The Dudes. Creative identity beyond a signature style
7 years ago, I created the dudes. The wormy whimsical characters living in colorful chaos. These dudes have tiny heads and unapologetically happy bodies. They dress funny and move freely. They’re thirsty for life and hungry for attention. I love drawing the dudes, and they love me back.
This playful style became a stepping stone to my career as an illustrator. It was the product of my UI design and startup fatigue. An attempt to break free from familiar and succeed in the unknown. It started as an experiment and ended up becoming what they call “a signature”. A style that makes illustrators instantly recognizable and unforgettable.
Now, I’m not saying I’m unforgettable (you tell me), but the dudes do tend to create a lasting impression when one sees my work. The shape is unique, charisma is there, composition is chaos, and my choice of colors provides that extra oomph. A combination that celebrates excessiveness from every angle.
I can draw dudes anywhere, at any time, on any surface. My hand and my brain are so intertwined with this style that sometimes it’s hard to imagine creating not dudes and not chaos. Not dressing them funny. Not moving them freely. Not moving them at all? I used to question if there’s enough creative capacity in me for something else. Other style. Other dudes? Not dudes?
Thankfully, my most recent role at Padlet proved that I am indeed capable. I took a 4-year break from my signature and focused on creating a different style from scratch + building an illustration kingdom system on top of it. The use case I’m going to one day write and password protect because the work I did at Padlet is mysterious and important.
When I first joined the company, I still created an occasional dude here and there, but very soon the full-timeness of Padlet (and parenting) removed all the space for free-styling. I didn’t have time for the dudes. I didn’t have thoughts for the dudes. I stopped seeing and dreaming in dudes. They were slowly fading away.
And I thought it wasn’t too bad. After all, I made that career move to prove to myself that the dudes don’t define me. Or own me. That developing a successful illustration style doesn’t mean that one has to create in it for as long as they live. And as much as I love the dudes and they love me back, I didn’t want to draw them till the sunset of my days. Or at least, not them alone.
One thing I’ve learnt about myself in 34 years of existence is that I’m great at settings things up. From zero to hero. From nada to todo. I come up with ideas, create the things, develop strategies, and accompany them all the way to the stage. I watch the peformance, read the reviews, revise and tweak, and do it enough times till I know that the thing is successful.
This quality applies to all aspects of my life, including illustration styles. I did that with dudes first. I did that at Padlet next. I’m proud and happy with both, but it’s time to create something else. And sometimes, the something else feels scary. Because it’s another attempt to break free from familiar and succeed in the unknown. So great for the brain, so bad for security.
It’s very exciting but also disrupting. It’s hard to control and takes time to establish. Speaking of control, I wrote all about it in my recent post on transitioning from screens to paper, which is a whole other shade of scary.
Ok, back to creativity crisis. I won’t lie, there’re days when I wish I could be a one-style illustrator who’s in love with it enough to keep on going. Stay with one thing, refine and elevate, don’t stress and enjoy the consistent branding. I simplify, of course, but it’s a fantasy of mine that I sometimes exercise to remind myself of who I am and what’s important.
To me, change is important. Always learning new things is important. Moving forward is important. Solving problems is important. Having fun is important. Creating a new illustration style checks all those things simultaneously. It’s a challenge to tackle and a joy in the making. Something that I started missing after 4 years at Padlet, and something I’m getting back to today.
That said, the dudes I once created still have a special place in my heart. Just because I don’t want to draw them till my hand is sore anymore, doesn’t mean that I’ll never ever draw them again. In fact, I just did earlier this month when I was figuring out how zines work and created my own.
My dudes will always be mine, nothing will change that. And together, we’re going to see where my creative brain takes us next. The something I’m over the roof excited about. Always excited. Can’t wait!
So I Made a Fashion Zine
The first time I saw the term “zine” was 2 weeks ago when I read “Just Make Your Magazine” by Josh Jones. My creative potential started showing signs of aliveness after leaving my corporate tech job earlier this year, and I was battling the dilemma of making my own magazine or book.
