The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 50 - Change the World with Your Work
If you are a stuck or frustrated creative and want to get paid to do what you love, let's talk. https://yourworkisagift.com/coaching
Ever been told your creative work isn't important enough to make a real difference?
This raw, inspiring episode challenges the dismissive notion that only certain professions can "change the world."
SUBSCRIBE to get my weekly "Love Letters," hot updates and my well loved and popular Newsletter.
Follow me on Instagram (@jamesvictore) for all my big ideas and inspiration!
All right, here we go. Howdy and welcome to the Right Questions. The podcast designed to help you get paid to do what you love. Designed to help you get paid to do what you love. I am your kind and generous host, james Victoria, and I've got a bone to pick. I got a bone to pick, I gotta tell you.
Speaker 1:I did a post a while back and in the post I mentioned something about you know changing the world. I used the phrase you know changing the world. I've used the phrase you know changing the world and I get people who write back and they're like well, who do you think you are? Are you like a? Are you like a brain surgeon? You change, you save lives.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, wow, people telling me I can't change the world. How dare you? Specifically, they're like graphic design can't change the world, it's just typography, dude. Well, here's a funny thing. Actually, this weekend I am actually holding a workshop, this weekend to prove exactly that point. This weekend, to prove exactly that point how to change the world with graphic design, specifically showing and starting on Friday evening, to show a slideshow and lecture about posters that have changed the world, posters that have stopped wars, posters that had started wars, posters that have created movements. So you know, when you tell me that one cannot change the world with something as feeble as graphic design, it means you can't change the world with your feeble tools. That means you don't believe in yourself that you could do such a thing. That means you haven't tried. That means your mind can't expand large enough to encompass the possibilities that one could change the world through their work and through their design work right.
Speaker 1:And then you know, of course yeah, you know, I get it Certainly one normal average person can't change the world. I mean you can't just be like a nun right and like move to India, mother Teresa, and change the world. Who the hell do you think you are? Or just be an ornery teenager with an idea and become Greta Thunberg. Who the hell do you think you are trying to change the world, miss Wah-Wah-Wah-Wah? Or how about just like a guy with a puppet? A guy with a puppet can't change the world. Get Jim Henson and your frog, get out of here. Or how about that guy who his only talent? How about this? Check out this out. He stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square. Hey, get out of the way. What do you think you're going to change the world. So, yeah, I mean you, you, you, you, you, my beautiful, beautiful listener, yeah, I mean you, you beautiful, average, talented, genius. And I mean you with your own work, with what you have, where you are, not by selling all your belongings and moving to India or Gaza or Orange County and trying to save lives. You, using your skills, using your talents, hell, probably using your very own existing clients to change the world.
Speaker 1:I guess we have to define change the world, right? Well, call me a dreamer or naive, but I think that changing the world happens one person at a time, you know, door to door, or, yes, like a doctor, yeah, like a brain surgeon, yeah, saving lives. One person at a time, you know, because what happens is you change someone's life. It's like dominoes. You affect that person, you educate that person, hell, you entertain or delight that person and, like dominoes, it moves forward from there, right, you can end up changing a generation of people.
Speaker 1:How about this? How about a poet? Can a poet affect the world? Can a poet change the world? How about a poet from 900 years ago like Rumi? You know, rumi is like the most read poet in America today. That's crazy, and he influenced American writers. He influenced Ralph Waldo Emerson, he influenced Thomas Jefferson and his thought. He influenced Walt Whitman and his writing and his thinking. Said in his thought, he influenced Walt Whitman and his writing and his thinking. And it goes on from there.
