scary it is to hear something new, or to create something new.
DEBBIE:
How much outrage there tends to be. How people tend to not approach things with glee. They are skeptical and apprehensive about accepting anything that they haven't either seen before or experienced before or tasted before. And, and that skepticism seems to be fairly universal for most people. The only people that really, like I say, brand design changes are brand designers. The only people that like to experiment with new flavors and foods, generally speaking, are the people making those groups. So it's a lot harder for, for people to experience, change with a sense of hope and possibility.
ELISE:
But she talks about Marilyn Minter talks about, at some point, if you make work for long enough, the zeitgeist will find you. And then you think about these early creators and then the pressures and you see it with Madonna or Gaga, or, you know, Billie, this need to be constantly creating new language or pushing. And that's a hard path. You start walking when you are a teenager. That is a lot of pressure.
DEBBIE:
That's a lot of pressure. And, and I worry for, I mean, you know, I'm sure they're not staying up worrying about me, but I worry about these young artists because it's such a benchmark to have to maintain. It's such a level of greatness that's so hard to sustain. And I can only say this now because I'm older, but I'm glad that it took a little bit longer for me than it might have only because I don't know that I'd be able to sustain it.
ELISE:
Yeah. I think in longevity and endurance, particularly in the creative process where people clearly, I don't know where, what you think people are pulling down. I think we're all, you know, connected to some sort of collective conscience and we have different channels for bringing it down. And some of our, some of us are more refined at it than others. Um, and we obviously work in different ways, but to maintain that level over a lifetime, and you've talked to people many times where you've tracked people now for decades, which is so interesting. How many examples do you think of people who can produce at the same level or is it usually a undulating career or is it just slow? I feel like there's certain generations now there's this idea that you're creating daily, right? Hourly you're posting you're sharing, and that was never the pace. Everything's getting so much faster. So how do you see that in terms of the people whose careers you've tracked? Like what, what do you think is an appropriate pace?
DEBBIE:
Well, I think, I think that really depends on the person, but, you know, I can't help but reference, um, my interview with David Lee Roth, which I've talked about before, but I sort of feel like this is, this is something I should talk about in any interview that I do just because it was so profound. Um, when I interviewed him a couple of years ago, um, I asked him what it felt like to be the most popular rock star in the world back in 1984, when he was the front man of Van Halen, and their album 1984 came out. And it was the biggest album of the year and the biggest tour of the year. And he could do no wrong. You know, he was, he really was the most popular dude on the planet. And I asked him what that felt like. What does it feel like to have something like that happen?
And he said that have to be really careful when you get to the tallest mountain that there is. The top of the tallest mountain, because it's always cold. You're usually alone, and there's only one direction to go. And that is something that has stayed with me ever since he said it. One, it makes me feel better about the length of time it took me to begin to get any traction in my own career, but also, because I think that there's something to be said for taking slow steps up that mountain. And then hopefully being able to savor the journey without feeling impatient, with having some faith that, you know, one foot in front of the other will get you to that top at some point. And then hopefully if you're lucky, you won't peak until the day before you die, really meaningful and slow.
But people that I feel like there that have sustained a level of excellence, um, in their careers from, from a designer's perspective, I would say Paula Scheer, she's in her early seventies. Now, I don't think she's peaked yet. Emily Oberman. Who's just a little bit younger than I am and is doing some of the greatest work of her career and his head really three significant stages. Um, first when she worked for Tibor Kalman and Company, and that could have been seen as a peak then when she had her own firm, Number 17. Um, and that was certainly, you know, a peak and now at Pentagram where, you know, she's doing, she's still doing the Saturday Night Live titles and has done the now I think for 30 years and every year they get better and better. So I'm going, I do think that there are people that, that do that and do it consistently.
ELISE:
Yeah. I mean, there's, it's interesting. Um, I was a fine arts and English major in college, and I love doing, I went to Yale. Incredible MFA program. So the upside of being an art major is that you had these incredible working artists who were your TAs and then like Catherine Opie and Gregory Crewdson, and all of these people taught classes, which is so wild. And, but I'm not, I'm not an artist, but I loved that process. And I thought it taught me so much, like the moments in between when you're painting something and it looks so terrible and finding the faith that you're gonna get it to something on the other side that you could at least show, or put up, you know, be graded on. And, but I thought so much about my aversion to, and I think partly my college boyfriend is the grandson of Anne Truitt, so I spent a lot of time with Anne Truitt, who's the most, maybe the most remarkable person I've ever experienced in the flesh.
