I was 15 years old when I landed my first job at Byerly’s, a local, kinda upscale grocery store.

My title? Grocery bagger.

My parents gave me the choice to continue with sports or start working. I was decent at hockey but didn’t love it, typically being one of the best players on the worst team someone could make in tryouts. I was excited to earn a little money, so the choice was easy.

In addition to money, the bagging lifestyle™️ brought other things I grew to enjoy. The simple humdrum of items coming down the conveyor was oddly calming, alongside a challenge to keep up with the cashier ringing up the items. As an introvert, working up the enthusiasm to repeatedly ask “paper or plastic” with a cracked grin was the most challenging part. When it came to bagging, I was voracious to increase my skill, packing each bag as tight and optimally as possible (basically Tetris).

Ok, maybe not voracious, but I enjoyed leveling up.

There were challenges too, like trying to keep the customer-service smile on when folks would instruct me not to put the eggs at the bottom of the bag with canned tomato sauce above it. Buddy, this isn’t my first rodeo.

So really, what did I love about that job? I’ve distilled it down to three things I’m calling Throughlines: elements that fire me up no matter what I’m doing, whether it’s a job, a hobby, or a relationship.

Creation

Bagging groceries was more creative than it sounds. Each cart was a new challenge and each packed bag was a deliverable I’d hand directly to a customer.

I found joy and satisfaction in this creative bagging process. There’s a Ravikant idea I think about a lot: find the stuff that feels like play to you but looks like work to others. That’s solid advice. The best kind of work is the stuff that’s genuinely fun for you and just happens to pay too.

I can trace the joy of creation back to my Lego days. There was something satisfying about taking a pile of bricks and assembling something out of nothing. I love getting into flow state and losing track of time in the process. When I’m done it’s fun to admire for a minute or two, but then I’m already thinking about the next thing. What else can I build?

It’s the act of creation that’s rewarding, not the result.

Pack Hacker scratched that same itch. The brand, website and YouTube channel gave me something to tinker with and improve every day. Not just the articles and videos themselves, but the whole thing as a living, breathing creative project.

I enjoyed every stage of the process, from creating the brand & logo guidelines, to forming the LLC and launching, to completing the first couple pieces of content on my own. Eventually I contracted my first team member, the incredibly talented and enthusiastic Nathan Coverdale, who became a key player in Pack Hacker’s early growth. I even enjoyed the weekly bookkeeping. Closing out the books gave me a sense of calm.

Creation is great on its own, but in business, it needs to be paired with goals, a process, and a deadline. Throwing my own money behind the brand lit the urgency fuse and helped channel the creativity.

Efficiency

“How few grocery bags can I use for this?” That was always my little game with each cart.

I’d size things up before the items started rolling down the conveyor belt, pre-opening a couple of paper bags based on how many I thought I’d need. I’d place the heavy items right into the bags as they came down the line and sort the light, oddly shaped, or more delicate items to the side. I wasn’t afraid of rebagging to get the right weight distribution either.

Pack Hacker was a natural expression of efficiency as fun. It’s baked into the concept: maximizing a bag’s space through packing strategies, hitting that 7kg carry-on limit, breezing through TSA because you’re organized, and saving the 25 minutes you’d otherwise spend waiting at baggage claim when you just want to get on with your trip.

On the business side it was SEO, analytics, comments, and surveys, a constant stream of qualitative and quantitative data to absorb, improve and optimize.

I worked with at an early-stage NYC startup, and one concept he shared stuck with me: do something manually ten times first, then automate it. Doing it by hand helps you find the edge cases, and if you don’t need to do the task ten times, automation is overkill.

We followed that when building our video production process at Pack Hacker, running each video by hand until we understood the edge cases well enough to build a repeatable Asana template with dates, assignees, subtasks, and SOPs, all of it mapped out so you could plug in a creative idea and the rest ran itself.

This was sage advice for someone like me, who tends to chase efficiency for efficiency’s sake rather than stopping to ask whether the thing is worth optimizing at all.

Thanks Frank.

Quality

I loved taking pride in my work, and felt satisfaction packing each grocery order to a high standard.

Lighter items on top and heavier on the bottom, so whoever unpacked it at home would have an easy time. Weight distributed evenly across each bag for balanced carry. Cold items grouped together so nothing melted before they got home, and a double bag whenever things got too heavy. Raw meat always separate from everything else. I even squared off each bag so it could stand up on its own in the car.

No one told me to be this meticulous. I’ve just always been a bit of a perfectionist, the kind who has a hard time calling something finished until it’s great, not just done.

That instinct was rewarded while running a design team at Apple, but as an entrepreneur, it was a liability. My standards weren’t something I could hand off, and holding everyone to them all the time slowed things down. I learned to become more selective about what received my full attention.

It was always my philosophy to make Pack Hacker a resource for the best, most detailed travel gear reviews on the internet: strict word counts by category, video for every review, and sometimes better media than the brands themselves.

That same attention to detail is what Google rewarded. Search traffic is almost entirely winner-takes-all: a decent post might get a fraction of the traffic a great one would, so it was always worth the extra effort to rank first. Even in a post-Google, AI-forward world, quality still wins.

When Google rolled out its Core Web Vitals update in 2021, I knew the Pack Hacker site needed 100% of my attention. One piece of it was CLS, or “cumulative layout shift,” that annoying jump a page makes when you land on it and can’t click or read anything until it settles.

While other sites were scrambling to understand what the update meant, my friend and Pack Hacker’s tech lead, Roberto Thais, and I got ahead of it, and our traffic was saved because of it. Months later I’d see graph after graph of sites that used to perform well now tanking from low Core Web Vitals scores, and I was glad we hadn’t waited to find out.

This was one of the moments that deserved everything I had. A review of some new travel gear Kickstarter, written by one of my writers, didn’t need that same level of attention from me. It just needed a great writer (which Pack Hacker had a lot of) and a system built to support them.

Using the Throughlines lens, these parallels are too on the nose:

Grocery bagging: pack bags creatively and efficiently, load them into cars, show up cheerful and ready to help, surrounded by high quality products.

Pack Hacker: pack bags creatively and efficiently, carry them onto planes, show up on camera ready to help, surrounded by high quality gear.

Different uniform, similar job.

These Throughlines never rest, even on a career break.

Creation shows up in a game I play called Satisfactory (where you build factories … for fun). I love the creative flow of designing something that’s not only functional, but beautiful too.

Efficiency shows up in volunteering: packing groceries, stocking shelves, boxing up donations, whatever the week’s volunteer shift calls for.

Quality shows up in a butcher block countertop I refinished with tung oil, which is supposed to be more durable than beeswax. It certainly looks better so far, but time will tell.

And a mix of all three has shown up in the product research I’ve been doing to find the perfect air fryer for my small-ish condo. Creation wants something that produces tasty food while looking good in my kitchen. Efficiency wants fast cook times, good airflow, and a footprint that fits well on the counter and in storage. Quality wants durable construction, positive reviews from reputable sources, and a fair price.

My next venture may not include grocery or travel bags, but it will certainly include these Throughlines.

Can you think of a Throughline or three that drive you at your core? I’d love to know.

In 2015, I quit my job, sold pretty much everything I owned in my NYC apartment, and packed my life into a 40L backpack.

Some folks thought I was crazy to leave a 6-figure job at a big tech company, and I did feel a little bad that my parents wouldn’t easily be able to describe where I worked anymore to their friends, but it was time to go—call it a creative itch.

Moves like this don’t really start with a plan. They start with a feeling. I followed that feeling and built Pack Hacker.

Nearly ten years and one acquisition by AllGear Digital later, I’m feeling it again. Building this community has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding things I’ve done in my life, but it's time to move on.

Everyone wants to know what’s next. I wish I knew it myself, but I don’t have a plan, and it’s been quite a while since that was the case. The future feels open, uncharted, and, honestly, a little scary. There’s no goal to chase, and I’m coming to terms with that.

I felt the same way in the early days of that two-year trip around the world. No agenda, just moving from country to country as I felt like it. One night I wrote a blog post about everything in my backpack, just for fun. The post took off and from there I just started reviewing gear.

Within the first couple of Pack Hacker posts, someone asked me what I thought the TAM for urban travel gear was. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell “TAM” meant, so I looked it up. “Hmm, total addressable market. I have no idea, and I don’t really care. I’m just going to keep posting.”