Speaker 1:And if you think I'm asking you, hey, listen, listen, let's be honest here, right, james? If you think I'm asking you to aspire to that level of connection and influence, well, you bet your ass I am, you bet your ass I am. I set a high bar and you reach it every time. I've seen it, I've seen it time and time again. It's beautiful, but you don't help anybody by complaining that you can't. Well, james, you know who do you think you are. You don't help anybody by complaining that you're too old or that you're too poor or that you don't have the right tools or the right clients or the right circumstances. And you certainly don't change the world by showing up to work and doing what you're told. No-transcript, or do you? Hey, let me think about that for a second Because, listen, I had a student at a workshop, got to know the guy.
Speaker 1:I get to know all my people, I get to know him. I love that. Got to know the guy and changed him. Quite frankly, I did, I tell, I'm telling you, I changed his life. But so we're talking and he's having these major realizations in this, you know, in this, like you know, three, five day workshop, and he confides in me and he's having these major realizations in this, you know, in this, like you know, three, five day workshop, and he confides in me and he's like, he's like.
Speaker 1:So I went home after the second night and I realized that I had a my, my sectional couch was sitting right across from the TV and across from the TV on the couch was this big, huge ass, divot. And he says, I realized I've become addicted. I've been, I've become addicted to my comfort. I go home from work every night. I hate my job. I go home from my work every night and I sit down and I put on like the Simpsons or Netflix or something and I just chill out. He says. He says, he says I feel like I can't move because I like, I'm stuck, because I like my apartment. I said.
Speaker 1:I said, well, you know what's your job, what do you do for a living? He says, oh, I work for Scholastic Magazine. We make, you know, educational tools for students. I'm like, yeah, no, I, I, I get, I get. You know why do you hate your job? He says, no, everybody there hates their job. And I thought, oh my God, you don't think that's a problem. What is it you're doing again? You're making educational tools for children and you all hate your job. Can you imagine the shitty karma that you are churning out? So, yes, you do change the world by showing up at a job you hate. You do.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, it's not just you sitting in that steaming pile of poo, it's everybody that you think about, everybody that your work touches, it's everybody that you think about, everybody that your work touches. So, yes, there is good change and there is bad change. There is positive change and there is negativo change, and there's what we are talking about. There is conscious change and there is the worst kind possible, the unconscious or zombie change. So please do not tell me, and, more importantly, do not tell yourself or selves, that you can't change the world, because you're only arguing for your limitations, not for your beauty, not for your power, not for your talent. You're not fighting for your talent or your grace, you are only arguing for your limitations. Which brings us to the right question Can we change the world? Can we as artists, as designers, as creators, as entrepreneurs, change the world?
Speaker 1:So to illustrate this last remark, to illustrate, I have a story. I got a call a couple of years ago to do work for a client that you think you could never do good work for. But of course, in my book there are no bad clients or bad jobs, right? They're just lazy designers. So I got a call to do work for this client.
Speaker 1:I got a call to do work for the New York City Department of Probation. That's right, the New York City Department of Probation. You know what that means, right? That means you live in New York and you're hanging out with friends and you're having a good time. You have too good of a time and you kind of do something stupid. Not stupid enough that you go to jail and get arrested, but stupid enough that you're on probation, which means you are allowed to go about your day. But every week you have to go in and you have to account for yourself at the department of probation and you have a probation officer that you have to report to and you have to tell them that you're looking for a job and you have to tell them that you're being good and you have to tell them what you've done Right and you basically sit and wait for a real long time to do all that stuff right.
Speaker 1:It's like hell's waiting room and these places are like just the depths of New York, the depths of how ugly and gross that New York can get to Worse than the only place that I had been in New York that even approached this was the New York City Department of Motor Vehicles. Right, just really ugly places that just took forever and it just seems so unorganized, just like places you just like don't want to go to. So I spent a day at one of the Department of Probation offices. There were 33. There are 33 of these in all the boroughs. In the different five boroughs of New York. There are 33 of these offices.