And so I thought so much about like, who gets to call themselves an artist, and the process of creating versus defining. And I was always so, like, I'm not, I'm not an artist I'm taking art classes. I like to be a student, I'm writing my first book under my own name after ghostwriting 12 books, because I've always had an aversion to calling myself a writer. There's something about defining and I love, I think it was Milton Glaser at the beginning of the book. He's like, I just call it the work. Like just call it work. It doesn't have to be art, or design, it's work. And I love that because it's this ongoing creative process. Like, how do you think about that too, in terms of ego who calls themselves, like how we define ourselves. When we get too attached to the outcome versus the process? Like, what do you, what have you observed in studying people?
DEBBIE:
That's a great question. I think that it really depends largely on the size of a person's ego, in terms of what they're willing to call themselves. I also like you, have had a really hard time with self descriptors. I'll say I'm an author before. I'll say I'm a writer. Especially now that I'm married to one of the world's greatest writers, I feel very feeble if we both introduce ourselves as writers. Like please. I also don't really feel like I could use the word artist, which is why I'll use the word designer. So I relate to everything that you're saying. I think the only thing I feel really good about saying is that I'm a teacher because I do teach. And I have been for a long time, although, you know, all of these things I've been doing for a long time, so why is one easier than another? I think probably my guess is that the notion of being an artist or a writer to me feels more special, that you weren't able to make something original, and do it in a way that is somehow speaking to some deep human need, or trait, or aspect.
ELISE:
And I think that's so powerful, even that word, original, originator, like our origin. That essential essence that only you have access to and can bring into the world. And I like the word it's funny. I just went to this retreat and we were trying to let go of things. And I'm about my book is overdue, I'm handing it in any week. I'm never late. So this is big for me, but a friend who read it with like, you know, you need to authorize yourself.
And part of it is the book is about sort of this art, our adherence or desire to listen to authorities who define us instead of doing that self-definition. So I think I have some sort of allergy to it, but she was like, you need to authorize yourself. You cannot be a questioner and an author in a way. I know you, you have a book, that's essentially a series of interviews. She was like, you're equivocating. And just fucking say it like you, instead of trying to sort of lead people there, you have to authorize herself. And it's really…I'm working on it because I think that there's with any creative process, you're also offering something to the world and you're hoping it resonates. And you have to have the faith that if it doesn't resonate in that moment, that it might eventually, but it's such a hard act.
DEBBIE:
Or, or not. I mean, that's one of the things that I love about Seth Godin's latest book, The Practice, which is just about making the work and putting it out there and letting the work live, and being able to grow from every experience and everything that you make has value, and that it will either teach you something, or share something that resonates or not. But that if you're looking to make things with a specific response that is required, then you're not really making it for the sake of making it, you're making it for the sake of some sort of affirmation or response that is really, I think, putting too much of an expectation in the process.
ELISE:
Yeah, no, and expectations are very dangerous. Um, and I think it goes back to that, like defining once I get to the top of the mountain, you know, I think it goes to this idea of fear, safety, security, like once time my work is revered and accepted, then I belong or I have, I have a livelihood or,
DEBBIE:
But that's also, I think what makes it much more difficult to, to have the courage, to continue to experiment, you know, look at somebody like Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones, people that at their moment of peak success, commercially said, you know, I'm going to do jazz now, or I'm going to do instrumental now, or I'm going to do something else now. And you know, once again, you know, that change. The world…even Dylan, when he went electric, you know, the world hates that, you know, we're supposed to be able to deliver an expectation that people are used to and feel comfortable with. And I think any type of huge success like that really sets you up to feel like you can't veer from that without either disrupting your level of success, or disappointing people, or outraging people, you know, the very things that thrill and delight and excite some people are the very things that outrage others. And once you start to have to gauge where you're going to sit in that continuum, you know, I think the original work is then pretty much obliterated.
ELISE:
So where do you think that courage comes from?