TAM schmam.

I got extreme satisfaction picking out every item I owned (83, to be exact) and truly loved the feeling of carrying everything I needed on my back. Other people resonated with it too, which is why those early posts and videos took off.

All of this came full circle the other day when I was on a call with a founder of a brand I admire, letting them know about the transition. He said it had been great partnering with Pack Hacker and that we’d done an incredible job uplifting early upstart brands and creating a culture around this space.

A culture. I started tearing up a bit.

None of this felt like building and growing a market. It felt like obsessing over the most durable and packable toothbrush I could find for my next trip, and building an equally obsessive community around efficient travel. I’m honored to have built a brand that’s helped elevate the world of travel gear, among so many other talented creators1.

That’s the beautiful thing about the internet. You can create weird, niche content, and no matter what it is, you’re pretty much guaranteed an audience, so long as you package it right, because your reach is the entire world.

Of course I got lucky, and I had a bunch of other dumb ideas I tried in the early days that didn’t work, so I kept getting shots on goal until something stuck.

That’s kind of how I’ve always operated. I don’t start with a market. I start with something I can’t stop fixating on, and, so long as there’s a bit of traction, I just keep going.

So, what’s next?

I’m not sure yet, but I’ve followed this feeling before and it’s worked out. My friend Caio put it best: “Pack Hacker didn’t build you, you built Pack Hacker.”

Welcome to Tom’s Dispatch, where I figure out what’s next and bring you along for the ride.

Until next time, let’s keep unpacking.

This post first appeared on packhacker.com.

This whole thing started last May when I packed up my life in New York City into one 40L backpack and left to travel the world. I’ve been on the road ever since, living in a new country every couple of weeks. My travels have taken me through bustling cities and remote villages, tropical climates and cold temperatures, and a variety of different cultures, cuisines, and languages — it’s been quite the journey!

Before departing on this trip, I thought a ton about what to pack. I wanted the best gear that would hold up for the year without weighing me down, which led to a lot of late night research and online returns. When I finally settled on my “loadout”, I tested it for a couple months before writing and sharing my story, Everything You Need to Travel the World in One Backpack, on the popular blogging platform, Medium. The article really took off; folks began asking me for more gear recommendations and seemed genuinely excited to share their own travel tips in the comments. I knew there was something there.

After traveling with this gear for a year, some items exceeded my expectations, holding up through thick & thin, while others fell short, leaving me disappointed. I didn’t want a lot of “stuff”. I wanted just a couple items that held up in multiple conditions. Lightweight, high function, and aesthetically pleasing was the right blend.

Through all this, the idea for Pack Hacker was born. I love researching and testing gear — why not share my findings to save others the time and trouble of having to buy and test items themselves? Anyone that travels more than a couple times a year can benefit from the recommendations on the website.

Whether you’re a backpacker on a budget, corporate road warrior traveling for business, or someone gearing up for their first overseas adventure — Pack Hacker has you covered with the best gear for your trip (plus packing tips, travel hacks, and more). Here’s a quick video explaining a bit more about what we do:

<a href="https://medium.com/media/3c9d19504582f844c4826db6df04da55/href">https://medium.com/media/3c9d19504582f844c4826db6df04da55/href</a>

We’re looking forward to helping you pack less so you can travel more.

Launching Pack Hacker was originally published in Pack Hacker on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve had a little voice in the back of my head for some time now: Prodding me to start a business of my own. Nagging me to spin up something from nothing. Nudging me to work on my own ideas instead of others’ as I’ve done as a designer, engineer, and creative director in the past.

I finally answered that voice.

First things first: The Infatuation was a great company to work with. Chris, Andrew, and team are executing an incredible vision, and I can’t wait to continue to watch them grow. I had a blast completing many challenging projects during my tenure as creative director including working with the team on a complete rebrand. If you find yourself hungry in one of the cities they support, I highly recommend checking them out for restaurant recommendations and guides.

At the end of the day, I finally got the courage to take the leap onto my own into the unknown. I couldn’t be more excited for the learning opportunities and challenges that await. With a blend of experience at Apple, a few startups, and a couple advertising agencies, I feel well equipped and excited to dive in. Although this is beginning as a solo endeavor, it hasn’t entirely felt like it. The support and willingness to help from friends and family has been incredible, and I couldn’t be more grateful as things continue to get moving.

So, what is this business that I speak of? First, we need to go back (like Quentin Tarantino does with his movies).

It all started last year when I was gearing up for my nomadic world travel lifestyle. After selling just about everything I own (besides what’s mentioned in this blog post) I became obsessed with what to carry with me for a year:

• What should I bring for warm and cold weather? I don’t want to be restricted to countries of a certain climate.

• What’s the best way to never check a bag on any airline?

• What are the smallest, most minimal, dual-triple-quad-use items that don’t take up a lot of weight or space?

• What are some good “travel items” to purchase that don’t look like “travel items” (not a fan of fluorescent hiking backpacks and zip-off cargo shorts).

• What’s the best way to create consistent environments for productivity, no matter where I end up?

Why? Because everything I own needs to fit in one bag on my back.

Although some of my friends rolled their eyes when I explained the benefits of merino wool, and thought my quest for the smallest travel toothbrush was ridiculous (ok, maybe it is, a little 🙃), while traveling, I’ve met quite a few travelers unprepared for the above situations. Some were confined to a specific climate, packing clothing only for warm weather. Some felt weighed down by their bags and weren’t flexible to move around until finding a hotel or a locker big enough to fit their giant bags. Others checked a bag and were late to an event due to waiting at the delayed baggage claim, or in some rare cases, lost their checked bag altogether 😞. My goal is to help theses digital nomads, corporate road warriors, and frequent travelers solve these problems & more.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but these obsessions have been slowly spinning themselves into a viable business. A viable business that’s taken on the name Pack Hacker—a resource for the lightest, smallest, best looking, and most functional TSA compliant gear for travel. We’d love to notify you when we launch—feel free to sign up for the announcement here.

I’ll be continuing the nomadic lifestyle this year, living that coffee-shop-work-life that I can’t seem to get enough of. Travel is one of the best ways to gain creative inspiration and as a bonus, expand your world view. A learning piece that I don’t want to give up just yet by settling into one place permanently.

Thanks for reading & see you somewhere around the globe ✈️

This post originally appeared on Medium.

Here at The Infatuation, we help people find their way to the best meals in an approachable, funny, opinionated, and not-taking-ourselves-too-seriously manner. We’re like Zagat for a new generation. You’ll never find us using words like ‘toothsome’ our ‘mouthfeel’ to describe a piece of meat, but you will find over 1.6k unbiased reviews on the best restaurants around through our Website, our iPhone & Android apps, and Text Rex.

Chris Stang, co-founder & CEO of The Infatuation brought me in to help centralize all our creative under one umbrella. We’re a small company with a large audience, and we think branding is one of the most important things for us to focus on. We think critically, down to the smallest details. We provide information to an audience that craves authenticity and opinionated info on restaurant experiences.

This article covers the overall process we followed while rebranding. The point is to provide an inside look at how we settled on some of these decisions. Every company is different—this process worked for us and fluidly evolved through the duration of the rebrand. If you’re working on a rebrand, hopefully some of this info can help with your process.

Anatomy of our logo

Above is the redesigned logo. Below, we’ll cover the process we took to arrive at that conclusion. If you need to take a restroom break you should probably do it now, because this is a long one, and you’re going to be sucked into the beauty that awaits. BUCKLE UP.

Getting to the core of what we do

When we initially started working on this project, we made an effort to really simplify what we stand for, and what we provide to our users. People access our content in many different ways including:

• Restaurant reviews and guides on theinfatuation.com.

• Email newsletters spanning across 7 cities.

• Text Rex: SMS service connecting users to expert humans who help you figure out where to eat (beta).

• iOS and Android apps.

• Social: Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter.

This is quite a large range of services considering The Infatuation used to be a blog run by Chris and Andrew as a passion project showing their love for good food and disdain for esoteric restaurant reviews.

Keeping all our platforms in mind, we began to think about our positioning as a company. We discovered a common goal with all of these parts—they all help you decide where to go eat a meal.

