Be boring

I recently read something that stuck with me: success isn't about finding secrets or shortcuts – it's about doing boring things, consistently.

When I worked at a design studio, everything was about landing the big clients and remarkable projects. When I went solo, I quickly realised that running a one-person business means my systems have to work – there's no team to back me up. Sustainable practices aren't built on remarkable, they're built on reliable. So I built my business around boring systems. Same processes every time. Same client questionnaire. Files backed up every week. Project files organised the same way every time.

I've done some of my best work as a solo designer because these boring systems free me up to actually focus on design instead of reinventing everything from scratch. The discipline compounds into creative freedom.

It's not exciting, but it works. So get really good at boring. Better at boring than everyone else. Because boring, done consistently, becomes extraordinary.

I made a logo stamp for my friend's burger truck

A little while back I designed a logo for my friend Dee's burger truck. On opening weekend I showed up for a feed and noticed the boxes had zero branding on them. Around the same time I'd been down a rabbit hole of block printing reels on Instagram, so I put two and two together and decided to make her a stamp as a surprise.

I'd never done anything like it before – it was a proper off-screen creative outlet and honestly a bit therapeutic. I wrote about the process, including the tools I used (and a workaround for when your printer decides not to cooperate).

Read about my logo stamp making process (6 minute read) →