Speaker 1:I spent time in one and it was like as soon as you get off the elevator it was just like you were in communist Russia or the Gulag or Guantanamo Bay or something right. It was just this heavy ugly furniture that people had scratched their names into and the ceiling tiles are falling in and the carpet looks like people have urinated on and on and they probably had it looks like people have urinated on and on and they probably had you go up and you have to talk through a little hole in a piece of glass to somebody who was really bored and not interested on the other side. Right, talk about hate your job. Right now you're thinking, oh man, I wish James Victoria could be my mentor, my guru. Hell, I wish he was my coach. Well, you can make that happen. Go to yourworkisagiftcom. There's a questionnaire that will probably help you out, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk. Let's free you from overwhelm and creative frustration. Let's build your business and help you get paid to do what you love. Again, go to yourworkisagiftcom, let's talk. And no artwork whatsoever and all these over-xeroxed, over-reproduced forms that you had to fill out. Right, just like Tim Burton had designed this place right In order to be creepy. This place right In order to be creepy.
Speaker 1:So I get a phone call from an architect friend of mine, a guy named Jim Bieber, super talented, super smart and funny guy, right, and he says James, we just got the job to redesign the interiors for these 33 departments of probation around New York City. And Jim is like me, jim's a dreamer, he sees this and he's like I'm going to make change here, I'm going to change these places right, not just like incrementally, but from the carpet to the ceiling, and he invites me on. He said he wanted something special. He says he said he wanted something special. He says I need something special, I need something unique. And I think you're the guy to do it. And I said, yes, you're right, I am, and it was going to be wall treatments, like colors and forms and signage, right From the moment you get out of the elevator. It would be the look of everything, right, the user interface, the UI, right. So Jim tells me listen, this is how it works. The job pays this much money, which wasn't great, it was good money, but it wasn't retire money, right. So he says it pays this much. And the thing is we have three months, three months and it has to be done in three months Because the New York City Department of Probation, like any government job or city job, right, they have a budget and they have to use that budget within a timeframe and it's not a great timeframe, so it was a little bit of a rush job.
Speaker 1:So we had to be, we had to be super efficient, right. So the way it worked for me was like this we go in, we go in and we look around and we try to figure out what this client, what this audience needs. And I don't mean the client. The client for me isn't the DOP, it isn't the Department of Probation. The client is the probationers, the people who have to show up there. They have a lot of time on their hands, right. They show up and they're probably pissed off and they show up and they probably don't want to be there, right, who wants to be there? And the other client is the people who work there, the people who don't like being there. How can I change that for them? How can I make it a nicer place for them? Right, these are the things that are on my mind.
Speaker 1:So the first thing I do is I take my studio to lunch and we're out and we're having pizza at this nice pizza joint and we start ruminating, thinking about the DOP, and I said you know, we need signage, we need a color palette, which is going to be pretty primal, pretty simple color palette. So we're at lunch and we're talking about how to move forward on this and my assistant at the time his name was Chris. And Chris said, hey, you know, we're going to need some. They don't really have anything here, they don't have a logo, they don't have anything, any precedents or anything pre-existing, so it's pretty wide open. And he says what do you think of? What do you want to do about typography? And I said DIN, just D-I-N. You know that, that font DIN. And he said done, because why do I need to spend hours researching and thinking about typography when I want something utilitarian and I want something red and I want something straightforward. And I've got a client that an audience that doesn't care right, they don't care about the noodle-nick little bits of design that we do. So I'm using something that I like and something that I was using a lot at the time. So we used it on this and we were thinking about, like we needed arrows and we needed signs. So we were thinking about using some basic shapes, like arrows, literally, but cutting them out of paper so they would just be a little wonky and less official, less scary, right? And then we came up with the idea and we said, hey, you know what this audience needs. This audience needs art.