After seeing everything holistically up on a whiteboard — a magic moment struck. We came to the realization that we tend to make up words for things, so, for example:

• Experiences = #EEEEEATS (our popular hastag on instagram with over 3.5 million posts).

• Recommendations = Rex (following Text Rex, our SMS recommendation service we created in June of 2015).

• Decisions = ???

We needed a special word for decisions, since all of our services have a goal of enabling you to make a decision, or even deciding for you. Many suggestions where thrown around until we reached another magic moment and coined ourselves as:

The Infatuation: Your Restaurant Decider

With this identification, the rebrand process became quite a bit easier. Every decision we make fits within the context of our core brand offering of helping you figure out where to go experience a meal. Basically: the main problem we’re trying to solve has to do with why the name of this restaurant is funny and relatable:

Strategizing a logo that can represent us as Deciders.

Time to begin designing the logo. So, open illustrator right? Not quite yet. We took a couple time-saving steps to help suss out the strategy of where we want this thing to land.

Survey, survey survey.

To start out, I sent around a survey to the team getting their views on the current Infatuation landscape. This was great input to see where everyone is at mentally, which is to say, WEIRD. To be clear, this is input that can help inform the decision, but it should by no means solely drive the decisions. Here are the questions that were asked of the team to really pin down how everyone was feeling about the brand:

1. In your mind, what word best describes The Infatuation?

2. What do you like about the current logo? What does it do well to communicate the brand?

3. What do you dislike about the current logo? What are the ways it improperly communicates what we do?

4. What does The Infatuation provide that other companies in the space can’t?

5. If The Infatuation was a restaurant, which one would it be & why?

6. What do our users love most about us?

7. Do you like Pizza?

17/17 Infatuation folks confirmed that they like pizza. That’s huge news for the team party planning committee.

Distilling information into a creative brief

With these survey results and through additional conversations, we came up with a creative brief that captured where we wanted the brand to head. I followed an approach learned from Frank Harris that he picked up during his Etsy days. Using this process, we asked ourselves 3 simple questions:

• What problems does the current logo have?

• What does the current logo communicate that we want to keep?

• What objectives do we have for the mark and what are some possible solutions?

This ensures we keep what we like from the current mark while pushing the branding to the next level. Here’s a link to the full design brief.

Analyzing the competition

It’s also important to identify where we sit within the context of our competitors. We drew a couple charts and scenarios to really get a sense of who our competitors are from a primary, secondary, and tertiary perspective. Hint: It’s mostly Domino’s Pizza.

Another nuanced observation is that most dining and food apps are red, following the psychological reference to color — red stimulates your appetite. Ultimately, we decided to steer away from red in order to promote uniquity in the space.

Moodboard Time

Next, we pulled all the information gathered in the strategy stage and started getting visual. We put up a lot of info. Visual styles that could work well for the brand. Things we personally like. Photos that represent our attitude. We then reacted to each piece with sticky notes. Green for good things, blue for neutral things, and red for bad things. This exercise can only be done effectively when everything is actually printed out for everyone to see. Connections are easier to make when looking at everything holistically—this is harder to do when paging through a PDF on screen.

I found it easiest to create sub mood-boards based on our ideas as well. At one point, we thought maybe the combination of a mouth and a compass could be good to help represent our penchant for good EEEEEATS and restaurant discovery. For that, we made a mouth-board.

All team members were encouraged to contribute to the board — the examples collected don’t necessarily need to be design/visual, more the mood of how we feel The Infatuation should be portrayed.

We also wanted to find out a rough brand archetype to help steer the creative. Gathering images around this helped pinpoint a rough direction to pursue. In looking at the “Brand Archetypes” chart, we ultimately decided the Outlaw feel fits us well. We do things differently than other publications reviewing restaurants, and we’re certainly not taking cues from the elder statesmen of the industry. We do what makes sense to us and what’s best for our users and readers — at all costs. We create the unexpected (see the unconventionally branded sony tea pot in the image above), we aim to be witty, but not wacky (see Dave Chapelle), we’re laid back (like The Dude, but less lazy).

Getting Sketchy

Once the moodboard was roughly set and we were able to react to everything, I dove in with a bunch of different sketches and ideas based on the requirements gathered in the information and exploration phases.

Basically, this is kind of a stream of consciousness on a page to see if any ideas stuck. Really quick sketches — nothing polished (or even good for that matter). It’s more to capture the idea, then bring that idea into illustrator for further refinement.

Some of the ideas brought to semi-life in illustrator:

After pinning some of these ideas up, as a team, we started to unpack the word “Infatuation” and all the feeling and action that comes with it. Infatuation defined is:

An intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something.

It’s not really love, it’s more like short-lived, intense, obsessive, almost unhealthy love. It’s writing your crush’s name in a notebook over and over again and maybe carving their likeness into a block of cheese. It’s clearing your mind of everything except for the one thing you’re infatuated with.

The thought of some combination of a heart and a lighting bolt started to make sense, and seemed to represent this word well. Our hearts jumping from one place to the next, just like our obsession for new restaurants and experiences. The idea was slick and on-brand. We rolled with it.

After mockup work, iteration, and perfecting the form, the BoltingHeart was born.

False Positives

Some people felt good about the BoltingHeart, others didn’t. We grabbed the whole team and gathered around a wall of BoltingHeart to see what the branding felt like as a whole. Logically, everything seemed to be there. But we were missing something. It wasn’t really tangible, it was more of a feel. The mark was too serious.

Although the BoltingHeart represented the word Infatuation very well, it didn’t represent who we are as a company. Many positives came from this false positive. It further informed where we needed to head and as a bonus we landed on a wordmark that REALLY felt like us.

Figuring out that feel—what were we missing?

Back to the moodboard—we needed to identify why were missing that humorous and carefree feel. I grabbed a bunch of illustrations and icons with the green, positive post-its on them and locked them up next to our wordmark just for kicks. The results were surprising.

Using the wordmark as the visual anchor, we found out that some icons we thought were really great for the brand didn’t work at all, and we were surprised to see ones we didn’t think could work feeling really great next to the wordmark.

We settled on the vibe of the space helmet and the grey flag & shield providing the best ‘feels’ for our brand.

Getting there

After figuring out the overall feel we started thinking about this idea of everyday pretentious kitchen items being somehow pulled down from their pedestals. Could we do something funny with a whisk? What about a mandoline? How can we mix this high-brow low-brow together and create an approachable mark? What’s some ridiculous combinations we can make with food / kitchen items and really pump up the humor in the mark? We had this idea around a megaphone and a ham combined, which seemed pretty stupid, so we went with it 😉. Back to the moodboard and sketching — started landing on a couple more ham horn ideas, along with pretentious kitchen items.

After some rough sketches to get the overall feel right, I pulled up Illustrator to create a couple more visual styles and mockups. The handle was probably the trickiest part. If positioned a certain way, it can start to feel very aggressive, and more like a cannon or a gun. NO BUENO. Other handle treatments just felt kind of wonky too.

<a href="https://medium.com/media/1543fe66f859c49b848955a5ec3edec8/href">https://medium.com/media/1543fe66f859c49b848955a5ec3edec8/href</a>

At this point, it was in a good place to show the team and get their thoughts before diving deep into the details. I put together a quick keynote showing the mark and some possible treatments and presented it. Laughter, smiles, and comments on how ridiculous it was were plenty. THIS IS IT. It felt good to finally land on something that our team felt represented us well.

With buy-in from the team, it was now time to start working on some of the smaller details, and ham-hornifying the rest of the brand identity.

Selecting color

We knew we wanted a blue, but the blue we were using in the past didn’t feel quite right. Plus, #80b6fd is a little washed out when used on white, and not accessible to the visually impaired.

We decided to use blue instead of the typical red most food companies use. Plus, the color blue enhances trust—IT’S SCIENCE. Trust is important when we’re sharing our opinion on many restaurants.

Going Blue Hunting

After sitting at my computer and using the hue selector for about 19 hrs, I thought it would be nice to get out and physically go look at blue colors that could match our vision.

I went and walked around East Williamsburg (the real East Williamsburg not to be confused with Bushwick, just so we’re clear) to grab some reference shots on what could fit us the best. Here’s some of what was captured:

We tried and experimented with a bunch of these different blues (and some other colors to boot):

And here’s the winner:

The above had the vibrancy we needed. It’s almost electric in its saturation. If a color matches our voice, this is it.