DEBBIE:
Probably good parenting. I know enough to know that Ricky Lee Jones didn't have that. So I don't know. I would think that it was from good parenting, but again, because I just interviewed Ricky Lee Jones and read her memoir I know that that's not the case. I always thought it would be for me, like, oh, if I only had, then I would be, um, but there are plenty of people that don't have and still are. So, um, I think it comes from being profoundly original and being restless about that originality. But I can tell you that in all the interviews that I've done and it's nearing 500 at this point, there are very few people and I can count them on one hand that still at the point that I was interviewing them were concerned about their relevance, their creativity, their originality, being able to do it again, maintaining a sort of level of excellence in their work, worried that they weren't going to be able to do it again. There are very few people that just seem to rest on their laurels that I've interviewed real great artists that, that I've interviewed.
ELISE:
Well, it's funny that you say that to good parenting because obviously the stereotype is like you have to write from pain and or create from these wounds, which is probably not a helpful stereotype, particularly for people who feel like they have no raw material on which to draw from. But I wonder if it's not, if it isn't, it feels like in order to create something new, you can't necessarily belong to the old, right. So that probably for each person, there's this feeling of otherness, outsiderness, trying to understand or distill a world that seems at moments to be quite incomprehensible. Like that feels like an igniting spark of wanting to make sense, meaning, matter out of chaos, like creative chaos,which does feel, and the chaos continues. So in that way, like complacency isn't, I think we're all getting the memo. Like we can't really be complacent about anything in this hot mess.
DEBBIE:
Well, I mean, I think that there's, there's to be said for deep pain, inspiring profound output, no question. But I also think that there's something to be said for having a sense of ease about how you approach something. And this is something that I heard Elizabeth Gilbert talk about where she felt that there's this sort of stereotype of the pained artist, the struggling artist, and those are certainly valid for a lot of people, but there's a certain ease that if you're able to bring to your work allows you to create in a much more free way. And I I've had my own experiences of trying to make something and find myself sort of fighting with the canvas or fighting with whatever medium I'm trying to make something in, and feeling like everything I do when I'm in that state is very tight and really tortured. But when I come to something with a bit more ease, it just feels more fulfilled somehow.
ELISE:
Well, I think when you're in, when you're in it, when you're in the pain in the wound, it's hard to, it's hard to create, I don't want to say that it's hard to create anything of meaning, but I think it's hard to create something that someone else can consume and understand and learn from. And that once, once the process, once you're done with the processing, even the post-processing, once that there's a scar, then I think it's something that can feed other people or that feels that way, you know in activism, et cetera. Like you can tell when people are coming out of pain, which is very valid obviously, but then you can also tell when people are coming from healed pain doesn't mean that it's less fiery, but it's a little bit more formed, or a little bit more accessible and less scary, I think. So when you're making things, do you process, do you just make, do you have a process or do you have an idea that you're trying or do you just let it come?
DEBBIE:
Kind of all of the above? It depends on whether or not I have deadline. I'm very motivated by deadlines. And it also depends on whether or not I have an idea if I have an idea to do something, if I am lucky enough to feel like some inspiration is hit prior to my starting something, then I'll follow that path. But there are lots of times where I don't have an initial idea and then I have to struggle to find an entry point. And that is where the struggle versus ease comes from. I find that if I give myself enough lead time before starting something, then I will have some way in which to have an idea to begin to initiate. I also tend to find ideas when I'm walking. And so I again give myself enough lead time and put it out of my head, but then spend time, you know, sort of being more physical. Then ideas will pop in kind of like magic. And I'm so grateful when that happens, because I'm not the person, the kind of person that's like, okay, now we have to come up with a good idea. Just doesn't want to get where some people can find good ideas on the spot. Somebody like Christophe Niemann, who's constantly, daily, showing off his genius. And I'm like, how do you do that? How do you sit down and say, I'm going to come up with an idea now, right now about this. And he's told me that it takes hours, but it seems effortless to him effortless.
ELISE:
So interesting. Well, and I know when you interview, you prepare like a maniac, right? You read everything. And typically I try too, just so I can relax. It's funny. Like I often don't, I don't necessarily even use it, but I feel like there's something about being ill-prepared that is a barrier to me ever being able to get into flow.
DEBBIE:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I do my research really so that I can come to an interview at ease.