I could just as well say that I’ve been living under a rock this entire time, but that’s not very true. What I can, proudly, state is that I haven’t been consuming enough social media in the past 5 years (becoming a parent does that to you). And most likely, my feed was too aggressively fine-tuned to all things digital and tech-forward.
Now that I’m intentionally diluting it with tech-backward, I’m starting to see the light. I’m seeing the zines. Lots of them. I’m seeing traditional zines, mixed media zines, therapeutic zines, political zines. Zines that are first created on paper, then scanned, edited in Photoshop and printed again. Big and small. In color or not. The choice is so luscious that it’s hard not to get inspired.
So I got inspired and decided to make a zine for the sake of making a zine. No clever idea or punchy message behind. I just wanted to fold the paper, make a cut, mark the pages, unfold, and draw the dudes. The dudes? The dudes. The wormy characters that became my signature style years ago. The ones I was trying to escape in my previous tech role till I realized there’s no escape (there is, but more on that later).
I didn’t want to just draw random dudes though so I ended up drawing random dudes fashionably. In alignment with my personal understanding of style, patterns and textures. There isn’t a lot but I tried. Indulging on spring fashion week shows could have something to do with this choice. Le freak, c'est chic. But mostly, Le freak.
My little zine ended up featuring eight overdressed characters and some plants. All drawn on Hahnemühle sketch paper using gouache, colored pencils, pastels, water-based acrylic markers and some acrylic inks. An unnecessarily complex toolkit for a ridiculously simple project. In defense of Hahnemühle, not a stroke seeped through.
This project taught me that if you want to make a zine, go make a zine. It doesn’t need to be big, pretty or intellectually motivating. It doesn't need to be artistic. Your zine can be as silly or as serious as you want for it to be. Self-express, have some fun and maybe consider photocopy to share it with friends and rivals.
My 2-day experience shows that making a zine is easy. Much easier than origami. It could have been the same day result if I didn’t find myself in the art supplies store after cutting and folding the paper. So maybe don't go to the art supplies store if you want to make a zine sooner.
All you really need is a piece of paper, scissors and a pen. Maybe a marker. A fountain pen? Sailor Fude with a 55° nib is particularly sexy, but the basic pen will also do.
In Bold Lines: Introducing Coloropolis
My son Oliver is very particular about the color of the nightlight before he goes to sleep. He wants it to be green at all times because shades of green make him feel calm and safe. If the nightlight isn’t plugged in, it changes color to red indicating low charge. Oliver is afraid of red. Red makes him think of monsters gathering around the bed.
He doesn’t like white either because white makes the room feel restlessly light. Same as yellow that reminds him of a sunrise that feels just as unnatural at bedtime hour. Blue makes the room feel cold and purple is a color that is just not pink enough. That’s why Oliver sticks to green. Green just makes the most sense.
When my friend Yasmine and I decided to open Coloropolis shop, I didn’t think much of Oliver’s nightlight preferences. I was very excited to finally make it to the point of my life where stars aligned to explore the world of coloring book design. Something I thought about doing numerous times during my career, but never really had the space.
The first time I thought about it was over a decade ago when Johanna Basford’s work started taking bookstores by storm as well as hearts of many adults who love complex coloring. I had so much fun with “Secret Garden” that I thought, one day, I’d make something special of my own. For adults, for kids, for in between. In bold lines. In colorful lines. Or maybe both.
Then work came in waves that crushed on me continuously, removing the space to think about these things. Until I decided to transition to illustration and developed my style that’s all about bold dudes supported by bold strokes. Clean strokes. Colorful ones.
Quite a few people asked me if I thought about making coloring books when they first saw my work. The question that always made me genuinely happy but I still didn’t have space to answer.
I started thinking that coloring things might be my fate after all when I joined Padlet. There, I developed an illustration style inspired by coloring book aesthetics. Not too different from what I was doing before in terms of structure, but more enjoyable for adults and kids alike. At that point, I knew I could design fun coloring activities, but work and parenthood combined were demanding enough to not have the time.