Finalizing Font Selection

When Alex Osorio initially shared the typeface FINKL with me, the feel of it immediately punched me in the face. The only problem is, it was title case only. Quinn Keaveney, the creator of FINKL, worked with us to develop the lowercase glyphs, as well as more weights for more use. The work Quinn did turned out great, and we’re excited to have a unique typeface that represents us and no one else.

Words are what we do. Having our words in a unique, visual style only helps to amplify our message.

We’re also continuing the use of Museo for subheadings. Rob—the super talented creative director from Mobelux, our agency partner—recommended Palanquin, a google font we can use across platforms to promote further consistency. AWESOME.

Color

After the primary blue was set, we blew out the rest of the color system as well.

Pattern

Also, I pulled together a repeatable pattern that can be used to reinforce our brand, using the sound bolts from the megaphone to create a fun, dynamic visual.

Getting Feedback from Creatives

Feeling good about how the kit of brand parts was coming together, it was time to start getting validation from other creatives in the field to make sure all improvements that could be made were made. When working on a mark, it’s easy to get tunnel vision and easily miss things other creative folks can see instantly. Since we don’t have a large design team at The Infatuation yet, I reached out to external sources.

Creative Friends

I ran mockups by a bunch of creative friends and colleagues that I’ve worked with in the past. Big thanks to Sayaka Sugimura, Jason Strong, Shawn Hoglund, Sasha Tsimbler, Alex Osorio, and Cassie Broeckert for helping make things better. From the overarching brand positioning all the way down to the kerning on the tagline, all the feedback has been instrumental in finalizing the mark.

Inspect

Bryn Jackson runs a weekly design critique called Inspect where he brings on talented designers and illustrators to take a look at and critique work. This was instrumental to pushing the work further into the goodness zone. Guests Vicki Tan and Ryan Putnam, as well as everyone participating in Inspect were super helpful in identifying how our logo and icon system could be improved.

Inspect feedback on the Ham Horn:

<a href="https://medium.com/media/236794c8fb8964c7a7343d86ed27f7ca/href">https://medium.com/media/236794c8fb8964c7a7343d86ed27f7ca/href</a>

Inspect feedback on our Instagram iconography (over 2.3 million followers across all handles):

<a href="https://medium.com/media/9ed39ba196d4e314b66e53292b493a19/href">https://medium.com/media/9ed39ba196d4e314b66e53292b493a19/href</a>

Executing

So now, the Ham Horn is born and the overall brand vision is set, here’s how it’s played out in our executions so far. Seeing everything here is a good baseline, and it will be great to see how these executions evolve over time.

The Mark

That’s all I got. As of now, this is how our logo stands. Although we’ve tried quite a few executions, it’ll be interesting to see how the brand evolves as we expand and grow our offering. Until next time, go forward and #EEEEEATS.

Rebranding The Infatuation: A Company With a Passionate Audience & 7 Years of History was originally published in The Infatuation Team on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Edit: I’ve launched a full website called PackHacker: We test and review the best gear for travel so you don’t have to.

Sometime back in January of 2016, I decided to leave my job with Apple and take a dive into the unknown — explore the world while working remotely.

Below is everything I’m currently traveling with, and basically everything I own (besides a storage locker in Minneapolis that holds my other possessions). Generally, it feels freeing and good to have next to nothing. Adding the constraint of a 40L backpack has made it even more challenging when deciding what to bring, and what to cut.

Everything on this list is TSA compliant, and I can fit this bag underneath the seat in front of me on the airplane. This allows for relaxed, fluid travel, with no need to race other passengers to the overhead bins. When arriving at a new city, I’m not forced to lug a giant roller bag to the hotel immediately as well—I can start doing whatever, right then and there, backpack in hand.

Some of this stuff is a bit pricey, but I’m apt to spend more on something I have less of. Paying for quality is worth it.

As a note, below are referral links, meaning, I get a little something if you click and purchase.

BUCKLE UP, THIS IS A LONG ONE—onto nearly 100 items. Oh, and if you’re more of a spreadsheet person, you can take a look here.

Pack

• GORUCK GR2: This is where everything started. After looking at loads of packs, I ultimately decided on the GoRuck GR2 for it’s durability and aesthetic. I don’t love the weight, but doubt this thing will ever break (will update if it does). My favorite part about this pack is the separate laptop compartment located closest to your back. It’s super padded & protected, and makes for quick access when it’s time to sling pixels. I also appreciate that it isn’t bright orange with a bunch of useless pockets. Would try a Minaal if I wanted something a bit lighter.

I don’t live in my home, my home lives on my back.

Clothing

Most of the stuff listed here is wool or synthetic, and wide in style variety for different contexts—good anywhere from:

• Staying cool on a blistering beach in Ko Samet.

• Keeping a low-key, muted, kinda grungy profile to get into Berlin’s best clubs (including Berghain 🏢).

• Looking semi-fancy for a tasting menu meal in Paris.

Weather-wise, this combination of clothing works well down to about 25° fahrenheit. Anything colder, and I probably won’t travel there. I’ve had enough Minnesota winters to last a lifetime.

Tee Shirts & Tank

• Outlier Ultrafine Merino T-Shirt (left): My favorite of the bunch. This thing fits so well, and hardly ever needs to be washed due to the merino wool material. Thinking of grabbing another.

• Woolly Short Sleeve Ultralight V-Neck (middle): Thinner than the Outlier. Good for warmer weather. Not 100% on the color but the lighter color is better when it’s very hot/sunny out.

• Icebreaker Men’s Anatomica Tank Top (right): Good for showing off the guns, especially if you’re huge like me from typing on the computer and moving a mouse around a lot.

Sweaters

• Woolly Long Sleeve V-Neck (left): Basically the long sleeve version of the Woolly shirt above. A little thicker though.

• Ministry of Supply Mercury Sweater (right): This thing looks pretty good, but requires a more frequent wash than the rest of the shirts in the bunch. If I was going to ditch a shirt, it’d be this one, although it helps keep a polished look.

Oxford

• Wool & Prince Button Up: This thing is great and very versatile style-wise. Holds up well without frequent washing. The collar is a bit stiff right out of the box, but one wash fixed that.

Hoodie

• Icebreaker Shifter Long Sleeve Zip Hood: That’s way too many words for what this thing is—a hoodie—but the quality and fit of this thing makes up for the uptight naming of it. Highly recommended.

Jackets

• Patagonia Alpine Houdini Jacket (left): Does a great job at blocking the rain. The draw-string on the hood keeps it in place in windy conditions. Both jackets compress into themselves and make for easy packing and transport.

• Patagonia Nano Puff Jacket (right): The weight to warmth ratio with this thing is magical. It’s extremely thin and light. The synthetic material inside the nano-puffs are more durable than actual down as well, meaning, if it gets wet, it’s not a huge issue. This jacket alone is good for about to 40° fahrenheit and above weather. Also doubles as a pillow when compressed (although it’s little stiff).

Pants

• Outlier Slim Dungarees: Incredible fabric. Good cut & look. These are comfortable to wear, and still work for “fancier” events. Thanks to the NanoSphere® treatment, these dry quickly, and spills roll right off the fabric (although rain will drench them— they’re not “waterproof”). They’re also longer in length, which works well for a tall person like me. These would probably be my go-to pants even if I wasn’t on the road.

Shorts

• Outlier New Way Shorts (left): Maybe a tad short if you’re a taller dude, but overall awesome. Outlier continues to be my favorite brand for clothing due to the look and function of it. These shorts also double as swim trunks, and some of the internal construction lends itself to faster dry times, and an internal draw string keeps these things intact when hitting the waves. On the outside, they look and feel like ordinary shorts.

• Billabong Crossfire X Submersible Short (right): Another shorts / swim trunks combo. Much cheaper than the outliers, and still do a good job. It’s a little harder to pass them off as “shorts” due to the swim-suit looking aesthetic and the “swishier” material that trunks usually have.

Underwear & Socks

• Woolx Merino Wool Boxer Brief: Comfortable and able to be worn a couple times before washing (shh — don’t tell anyone) thanks to antimicrobial wool.

• Darn Tough Socks: Wicking and cushiony — even with no traveling, I think I’d switch to these due to durability and again, the ability to wear a couple times between washes.