ELISE:
Yeah. It's so interesting. It's interesting. And I love that. I don't know if it was someone writing about you or you were saying that at one point at the beginning of your career interviewing, a friend was like, well, you should just listen, like be in conversation.
DEBBIE:
It was a guest, the second interview. I interviewed a friend then was anxious for her stamp of approval, and asked her how I did just cause I thought I was going to get a stamp of approval. And she said, well, you probably should listen to my answers before you start thinking about your next question.
ELISE:
Right. But it's hard. It’s an art.
DEBBIE:
It is an art. And that's also why for me having my questions prepared in advance leaves me the room to be listening, knowing that if I need another question, is it there, or I could follow them wherever they go. And that gives me a great deal of comfort insecurity. I don't have to be while they're talking, I could be listening.
ELISE:
Yeah, I totally relate. I also had a moment because I love interviewing and I love hosting podcasts and, but it took me a minute too, because, and I remember being on stage at a big event, and moderating, and I was doing fine. And then I was like, what am I doing? I'm just hot potato, you know, like I was doing anything in the moment to be able to shift attention away from me as fast as possible. And it was, I could tell just a bad feeling like it was just like, no one could really relax because they could probably feel my own anxiety about holding attention. So I had to work on that too. So otherwise it's an interview and not a conversation. But I think that that's an important, like thinking of you as sort of being in the midst of all these worlds, engaging, creating. How do you know when to, when to bring it out of someone else versus make it yourself?
DEBBIE:
Well, that's something I think about a lot because I do spend a lot of time thinking about other people. But I'm okay with that at least for now. I do have some of my own work that I want to spend a little bit more time concentrating on in the next year or so, but for now I'm, I'm good with where things are. But in regards to thinking about how other people do things, and why they do things, I don't even know that it matters what it is they do. I think a lot of that motivation comes from a very similar place in a person's soul, and revealing that is, is sort of my goal in every interview. You know, having someone hear who that person really is, that's, that's really my goal. And I spend so much time living with the person, so to speak in the weeks prior to the interview, that I do feel that it's my responsibility to give them this sort of platform in which to do that, because I've learned so much about who they are, and how they got to be where they are, that it's my responsibility to share that with an audience so that they understand it, too.
ELISE:
Hmm. I love that. I feel that deeply because I think too, when you're making something it's hard to know—everything feels so resonant. Right. And to when you're interviewing someone and living with them as you said, and being with them, you know, I typically, I don't typically interview artists. I typically interview authors, experts, et cetera, but to be able to sit and process and distill someone's work, and then bring them through it in a way that's the most helpful, or interesting, or compelling for the listener, I think is actually kind of an act of great service because when you're on the other side, when you're making it, you don't know. Right. So I think that's, that's a profound skill. When you're teaching. Do you, do you think about, you know, there's obviously codes of good design. There's a way of doing things. There's this idea. I don't know if it still exists, but you get to break the rules once you understand the rules that, you know, there's sort of this classical training that you go through. Is that how it is today or are you, how do you think about shaping minds and the way that people interact with the world?
DEBBIE:
Well, I don't specifically teach design. I teach two different sort of ways of thinking. I teach branding to my graduate students, and that is very much about how humans move through the world with their ideas and symbols and marks. And that's a really big moving, growing topic right now because it includes cultural anthropology and behavioral psychology and business strategy and statistics and all sorts of things. So you really have to have a lot of different ways of thinking and entering into that teaching with a whole slew of different references, which I love, I do love that. And then with the undergrads, I'm teaching them how to defend their ideas and create a way to articulate who they are in an effort to find a job. So literally the class is called “Differentiate or Die: How to Get a Job When You Graduate.”
And I still differentiate or die from tech drought of course. But it's, it's something that I find so woefully, untaught in higher education, you know, you teach people how to make something, but then you don't teach them how to use whatever it is they're making to find their place in the world. I find that to be tragic terribly. So, so I've been teaching this class for 16 years and I it's really simply the most important work that I do because it's really helping young people find their own courage to take steps into doing something that they're really uncertain about the success of. And that's why we do things because of that uncertainty.