Speaker 1:I bemoan the lack of art in our lives, the fact that you can't just walk down the street and see a beautiful and I mean beautiful, well-designed posters or well-designed art or real art in the street. You've got to go to special places to see real, quote-unquote, real art. You've got to go to special places and pay money, like museums. That's bullshit. Why don't we have real art in the street? Why don't we have beautiful things? You know, I go to the grocery store with my kids and I'm like don't look at stuff, don't look at that. Oh God, look at you know. I'm like who? Who designs this stuff? Yikes, true, there's probably some amazing stuff in there, but you really got to go look for it. I mean, I guess it's just like a museum too, right? You really got to go look for the good stuff.
Speaker 1:So I said, listen, we got to make art for this client. It's not in the budget, it's not been asked for, so we will have to fight for it a little bit, but we need to make art for this client. And I said, oh, when I was a kid again, any story that starts like that is going to be brilliant, right? When I was a kid, there was a poster on my sister's door and it was a little kitten hanging from a rope, you following me, and underneath it it said hang in there, kitty. I said I love that poster. We should give them that and that conversation, the. Wouldn't it be funny if the absurdity of it led to some serious thinking? And the serious thinking went like this let's in the process of creating posters, art imagery for this client, let's redefine motivational posters, inspirational posters.
Speaker 1:So we went through the list of those posters. You know the kind that you, the kind you see at the gym, you know like you'll leave, you'll leave in the locker room at the gym and there's a poster that says it's like. It's like a photograph of an eagle, like an American bald eagle, and underneath it it says vision right, because you know eagles have good eyesight. That's why it says vision right. But you know like. But we see those motivational posters and like, like you would see those, and you're like you know what eagle, I'm going to do 10 more pushups just for you, because you gave me vision right, I don't get them. I don't get these motivational things. Or maybe the jets, like a series of jets, the thunderbirds going, cutting across the sky, and underneath it it says teamwork right, that's going to inspire me to be a better teammate to the turkeys. I work with right. You know how are you going to soar like an eagle when you work with turkeys, right? That's the old joke.
Speaker 1:So we went down this path and decided to redesign the Jets poster that would say teamwork. Or the hang in there, kitty right, use that one. Or maybe there's the footprints on the sand. Have you ever seen that one? Or the oh yeah, the sunset on the beach. That's another one, a classic one, and underneath that one it might say it might say vision or teamwork. It doesn't matter really. I mean, the originals don't really matter because they don't, they're kind of nonsense.
Speaker 1:So we decided to go ahead and redesign those posters Again. We didn't, we didn't, we didn't share with anybody, we, we there was a limited time and we understood this and we go to the first meeting and we go to present, go to the first meeting and we go to present, and I share these posters and and, and, and. Um, I knew that it was going to be a hard swallow for them a little bit, so what I did is I added in the corner of each one. First of all, the posters are really just fucking funny and actually were done in a style that I felt would make sense, that would visually appeal that the client, the audience would kind of understand already, so they would feel an association with it. It wasn't strict street graffiti, because I'm not that, I don't want to be a poser and do fake graffiti, but they were in a form that I thought the audience would understand.
Speaker 1:And in order to make it so the client, so the people from the DOP, would understand it, we added a little disclaimer in each corner. In each corner there's a little paragraph, a paragraph that explains the idea a little bit. So if our idea is, we took the hang in there, kitty, and instead of saying hang in there, which I think is the wrong thing, to tell this client, right, because what you're saying is, if you're telling this client to hang in there, like everything that you're doing that brought you to this point, just keep doing it, man, like you just got to learn to run faster, right? You can't tell them to hang in there. You have to tell them to let go, let go, let go of everything that's brought you to this point. Let go of all these predisposed ideas, right and and and. Open yourself to what, if right, open yourself to what, if right, open yourself to new possibilities. So we created this series of posters that you can see in Discord. So this series of posters that were meant to influence, to empower these people. Right, and oddly enough, the DOP felt this. They understood what we were trying to do, they appreciated what we were trying to do and we had a new. We had a.
Speaker 1:The guy who was running the DOP at the time was Vince Chiraldi and he wanted to make. He wanted to make a splash with these. So he fought for us, which was awesome. It's rare to have a client like that on your side. So he understood these and he gave these the green light and we moved forward on them, and what happened after is important.