Shoes

• Earthrunner Elemental Sandals: These things are amazing. Super comfortable, and the strap system basically glues these to your feet circumventing the annoying slapping sound flip-flops can make. These are also my running shoes. I used to go straight barefoot, but decided it’s probably better to not get a rusty nail stuck in my foot while traveling. We’ll see how they hold up durability-wise. So far, so good.

• Vivobarefoot Men’s Walking Shoe: The idea of these are great. Minimalistic, light-weight, and versatile. Good for wearing while walking around exploring, and can also pass as something “fancier” if you’re sneaky (short of a pair of wing tipped loafers, of course). The one problem I have is sizing. A 42 is too small, and a 43 is too large for me personally.

Warm Gear

• Wool Buff (top left): This thing can be twisted and folded around into a bunch of different functions. I mostly use it as a scarf, but sometimes twist it into a beanie for colder weather.

• Headband (bottom left): This thing does a great job of keeping gorgeous locks out of your face if you’re out for a run.

• Wool Gloves (right): These are good for use outside, or in an overly air conditioned coffee shop/co-working space. They also make you look like kind of a psycho if you’re wearing them with only a tee shirt just to keep your hands warm. Works for me. YMMV.

Hat

• Ghostly International Cotton Camp Cap: This thing is awesome. I’m a big fan of 5 panel cap construction—it just seems to fit a little tighter, and it’s higher above the ears. Also, spreading The Infatuation love with the #EEEEEATS pin. It’s all about the details.

Accessories

• Void Watch: Simple, clean design. Japanese-made. Thinking about getting a watch that supports two timezones and that I don’t have to charge often (sorry Apple Watch). Suggestions welcome.

• Bomber Paracord Bracelet: A paracord and a fire starter (flint) all in one? And it’s TSA Compliant? This thing is probably overkill for the type of travel I’m doing, but I still like to think it impresses people.

• J. Crew Belt: This thing is incredibly durable, and has been used by me everyday for years. Still intact, and looking good.

• Han Kjøbenhavn Doc Sunglasses: Purchased these following a hot tip from Katherine Lewin. These are inside of a deceiving Warby Parker Case (the hard case is pretty rad). For what these are, they take up quite a bit of room in my bag. Have looked at some foldable glasses, but they’re not quite as aesthetically pleasing. Not in the slightest.

Tech

The thing I love about all this is that it’s possible to work from virtually anywhere with an internet connection. Right now, I’m sitting in a coffee shop called #HASHTAG in Berlin, tomorrow I may be working from inside of a train, the next day, a beach. The possibilities are endless.

Laptop

• MacBook Pro: The item that makes this lifestyle possible. Fully maxed out because let’s face it, at least half of the day is spent on this. No time for slowness.

• Surge Protector: There are various opinions online about whether or not you need one of these. I’m kinda paranoid, so I use one. Plus, there’s a USB port which replaces the little iPhone charging brick (although it charges a bit slower). Although small, every little bit of space saved is worth it.

To save pounds, cut ounces.

E-Reader

• Amazon Kindle Voyage with Origami Case: The next-best replacement for physical books. The size and shape is nice, although I miss physical, paper books — especially seeing how they’re typeset and consuming full-page graphics and illustrations.

Accessories

1. Headphone Splitter: Good for when you’re meeting friends that love the same music you do. For me, that music is Techno & House.

2. Griffin PowerJolt Micro: This is the tiniest car adapter I’ve ever seen. I hardly use it, but it’s so small that it’s rarely noticeable in the pack. Sometimes, it’s difficult to pull out of the socket, but ultimately worth having.

3. MagSafe to MagSafe 2 Converter: This is still surprisingly useful to have, especially when using a thunderbolt monitor with the old MagSafe adaptor.

4. Kikkerland Travel Adapter: Small, lightweight, and can convert just about every outlet anywhere.

5. Kenu Highline iPhone Case (green and black leash): Some people use leashes for pets, others for phones. At first, I thought this idea was kinda dumb. But then, I dropped my phone down a large cliff on Angel Island and also watched this video of massive phone theft in Rio De Janeiro. This thing keeps your phone from being dropped or stolen because it’s literally attached to you. It’s also hardly noticeable. Just loop it through a belt loop and forget about it. A tiny part of this case cracked, but Kenu sending me a new one for free that’s supposedly stronger. Will update if that one breaks.

6. Apple Ethernet Adapter: Good to have if the hotel or Airbnb has real shit wifi but an ethernet cable.

7. Shure SE425-V Earphones: The sound and noise-cancelling with these earbuds is pretty great, but I can’t say the same about the durability. Maybe I’m hard on my electronics, but I’ve had to replace these 2 times using their warranty. It’s nice to get a “new” pair of headphones each time, but I’d pay a couple grand for amazing earbuds that will last for life. Suggestions?

8. Apple Magic Mouse: It’s a mouse. Used for computer work. It’s great.

9. Power Splitter: You know that crappy feeling you get when all the outlets are taken at the coffee shop and you’re left with dead electronics? With this thing, if you ask nicely, the person using the outlet may allow you to plug this bad boy in so each of you can get your juice. The smallest splitter I’ve been able to find that’s still 3 prong.

10. HooToo Battery Pack and Wireless Router: This charges an iPhone 6S 2–3 times from a full charge. It’s also a router, so if an accommodation only allows you to connect one or two devices, you can use the router feature to distribute sweet, sweet internet to all of your devices.

11. Apple Lightning Cables: Cables. Used for charging devices. They’re great. (I don’t mess around with any 3rd party stuff when it comes to cables. I like living in luxury with Apple.)

12. Transcend Thumb Drive: Thumb drive used for transferring files when a network is slow, or printing off design comps from an archaic printshop that doesn’t accept files any other way. Don’t particularly like the look of this drive, but it does the job.

13. Pencil Lead: Replacement pencil lead for a mechanical pencil. Pretty sick.

14. Apple Power Adapter: It’s a power brick. Used for charging stuff. It’s great. Also, probably going to ditch it, because the surge protector has a USB port.

15. Micro USB cord: for Kindle, HooToo, and irresponsible Android user travel buddies that forget their chargers I meet along the way.

iPhone 6s Plus (not pictured, because it was needed to take photos of all this stuff!)

Toiletries

1. Fjallraven Gear Bag: Perfect size to fit all of these toiletries. Also has a nifty strap to hang on towel hooks & the like.

2. Deodorant: Yep, deodorant.

3. GoToob Travel Bottles: Fill these up with whatever you want. I’ve got Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap (a little of this goes a long way), Face Lotion, and Sunscreen.

4. Toothpaste: Getting it as close to a 3 ounce tube as possible is good so you’re still within the TSA liquid budget.

5. Nylon Travel Toothbrush and some floss: The size of the toothbrush is nice and compact, although the bristles are a little stiff.

6. Comb: Keep the hair in check.

7. WAHL Compact Travel Trimmer: The smallest trimmer I’ve been able to find. Works pretty well, although I find myself changing the battery about every 8th use.

8. Swiss Army Nail Clippers With File: Probably the worlds smallest nail clippers, also, the main event of this article. If you’re still reading — you’ve made it to the best part. Congrats! Really love this thing though, and it brings me a lot of personal satisfaction to optimize for the smallest item and weight.

9. Tweezerman Moustache Scissors: Works well for grooming a beard / trimming a moustache. With the pointed blades, I’m surprised TSA hasn’t taken these away from me yet.

10. Mr. Natty Dub Hair Pomade: Hair product of choice. Good hold, smells good. The dude that makes this works at Freeman’s in NYC. Highly recommended.

11. Schick ST2 Disposable Razor: Since it’s hard to travel with a safety razor (thanks TSA) the next-best space-saver is buying a bunch of disposable razor cartridges. I ripped the handle off of all these and use each 4–5 times before disposing. Works well for me, I keep a groomed beard and shave about once a week.

Nail Clipper

• Swiss Army Nail Clippers With File: Mentioning this again, because I know its why you’re all reading this 😉 LOOK HOW SMALL.

Miscellaneous

Here’s the rest of the stuff that didn’t really fit into the categories above.

Playing Cards

• Bloodlines Custom Playing Cards: These are custom playing cards created by my old coworker, friend, and magician Billy French. The detail he put into these things is amazing—each card is unique. Cards are a pretty good way to meet new friends / waste 3 hours playing War.

