Building Community and Finding Personality Strengths as a Creative Introvert, with Designer Cat Rose
Aug 22, 2016
Cat Rose (@CreativeIntro) is an independent graphic designer and founder of The Creative Introvert, a website and community for creative professions who share introverted personality types.
In this conversation, we discuss the oddities of life as a freelance designer, the observed behaviour of creative pros and where they fall on the introverted/extroverted continuum, and the challenges of building online communities and creating compelling content.
SPONSOR
This episode is sponsored by the new eBook Building Brands: A
Practical Guide for Creative Pros to Develop Strategy and Design
Identity.
Show Notes & Links
- Cat lives in Brighton, England
- Prescott has visited Brighton, as well as Rottingdean, and the University of Sussex
- Farnham, a picturesque town in Surrey with a 10th century castle [av_video src='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxTrwF3rbrE' format='16-9' width='16' height='9']
- Cat remains a graphic designer, started as an illustrator
- Behance
- Spaghetti code
- Cat draws people's pets
- Prescott chatted with Matt Inglot on The Freelance Transformation Podcast
- Flash (dead in name only)
- How to use Sketch for print design (if you're a complete animal.)
- InDesign and Illustrator aren't great for pixel design
- "Leg It"
- The Irish Goodbye
- Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, system for determining personality types
- The Big Five personality traits, aka the Five Factor Model (FFM)
- Introvert-Extrovert spectrum
- Ambivert (both introvert and extrovert)
- Brighton Pride parade, a most extroverted affair
- People with "I" in their Myers-Briggs result aren't considered for management roles
- Would you ever go to the movies by yourself?
- Bill Gates, a well-known, successful introvert
- Empathy is an introvert super-power, as are deep though, analysis, etc.
- Limiting self-beliefs, rather than introversion per se is what holds people back
- Get Your Art Out Summer Camp, a four-week course from The Creative Introvert
- Learning styles (visual, written, auditory, etc.)
- Is there a link between learning styles and introversion/extraversion?
- Mignon Fogarty aka Grammar Girl, a guest on The Busy Creator Podcast, ep. 67
- "Applesaucing", re-using your content across multiple forms
- Pat Flynn wrote two articles (1, 2) about repurposing your site/podcast content
- Upcycling and Downcycling, terms from Recycling
- Masterminds vs. Accountability Partners, which do you prefer? (Introverts prefer partners.)
- Meetup.com
- The New York City Podcast Meetup
- Malcolm Gladwell's Connectors
- The Rule of 3 and 10 for growing organizations
- The Creative Introvert
- Cat Rose on Twitter
- Cat Rose on Facebook
- Cat Rose on Instagram
- Cat Rose on LinkedIn
- Cat Rose on Pinterest
Tools
Techniques
- Set a brief for yourself to make fine arts more of a "project"
- Build lasting relationships as a freelancer, even with your last employer
- Go minimal, if you can. Don't use a mouse and keyboard.
- Learn quickly, trust that you can teach yourself new tools
- Repurpose your content to serve different audiences (written vs. spoken vs. infographic)
- Be careful when creating a community
- Test and iterate, even on morning rituals
- Replace "routine" with "rhythm"
- Approach fearful projects in tiny increments (a six-second video vs. a feature film)
Habits
- Use the software for its intended purpose!
- Adapt to clients and their workflow
- Compose your thoughts before filming/recording yourself; not everyone is an improviser.
- Wake up 4:30-5:00am for early yoga, journaling, meditation
- Do "the hardest thing" during coffee