Eric Karjaluoto – Designer & Author

04/26/19 • 28 min

Eric Karjaluoto a Vancouver BC based designer. He’s one of the two guys behind SmashLAB, a small design studio which he co-founded 19 years ago. Clients include Arc’teryx, Saltspring Soapworks, The Nature Conservancy, The Vancouver Aquarium, and a bunch more. He’s written two books, The Design Method and Speak Human. And together with his business partner, Eric Shelkie, he’s built a handful of useful side projects, including Officehours, Campnab, and Emetti, to name a few.

The Question: How do we slow down and focus on what really matters?

I was sent a link to one of Eric’s blog articles, How to Keep Sane, In Faketopia. After reading it, I sent Eric an email and asked him to tell me more about the ideas from his article.

In our conversation we talk about the fakery in social media, the idea that feeding the ‘social media beast’ doesn’t do anything to help our us reach our career goals, and how being real about what’s most important can help us get more out of life and work alike. In short, we’re talking about how to tidy up our list of priorities.

The Question: How do we slow down and focus on what really matters?

I was sent a link to one of Eric’s blog articles, How to Keep Sane, In Faketopia. After reading it, I sent Eric an email and asked him to tell me more about the ideas from his article.

Previous Episode

Mary Kate McDevitt – Illustrator & Lettering Artist

The Guest

Mary Kate McDevitt is a designer, illustrator, and lettering artist from Philadelphia. Her unique and engaging style embraces the hand-made. Her work has been featured in various print and online publications. Clients include Smuckers, Sesame Street, Nike, AT&T, Target, Nintendo, Chronical Books, and way more. She has published multiple books on illustration and lettering and she teaches workshops online and in person. Go check out her work at marykatemcdevitt.com.

The Question

How does where you are, affect what you make?

The Notes

Our conversation is all about location. The context in which Mary Kate finds herself, and how living in different cities has impacted her career and work. We explore geographical locations and locations within her neighborhood and even within her studio space.

We discuss remote working, the value of big and small cities, coffee shops, large work tables, tin cars and talking skeletons.

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Next Episode

Rachel Alina – Mixing Engineer

Meet Rachel Alina, a Brooklyn-based mixing engineer, poet, and instructor at Berklee College of Music. She's been in the studio with Gabriel Garzon-Montano, Katy Perry, King Garbage, Selena Gomez, Greg Wells, Helado Negro, Stephen Marley and others. She's worked in some of today's legendary studios and learned from the best in the music business.

The Question

What role has mentorship played in your development as a professional creative?

In this interview, we talk about Rachel's path from graduation from Berklee up through today, discussing her mentors along the way. Rachel's experience with mentors of all kinds has given her an open approach to receiving and giving mentorship.

Notes and Links:

Visit Rachel Alina's website here: http://www.rachelalina.com/
Preorder her book of poetry, Locals here: http://smarturl.it/locals-ifyouswim
Follow Rachel Alina on Twitter: @rachalina : https://twitter.com/rachalina
And on Instagram: @rach.alina http://instagram.com/rach.alina
Learn about Berklee College of Music at: https://www.berklee.edu/ and https://online.berklee.edu/
You can watch Rivers & Tides, the film Rachel mentions in the interview, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WP2AfqyOsI
Find One Thing Real Quick on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (@OTRQpodcast for all three)
Subscribe and leave a rating and review at Apple Podcasts (or where ever you like to listen)
Get audiobooks from Libro.fm (use the offer code OTRQ and get three for the price of one)