Wallet & Notebook

• Herschel Supply Raven Leather Wallet: Minimalistic wallet that holds about 8 cards (5 in the card slots, and 3 inside of the wallet). Also, the money clip on the opposite side is good at holding larger, foreign notes as well as USD.

• Herschel Supply Raynor Passport Holder: Good at holding passports. I also keep other documents in here (vaccination proof, global entry card, etc.)

• Moleskine Notebook: Filled with hundreds of ideas. Some good. Most bad.

Water Bottle

• Vapur Eclipse Water Bottle: The best, most space-efficient water bottle I’m aware of. Rolls up nice and small when not in use, and holds 1L when it is in use. Kinda hard to clean.

Tools

• Beta-QRv2 Flashlight: This flashlight is small and super bright. The quick-release system on the keychain makes it easy to locate and store. I’ll spare you all the technical details (because I’m not really sure what they mean anyways), but there’s a ton of info on Jason’s website if you’d like to know how he makes such great lights.

• Gerber GDC Zip Hex, Leatherman — Piranha, and Gerber GDC Zip Driver: I tried a ton of different mini multi-tools, and found this combination to be the best for fixing things like uneven tables at coffee shops and loose chairs in hotel rooms. Shouldn’t need it for much more. You can get a pretty good amount of torque with the mini gerber drivers in comparison to other mini multi-tools, and the Piranha has a ton of different tools in one. Even though they’re TSA compliant, I imagine I’ll get these taken away by some cowboy TSA person.

• rOtring Mechanical Pencil and Touchscreen Stylus and rOtring Rapid Pro Pen: Since I’ve only got one pen and pencil, figured I’d go fancy with them. These things look aesthetically great and feel good in the hand. The mechanical pencil also doubles as a stylus, if you’re into that sort of thing.

• Collapsible Compact Chopsticks and TOAKS Titanium Ultralight Spork: Since I have such a high dedication to #EEEEEATS, these things come in handy. Either when you’re terrified of the health code at a certain restaurant or want to travel around eating gloms of peanut butter—I’ve used these things quite a bit actually. Also convenient when take-out forgets to include utensils.

ZZZZZ Gear

Howard Leight Laser Lite Foam Earplugs and a Sleeping Mask: These earplugs are soft, can stay in for long periods of time without any irritation, block a ton of sound, and are beautiful (ok, maybe not beautiful, but they work). The sleeping mask is something I got from a Delta flight. It’s great to bust out this little kit and fall asleep virtually anywhere.

Towels

Packtowl Personal and small towel from REI: Towel and washcloth combo — these are good for Airbnb’s that don’t provide towels, hostels and the beach. They both dry extremely quickly.

First Aid

First Aid Kit: Better safe than sorry. I’ve got the full kit from this VSSL First Aid Kit (ditched the package because it was too heavy, although it looks awesome), malaria pills, antibiotics, and a tourniquet given to me by a U.S. Army field medic I sat next to on a plane once. Haven’t had much use for any of this yet, but it’ll be good, and potentially life-saving to have when needed.

Compression and organization items

• Eagle Creek Pack-It Specter Cubes: These weigh next to nothing and do a good job at minor compression and bag organization. Pants and shorts in the large bag, and the rest of the clothing in the others.

• Sea to Summit Compression Dry Sack (the orange one): Same idea as the others, but this has a draw string to really compress things down. I keep my hoodie, buff, and gloves in here packed up tight.

• Apple Bag: NBD. Just a smaller day bag I use for bringing my laptop and snacks to the coffee shop. Assuming it’ll fall apart at some point.

• Cedar Chips: I think old people use these in closets to keep away bugs and make their stuff smell nice. Old people are right — these really work. I stick one of these in each eagle creek bag to keep clothing fresh.

Sentimental Items

• Fortune: Opened a fortune cookie about 6 months before my trip, and thought it was fitting for the time and place. I ended up starting the Eat Pray Love tour (but mostly eat) on June 16th, so not quite June 1, but I’ll call it a win.

• Whale Figurine: Gotta carry some stuff with no function, right? I have this little whale figurine that I carry as a reminder that not everything needs a functional purpose. The Whale is one of my nicknames given to me from an agency I worked at called space150 and is a good reminder of my roots as a designer.

Putting it all together

And there you have it. My entire load-out for traveling the world in one pack. Here’s everything in spreadsheet format if that’s your thing.

Super thanks to Tynan, James Clear, Everyday Carry, Carryology, and Legal Nomads for inspiration on the gear—check out the linked articles for more info on one bag travel.

If you’ve read this far, you probably really love gear :) — I’ve created a website of curated travel gear recommendations over at PackHacker.com if you’re interesting in checking it out.

<a href="https://medium.com/media/2ba6932a5a9ec86d8c77dda7a6e10d8d/href">https://medium.com/media/2ba6932a5a9ec86d8c77dda7a6e10d8d/href</a>

Everything You Need to Travel the World in One Backpack was originally published in Pack Hacker on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week, I sat in on S. N. Goenka’s 10 day Vipassana mindfulness meditation course in Menomonie, Wisconsin. It was nice to spend some time in a peaceful spot far away from the constant chaos of NYC.

I’ve never been much of a meditator, but tried it out last year in an attempt to give my brain a break every once in a while. I really love design, tech, and all the things that come with it, but often times, I don’t really know when to shut it all off (or how to for that matter). My brain is constantly ticking with new ideas, tasks that need to be completed, and how I can improve my skills as a worker, leader, and overall person. I’ve found this type of thinking is healthy when it’s not obsessive. I sometimes find myself engaged in an activity outside of design (like hanging with friends, eating pizza, or playing bocce ball, or something like that) but my brain is sometimes, somewhat in the work-space and not really in the moment. This doesn’t happen all the time (friends, I do really love you 💙) but sometimes I get distracted.

My thinking is that meditation could help quell some of those unuseful thought patterns when they’re not productive. When I initially told my family about the decision to attend the course, there was some inkling that I was joining a cult to drink some Kool-Aid and blast off into space. The intentions of the course are pretty good though: funding is donation-based (and you’re unable to donate until taking the course), it’s non-sectarian, there’s no talk of energy fields or voodoo magic, and overall, it’s fitting for a rational person like myself. Plus, Goenka is a pretty jolly dude, and has the opposite of RBF syndrome. Just look at him:

Vipassana — which means “to see things as they really are” — is a form of meditation that encourages participants to observe what’s going on with their mind and body in a balanced, accepting way.

Over the course of the 10 days, Goenka gave us 5 rules to follow:

1. Abstain from killing any being.

2. Abstain from stealing.

3. Abstain from all sexual activity.

4. Abstain from telling lies.

5. Abstain from all intoxicants.

All of them were pretty easy to follow, except for #1. Resisting the urge to slap the sh*t out of the mosquito chewing on my arm vs gently brushing it away or letting it peacefully get it’s fill of my sweet, sweet blood proved to be a challenge. Side note, the mosquito is the deadliest animal to humans. Golly, we’re nice.

On top of this, we all observed “Noble Silence”, which involved no communication with anyone for 10 days (except short interviews with the teacher). Not verbally. Not with gestures. Not with the eye blinking language I so cleverly invented to try skirt around this rule. Nothing. Since looking people in the eye was forbidden, I basically got to know people by the look of their shoes, and invented their entire life story based on that information alone.

Noble Silence was surprisingly difficult to observe, but ultimately important to ensure everyone stayed focused on themselves and their practice vs anything external. I never experienced how automatic it is to say “bless you” after someone sneezes until observing this rule. With little to no sound stimulation, our senses became highly attuned. A cough in the meditation hall was as loud as a gunshot, and you could easily hear someone drop a toothpick across the silent dining hall.

Meditating for 11 hours a day, the group didn’t have much free time. If my highly-complex calculations are correct, that’s total of 110 hours over the 10 days (if any mathematicians want to check this, that would be great). Prior to this course, I had meditated for maybe 15 hours total, mainly using an app called Head Space or going off my own intuition with little guidance. The structure was helpful, and I found myself not really knowing what to do during the break periods (besides nap, shower, and stare at the wall). We did have a little yard to walk around in, and some people stacked rocks, watched leaves blow around, etc. At one point, I watched 5 minutes go by on my watch, FOR FUN, PEOPLE.