Speaker 1:So I went to the first ribbon cutting ceremony for the first DOP that opened and Vince Giraldi, the director, is at the podium and he's talking about the architecture and the redesign and he's talking specifically about the posters and he says, hey, I didn't understand these at the time, which is awesome, which is wonderful, and I designed things specifically, so you don't understand them immediately. I don't want that. I don't want that immediate understanding. I think that's something that we sometimes shoot for. That is false. Designers have been taught that you need legibility and readability. You need to grab the client's attention real quick. And you know, I think these things are distracting. I think we can be obtuse. I think we can demand two or three readings for understanding, or I think we can demand lack of understanding. That's fine too.
Speaker 1:But Vince Giraldi goes on and he says, he says, he says I'm watching one of my, one of my probationers, and his and his and his officer, and the probationer is reading the small text on one of the posters. And he looks up to his probation officer and he says that's what I think. And you know why he said that's what I think he was. He was basically responding to the text that I had written, I, james Victoria, had written. It's because I wrote them in a very cool and stern fatherly tone, because I felt that this audience had never been spoken to. Honestly, they have not heard these ideas, these ideas that I was influenced by through Rumi or through Ralph Waldo, emerson, Right. And Chiraldi goes on to say what else? What? The other thing that they witnessed was the elevator doors would open during the day and probationers walk out and they're looking at their paperwork, right, and they walk out and then they raise their heads and they look around and they see what's happened and they slowly walk backwards into the elevator and the doors close.
Speaker 1:He says he later found out that they felt that they were in the wrong place. And they felt that they were in the wrong place because they've never been treated well. They've never been treated like that. They don't expect to go to nice places, they expect the dregs, they expect the long waits and they expect to feel bad by the architecture. They expect to be uncomfortable in the chairs, which is bullshit. You don't change somebody's mind like that. You don't change their mindset by treating them like that. So the art and the architecture and the furniture and the colors these had an effect on the audience. These changed the audience.
Speaker 1:And like two months after the job, I had heard that some of the probationers had started writing. Because they're sitting and they're writing, they have to fill out forms and there's pens and paper. They start writing poetry based on what they were seeing in the artwork. And then what happened is Shiraldy and the other people said, hey, would you guys be interested in making a poetry club? And they did. And Chiraldi got another piece of budget together for another graphic designer and said hey, we're going to do a book, a collection of poetry by the probationers. Would you design that? So then it went on and it went on. It went on to, like you know, getting other artists to paint the bathrooms, right?
Speaker 1:This thing, this domino effect of just bringing in something exciting, something unexpected, something not 100% understood, this is how you change the client, this is how you change the world, this is how you just let your work do its job. If I had thought about it, if I had apprehension or fear, of course I would have, just I would have towed the line, I would have made this place look like this place. Right, that's what designers do. Right, we're supposed to make the obvious more obvious-er. That's what happens in the grocery store. That's why each aisle looks the same. Right, all the all the Italian sauces look fake Italian. Right, because that's what. That's what you're supposed to do, even though it's like there's a factory in Piscataway, new Jersey, that pumps this shit out. Right, it's got to look like mama did it. Wine labels the same thing.
Speaker 1:Listen, my friends, do good work, put out your best work all the time, because you know in your heart what people want. People want what you want. You know that client that read that piece of text that I wrote and said that's what I think. Do you know why they said that's what I think? It's because in the particular lies, the universal. The more honest and more vulnerable I can be, the more it will speak to them and then the more they will pass that on to their kin and their friends. Do the work that's in your heart. Do the work you love, because I know that you can get paid for that and I can help you. I'm James Victoria. That's how to change the goddamn world. This is the right questions. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for being here. Do the work that's in your heart. Do the work that's in your heart and don't let anybody tell you you can't change the world. Adios, goodbye.