ELISE:
Yeah. And they're both, they seem to be about again, like distilling down to essence, like, what is the thing and what are you, what are you bringing into the world? And is there, do you see them finding confidence, I don't know how much sharing there is amongst the class, but I always feel like we get so myopic. And so solipsistic and envious, and sort of like, this is my lane and everyone wants to be in my lane. And sometimes you're like, oh, actually we all want completely different things. Like we all want to express in our own ways. Is there a confidence that comes from that share, as they survey a room full of people who are also trying to get jobs, like, do they start to recognize the ways also in which they're designed differently or they think differently or that they are original, I guess?
DEBBIE:
Well that's really one of the main reasons I teach this class. So there's so much to unpack here. So first the whole notion of, of confidence. So I define confidence as the successful repetition of any endeavor. We're not born with confidence to do anything other than keep trying. We can't walk, we can't talk, we can't poop on our own. There's so many things that takes us many, many, many, many tries to be able to successfully do that we ultimately take for granted. Um, but yet somehow when we get older, we feel somehow that we're going to be judged or criticized or analyzed in a way that doesn't feel good. And so we stop trying to do different things because we're unsure of the outcome. And so in the class that I teach, um, because we're all, all of the students in the class are basically in the same position.
They're all seniors about to graduate, unsure about what they're gonna do next, but want to find a job. So we have an opportunity to practice things with each other in a safe place that allows them to understand that anything that they try new they're likely going to struggle doing. And so why not struggle through it here in this space to be able to start to develop some confidence in your ability to do it without falling apart. So that includes public speaking. It includes showing a portfolio. It includes answering the simple question. Like, what do you want to do when you graduate? Which is the dreaded question. Um, I was taught early in my career or earlier in my career, not early, but earlier by Milton Glaser, who was the chair of the board of directors at the School of Visual Arts where I teach. And he was my teacher and shared something that I try to imbue to my students, which is that you could approach the world in one of two ways.
One that the world is a place of scarcity and you have to hold on to everything you have or that there's really tightly and not share, or that the world is a place of abundance. And that there really can be enough for everyone if we share. And part of what I try to do with the students is allow them to begin to feel what their original voice can sound like. And once they start to understand that they don't want to copy somebody else, because if they do, they're not really stepping into who they are and what they can become in any kind of authentic way. So why not just share what, what you believe and feel, so we can refine what that is to create a tiny little kernel of originality that you can begin to take out into the world. And so it's really not this space where people are protecting what they know, because they begin to understand that they know very little, why not share to begin to understand what it feels like to defend an idea, or to have a point of view. And so that's what the class is really about.
ELISE:
I love that. What do you think? You know, it's funny, we think we use the word brands. And brands have an identity it's similar to, in some ways how we would brand, you know, brand is an interesting word, right? We brand animals, we brand companies, and now there's this sort of, what's your personal brand and everyone needs a brand and a platform. It's quite strange. Like, how do you think about that as you assess influencer world, people as brands?
DEBBIE:
Yeah. I have a really big issue with that, Elise, I don't think, um, you know, I know, I know who your former employer was. But you know, brands are created by people. They don't exist on their own they're, they weren't grown from the earth by themselves. We make them. Humans make them. And we project meaning into those things that we make. And so I consider that to be manufactured meaning. It's not a disparaging way of saying it. It's just an accurate way of we manufacture meaning in these objects of various types, these objects don't live on their own. They don't have a consciousness, they don't have a soul. They're not able to communicate without a human engagement. So why would any person aspire to be a brand that's manufactured. Humans can develop their character, they can develop their reputation, and they can own brands. But to be a brand means you're a fixed entity that has no consciousness or sense of purpose on your own. And so I have real issues with, I think personal brand is an oxymoron essentially.
ELISE:
Yeah. No it's so interesting. And, and, and, and the creation of brand, it's about shortcuts, right. To articulate what it sounds for marks, um, signs, slogans.
DEBBIE:
Yeah. They create consensus telegraphically by the sheer virtue of people understanding them.