The meals we had were simple vegetarian dishes that were prepared for us so we could continuously focus on our practice. Super thankful to the individuals that donated their time to make this possible. We didn’t need many calories, since we were sitting there all day. There was breakfast & lunch, but no dinner.

For the accommodations, we stayed in “cells”. Basically, little rooms separated by sheets. It wasn’t too bad, considering everyone was in silent-mode all the time. By the end of the day, everyone was usually pretty zocked out and went to bed early anyways.

Despite the same schedule, each day brought something new. Here are some cliff notes from what I can remember (we weren’t allowed to write either, so this is from memory).

• Day 1: Oh yeah, let’s do this. I’m pumped. I’m ready.

• Day 2: Ok, super bored. Maybe this isn’t for me.

• Day 3: My back hurts. I keep counting my breathes guessing when the bell is going to ring for break. My mind is continuously zooming around.

• Day 4: Yay — we get to learn a new way to meditate today. Also — I’m noticing a lot more visual detail in everything. I’ve never looked it water droplets on a shower curtain in such awe—are they drugging the food?

• Day 5: Why is Santa Baby 🎵 stuck in my head?

• Day 6: Whoa, my whole body just started vibrating — this feels weird, and amazing. Super focused.

• Day 7: What was that unplanned crying followed by uncontrolled laughter at nothing during break? Unsure of cause.

• Day 8: My back still hurts.

• Day 9: I can’t wait to talk to all these people I’ve been meditating with tomorrow.

• Day 10: I kind of want a day 11 to meditate.

This range of experience was great, and all part of the process. It’s also interesting to have no way to deal with your thoughts. You can’t go sweat it out at the gym. You can’t watch a tv show to turn off your brain. It’s just you, your thoughts, and your meditation cushion.

At the end of the 10 days, the silence was lifted, and we could all chat. I found myself being SO curious about anything anyone had to say. One dude admitted to reading an Advil bottle for fun and my reaction was TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE ADVIL BOTTLE YOU READ FOR FUN WHAT DID IT SAY??? Laughter felt so good. Connecting with people felt so good. And I felt I knew everyone very well considering we all went through the same experience.

Takeaways

I definitely don’t claim to be an expert at this stuff, but noticed a couple things during the experience that haven’t really dawned on me before. These may be applicable to just me:

Perception of a situation is more important than the situation. Mood isn’t necessarily based on external factors. Over the course of the 10 days, my mood shifted much more than expected, despite the structured, monotonous schedule. One hour I could be incredibly happy, and the next, dreading everything. Internal outlook on the external events can drive mood. Positive people tend to view most situations positively and downer people are the opposite.

Understanding and living in the present moment. I’ve heard people talk about the present moment like it’s this amazing thing, and I’ve understood this intellectually, but not experientially until this course. This really clicked after I watched 5 minutes go by on my watch (for entertainment purposes, since we had literally no stimulation). In that moment, I felt so bored and frustrated with meditation, but simply wasted those 5 minutes staring at a clock. This is fine, I’m not really judging it, but being conscious of how we spend time can be helpful—not necessarily changing what we’re doing, just being aware. Our teacher said when you have one foot in the past and one in the future, you piss on the present. Well, both my feet are usually in the future. Not sure what that means ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some things are controllable. Most things aren’t. Admittedly, I’m more in the camp of thinking that everything can be controlled and calculated down to the smallest detail with enough effort. It’s an idealistic view that I’ve learned to curb each year. Having standards is desirable, but not to the point that they affect progress. Perfectionism can be an enemy—viewing things objectively with equanimity is the goal of Vipassana.

All emotions make your body react biochemically in some way. After 10 days of silent observation, I started to notice effects that emotions had on my body down to a subtle level. Smiling and laughter tends to loosen up the muscles more and leaves a glowing feel on my face and stomach. On the other hand—when experiencing a little anxiety, shoulders tense up and there’s a tiny tightening in the abdomen area. All this was very pronounced by day 11.

Staying completely still while meditating increases focus immensely. The toughest sits we did were called Adhiṭṭhāna: basically, it’s where you attempt not to move a muscle for an entire hour. No opening your eyes and no moving your hands or legs. This allowed us to focus on what’s going on within the constraints of our static bodies, and I was surprised at how much this technique improved focus. Some stretches, I really tried and succeeded. Others, I sort of just sat in a relaxed position the whole hour.

The brain cycle is INTENSE. During the 10 days, my brain went nuts about 80% of the time. Not sure why. There wasn’t really anything to do or worry about. It’s not like I could pick up my phone or computer to make stuff happen. We couldn’t even write anything down. My thoughts mainly went in a cyclical loop consisting of:

• Work & the amazing stuff our team is creating.

• Relationships: past & present, good & bad.

• DESIGN STUFF.

• Tasty food.

• Dreamy dreams.

Although I did think through and figure quite a bit out, a lot of this seemed like unnecessary churn. I find it easy to get lost in my head when really focusing on something, which isn’t always productive.

Would I do it again?

Next week? Probably not. Next year? Maybe. Overall, I’ve found meditation pretty helpful—especially in those moments of OH MY GOD I’M WORKING BUT NOTHING IS GETTING DONE. This course has really shown me that meditation is less about “turning off the brain” and more about enhancing the function of it. I’ll keep up the practice when I make the time for it.

Oh yeah — and here’s the daily schedule if you’re curious

• 4:00 AM: Morning Wakeup Bell.

• 4:30 AM–6:30 AM: Meditate.

• 6:30 AM–8:00 AM: Breakfast and rest.

• 8:00 AM–11:00 AM: Meditate.

• 11:00 AM–1:00 PM: Lunch and rest.

• 1:00 PM–5:00 PM: Meditate. (The dreaded 4 hour stretch.)

• 5:00 PM–6:00 PM: Tea break. (Nope, no dinner EEEEEATS. Just a piece of fruit [which always tasted amazing].)

• 6:00 PM–7:00 PM: Meditate.

• 7:00 PM–8:30 PM: Evening discourse.

• 8:30 PM–9:00 PM: Meditate.

• 9:30 PM: Lights out.

• 10:30 PM: Wake back up and PARTY!!!1!!! (kidding — lights out at 9:30 for real).

Thanks for reading—hope this was useful for you!

This post originally appeared on Medium.

Thrilled to announce some big changes in my life.

For starters, I’ll be saying goodbye to two Apples: New York City, and Apple. Beginning June 1st, I’ll be traveling wherever, whenever, flashpacking around the world. Planning to start in Norway & Sweden to experience the midnight sun and see why my ancestors left. The rest of the trip is open as of now, but Berlin, Isle of Skye, Buenos Aires, Okinawa, Sa Pa, Bagan, and Sydney, are on the top of the to-travel list to name a few.

Also, couldn’t be more excited to announce that I’ll be joining The Infatuation as their Creative Director. Chris, Andrew, and team are working on some great things that I’m excited to have the opportunity to be a part of — from The Infatuation Reviews, to Text Rex, all the way down to #EEEEEATS on instagram — there’s a ton of room for creativity and growth.

That’s all for now.

This post originally appeard on Medium.

What I learned and how you can do it, too.

Creating for 100 days straight. When I tell people about this project or they see my feed on instagram, their questions are usually “Why?” and “What are you going to get out of it?” and “What’s next when it’s done?” My answers to these questions tend to be “I’m improving my illustration skills” and “I’m going to sell something with these printed on them eventually” and “I just enjoy a challenge”. While all of these answers are correct and follow a goal-oriented path, there’s also a deeper, less concrete reason: just creating.

Creative folks have an innate drive to make something, to evoke a feeling, to build something in order to solve problems — it’s a core trait in our personalities. It’s about putting something tangible out there for other people to react to, use, and enjoy. Projects like this are deeper than simply putting pixels to a page.

When I first heard of The 100 Day Project with Elle Luna and The Great Discontent, I was curious about the idea, and knew I wanted to give it a shot. The principles she outlines in her book The Crossroads of Should and Must are really great. It’s a quick read — I’d recommend peeling through it.

“What Is the 100-Day Project? It’s a celebration of process that encourages everyone to participate in 100 days of making. The great surrender is the process; showing up day after day is the goal. For the 100-Day Project, it’s not about fetishizing finished products — it’s about the process.” more info→

After a shorter series of 30 illustrations last year called Daily Sonar, I’ve created 100 illustrations for Wallpaper Disco. Written below is an attempt to outline my process, share some learnings from along the way, and provide a few guiding principles for you to begin your own project.