ELISE:
Yeah. And they're supposed to be impermanent in some ways. I mean, companies obviously involved, but people are impermanent, right? Like our beliefs or our understanding of the world shifts and changes. It's really, it's interesting. I also have an aversion to like, people are like, what is your brand? I'm like, I'm a person and anyone who, there's also this idea, you know, influencers, followers, subscribers. That's very strange. Like when we actually go into the etymology of what that language is and how that's driving this personal economy, it makes me deeply uncomfortable. And it goes against this idea, that you have these peaks and valleys, and of course you want to always create work that has that's revelatory for people or helpful for people, or shows them the world and an interesting way, or causes them to reflect on themselves. But that's also not a permanent state, right? Like it evolves and changes, in a way that fixed identity doesn't, but it must be. So it must be strange as someone who has thought about brands, because this is a new phenomenon, right. Like in the last decade or so?
DEBBIE:
I would say that social media has created this way in which people want to position themselves as brands and as influencers. But again, if you think back to what we were talking about earlier in our conversation about Rickie Lee Jones or Joni Mitchell, wanting to go beyond the expectations of their audience and create as artists for the, the ways in which they felt that their work should go, they weren't doing opinion polls on, on what people would like or, or want in the way that quite a few artists, entertainers, and performers now do. Where there were almost solo authors to their work. And now, you know, that's also something, you know, you look at the credits of any of our big popular performers and their songs, and you get 45 writers. You know, I find that really hard to imagine. And I also feel that once you start gauging your success by the number of likes or the number of followers, you are imprisoned by having to continue to deliver on point or on message. And that could be very difficult for anybody that wants to continually do something original or risky or experimental where the results aren't predictable.
ELIE:
Interesting. Yeah. It's interesting. And I see friends of mine who have significant followings on Instagram, just based on like the people that they are in the world, not out of a fixed identity, but they're always getting into battles on Instagram or wherever where people will dispute what they say or claim it's not on-brand or, you know, stuff like that. And they're like, I am not a brand. Like I will say whatever I want. Like, you can come to this, you can listen to what I have to say or not, take it or leave it like, but it is, it's interesting that now this new conversation, which is at times really wonderful, and other times confining and limiting and so strange, like, but real time scoreboard of your impact on the world.
DEBBIE:
Brands have a very narrow path that they can behave on. And why, why would a human want to limit themselves to that. It feels very narrow.
ELISE:
Yeah. It's also, you know, and as a, as a fixed house, right. Whereas I don't, this is my, just to take us on a curve ball, final, final question. But I was talking to a friend who's a producer along, movies, TVs, et cetera. And she was talking about actors and working with actors. Andshe was like, you know, the best actors are. And she, she says this with love. She was like, the best actors are empty vessels. Like that is why they in so many ways can be filled with character. Like they can really bring things through in a way. And in their daily lives, they're not empty vessels, but when they act they're like they can, they can clear it and bring it in a way that I thought that was such an interesting thing to say. And I wonder if that extends to artists or anyone who is really, again, like the prism of our life experiences is what the work comes out through. Right? Like the strange life that we've all lived. But do you feel like artists are channeling or bringing, are empty vessels in a way and they're bringing stuff down or do you think it's really forged from that inner stuff?
DEBBIE:
I think you have to do enough forging of that inner stuff, and be comfortable enough with it to allow that other sort of magic to come through you. And I think that that combination is what makes something really unique.
ELISE:
A true co-creation. Well, it has been such a pleasure. I admire everything that you do. And I think, you know, you've been in conversation with some of the most interesting people living and many who are no longer here. So your work is such a trail of wisdom. Um, and I'm sorry, your book is delayed, but I'm really into your new pub date.
DEBBIE:
We did that on purpose. Why not pick an interesting date visually?
ELISE:
Exactly. It was just to come out now, right? Or last month,
DEBBIE:
Tomorrow, at least tomorrow, this is one of those like stuck in the middle of the ocean on some unknown boat somewhere.
ELISE:
Oh, so it's left and it's on its way. Just can't get through.
DEBBIE:
And where the ocean from Thailand, waiting to be docked in some place I have no idea about.
ELISE:
Um, it's such a great, this is the path of making anything, right? This is the messy, messy, middle. It's such a great book. It's so fun to like dip into and out of, and you showed so much restraint. There are so many fascinating people and then it's tight.
DEBBIE:
I had to, I had to, I already, I already got an extension of the number of pages I was allowed toutilize, but in an effort to try to include as many people as possible, I had to really work with some very good editors.
ELISE:
I'm not good at editing. I'm not good at editing for length. I think everything is interesting. It has been such a pleasure and I can't wait for, for the book to land.