Starting the project

Choose a subject

This is a really important piece. Be sure to choose something you really love and are passionate about. I remember something my fifth grade science teacher, Mr. Webster, shared with us when we were picking a subject for the science fair. He urged us choose something we were really, really excited about because he knew the novelty of the idea would wear off after a month or two, and we would only be able to rely on grit and determination to push through until the end. In my case, nightlife, disco, and DJ themes in the form of illustrative patterns made sense. I have a huge interest in music, and am even a bit of a bedroom DJ and producer for fun. On the design side, I really enjoy structured systems, consistent styles, and shape-based illustration. This held my interest for 100 days.

Define what you want to get out of it (or not)

Most of this is going to depend on your personality type. If you’re a goal oriented person that needs something to shoot for, it may be best to invent some incentives along the way. If you prefer things to be more open and goals make you want to throw up, keep things a little less structured. In my case, the overarching idea was to have a group of 100 pieces to showcase once the project was completed. It’s a very high-level goal, but I always imagined myself reviewing all 100 of these when they’re done and feeling a sense of pride after completing them (and I did!).

Consider setting a few rules

Flexible guidelines are the best here. Think of this as choosing a theme — it will help you along and remove unnecessary choice with each piece you create. Is there a specific medium you like to work with? Clay, paper, pixels? Maybe you want to create a very strict grid to follow if you’re a designer. Or — set no rules at all and embrace the chaos each new day brings (although this will be a much higher effort). Rules are good, but don’t let them paralyze you. In my case, I set a very specific grid, and color palette. The 150px by 150px square became my sandbox to play in with all 20 pre-chosen colors. I created most illustrations within this framework, but broke the rules for a few—some pieces required me to break the grid, or introduce new shades of colors to help convey the idea. If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll also notice that there are 10 background colors that repeat in order 10 times over — it’s a bit quirky, but it helped me narrow focus for that day — some objects simply don’t look good on say, an orange background. Doing this removed even more choice from the day to day because the background color was already set. This system may be overkill for some, but it allowed me to focus on honing my illustration skills, and remove other unnecessary distraction.

Begin

Quit theorizing. Quit thinking about what could be. Quit complaining. Just do. It’s really easy to get caught up in the what-ifs without ever putting pencil to paper. Not everything needs to be set in stone before you begin — think of this as more of an iterative journey rather than a fully executable plan. Things can shift and change along the way. Being open to that change is what makes this project really great. In my case, the initial 10 days were very energizing, and it was great to see what other people had thought up for their projects since there was a greater group starting on the same day. After about 20 illustrations, I thought this would be cool as a website. After 50, I decided to create a few iPhone cases. After 100, I’m writing this and reflecting about what I’ve done, and how I’ve improved. I didn’t have any of this planned at the beginning of the project, it all happened naturally along the way.

Doing the work

Embrace the consistency

There’s something special about doing something over and over again each day. I remember reading a comment on Reddit a while back about cooking scrambled eggs. The commenter mentioned how he ate the same exact breakfast every morning, preparing the eggs in the same fashion. He didn’t view it as a mundane task, rather, a journey of improvement through a repetitive task. Each day, he got better at preparing the meal. In my case, there was quite a bit of satisfaction here. Some illustrations took 3–4 hours sitting at the coffee shop on a Saturday morning — for instance, the Ableton push illustration (image below) — each element is precisely gridded out, and quite a bit of math was involved in getting everything accurate. In contrast, take a look at the peace sign, which I threw together in about 15 minutes after a late night of drinking. Each situation was unique, and the time constraint of one post per day helped push the project forward — happy to say I never missed a day.

Push through the resistance

You’ll probably run into resistance at some point. That initial spark of excitement is gone, and you’re in a creative rut. You’ll have “more important things to do” and “won’t have time”. The truth is, though, is that you need to make time. If Barack Obama has time to go lift weights and do cardio at the gym each morning, you can create one thing a day (and I don’t care how big or small!). Don’t think you’ll be able to? I believe in you. Simplify the project. Set aside time in the morning before your hectic day saps your motivation. Grab the “DO IT” chrome extension (with Shia LaBeouf) for a little extra push (and humor). Like Dwight D. Eisenhower liked to say:

“What is important is seldom urgent.”

Think about a marathon runner — the initial 13.1 miles are great, but once the runner is little over halfway, they have run out of their initial energy, but haven’t tapped into the reserve adrenaline that kicks in when getting closer to the finish line. This follows the “third lap is the hardest” mentality when thinking about a mile run around a track. Refocus can be useful here. In my case, I was most effective early in the morning. Later in the day, I would be burned out from work, and generally less motivated — find what works for you. I ran into a larger slump around day 60–75. The initial excitement about the project was gone. I had already illustrated all of my favorite ideas and was already digging deep to think of more. I went to see a couple of DJs play at Output and Mister Sunday in Brooklyn. I kept my eyes out for objects around the club I could include in the project. This refocus and distraction helped me push through that slump and inform new ideas.

Hone your skills and tools

You’ll start to notice yourself getting better at whatever it is your doing, especially later on in the project looking back towards the early days. Your process will improve, things will become more clear and obvious — repetition is the key to success here. In my case, I usually sketch out an idea very roughly with pencil and paper, then bring the idea into a program called Sketch. I picked up many tips along the way — some obvious, some not so obvious (I can cover this in another, more technical post if there’s interest). I found myself getting more comfortable with mixing and matching colors (something I’ve needed to improve for a while, as most of my previous work is muted and monochromatic), as well as pushing shapes and forms within the framework I’d set up.

Get Messy

Don’t worry so much about perfection while you’re working. Too often, time is wasted polishing something that isn’t even a good idea in the first place. Creating is one thing, editing is another. Albert Einstein once said:

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

I hold this true to creative work. It’s all about the process and constantly improving it. While working in this messy state, keep in mind that things can always be cleaned up later. Think of it as a funnel — put ideas and executions at the top, and you can refine everything using the funnel to narrow and focus your ideas as time progresses. You’ll bring consistency to your work, spend less time polishing, and you can’t spell funnel without ‘FUN’! In my case, even though my patterns are very polished looking and precise, they weren’t always this way. I threw out many ideas that just didn’t quite work, and am actually a bit sloppy when creating things — both on paper and in design programs.

Reflecting

Bask in the greatness of completion

Fast forward 100 days. High five to you! You’ve made it. You have 100 pieces fully completed. Take a look back on the weeks, and it will be pretty aparrent that you’ve improved. You’re probably faster, more accurate, and maybe a little bit tired of your subject matter. In my case, I’m feeling pretty good about the project. My skills have improved in form and color palettes, and it’s nice to have 100 completed pieces.

What’s next?

There doesn’t have to be a next — in the end, your skills have improved immensely, you have a great story to tell, and you’re another step in the right direction of leading a creatively fulfilling life. In my case, there’s the sheer satisfaction of creating, even if it doesn’t necessarily lead to any monetary value — skills have been improved, and it’s hard to put a price on that. Next — I’m planning to hone my After Effects skills by animating these — follow along on Instagram for updates.

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Visit wallpaperdisco.com to view all of the patterns.

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Fin

I hope this writeup helps clear a path for you to get started on your own 100 Day Project. I’ll leave you with a few other projects that have kept me inspired as I’ve created my own — make sure to check out their Instagram feeds for more! (links listed below).

Top row from left to right:

1. 100 Days of Little Dudes by @mochichito

2. 100 Days of Stamps by @farevaag

3. 100 Days of Vinyl Drawings by @mikevillustration

4. Gif Diary by @bloodydairy

5. 100 Days of Things With Faces by @hellopandreaa

6. 100 Days of Merit by @ocularinvasion

7. 100 Days of Reinasaur by @reinasaur

Bottom row from left to right:

1. 100 Days of SFPatterns by @saracombs

2. Sad Animal Facts by @katcarling

3. 100 Days of Animated Paper Pack by @animatedpaperpack

4. 100 Days of Strange Faces by @aliputput

5. 100 Days of Fonts by @schmohee

6. 100 Days of Delectable Colors by @ruxandraduru

7. 100 Days of Symbolizing Greatness by @chriscureton

This post originally appeard on Medium.