Until I made the time. I started this year by leaving my full-time role at Padlet to apply my illustration skills in child development and education areas. When I made that decision I didn’t immediately think of coloring books. It was my friend Yasmine who reminded me of it when she proposed to open an online shop together where we could design and sell digital products (that later became physical books).
I loved the idea because I have always wanted to have a little something of my own outside commission work and full-time jobs. I loved the idea of working with Yasmine even more because she is the friend who inspires me to grow and completes me in all the beautiful ways.
But what I loved most of all is how this adventure aligns with my desire to contribute to creative development of children, adults and everyone in between. How we can create something playful and inspiring and quality at the same time. How we can build a community around it. And how we can possibly make someone’s day brighter by showing how limitless coloring really is.
Be it for kids like Oliver who sense color moods instinctively and can get wildly creative with crayons. Or be it for adults who want to relax and express themselves without having to make something from scratch. As an illustrator, I do understand how terrifying and exhausting a blank page can feel.
Coloropolis is a young shop: we opened less than three months ago. There’s a lot of groundwork still in progress as we’re setting up the processes and learning along the way. But I’m very excited about this journey. Everything that we’ve been doing so far feels good. I might not yet see exactly how the future of Coloropolis will look like, but I also don’t need to know because what I do know is that I am looking in the right direction.
Doing something beautiful and consistently every day. Building our coloring page library stroke by stroke. Having fun with Oliver along the way as he feels included and excited about this journey with us. Receiving feedback when other kids and adults get to color our products. Coloring the pages ourselves and recording the process.
I love it all.
Drawing from life and from head. On paper
Drawing from life. Drawing from life and from head. Drawing from head on paper avoiding drawing from life. Any of these practices have never been my cup of tea.
Drawing on tablets though. Drawing with stylus on screens. Drawing with mouse on computer. Drawing with pen tool and shapes. Those have given me a honey-like pleasure, a lucrative career, and a space where creativity feels easy. Easy? No. Right.
I like for the process to feel right. Because when it’s right, it’s also easy. And when it’s easy, the dopamine comes sooner. I need the dopamine present throughout the process of creation as it fuels me forward to the end goal. That grand idea I’m sketching, pen-tooling, and coloring towards. The one that I’m also, more often than not, getting paid for.
When the process feels right from the first stroke, it also acts as a guarantee that I’m going to finish in a beautiful place. That the wow effect is absolutely happening. That the client is going to be impressed.
For a safety-oriented person like me, this guarantee is important. As much as I’m unlearning to control everything everywhere at any time, I love this feeling of safety before I even start the sketch.
Drawing on paper is the opposite of safety. It’s an absolute disaster rooted in unpredictability, imperfection, broken perspectives, and lack of practice.
There’s no tapping to undo. Erasers make a mess. Hands get dirty. Brain gets angry. And most importantly, unless you tear a page out, you can be left with staring at the product of your own creation that looks sad and feels permanent. Not to say it ruins the sketchbook and gets you in this cruel place of turning the page despite its existence. Being ok with its existence. Oh man.
As a parent, I always tell my son that it’s ok to make mistakes. I make mistakes all the time (and then reopen Procreate and delete those little shits for good not to haunt me in my dreams in Sade’s voice).
I’m not even ashamed of my hypocrisy, but I am scared of facing the creative side of me that feels more paralyzing than creative. To feel like I’ve no idea what I’m doing. To have no control over the tidiness and “correctness” of the artwork at every step of the process.
To bomb and be ok with it. To feel like a fraud because in my head somehow if I’m good at creating in digital I’m automatically supposed to be good at creating on paper even if I never practice this skill ever. Like, what?! Who thinks that?
Apparently, a lot of folks. When I decided to start this year with exploring hands-on practices and take a break from my iPad, I discovered a huge pool of self-doubting artists agonizing about their sketchbooks the same way I was doing it the first three weeks.
Almost every urban sketcher and painter creating educational content online has a video on how to deal with bad art. How to meditate on it, learn from it and then forget about it. Big whoop.
One thing I’ve learnt about myself in this process is that even though I can become a goldfish in the best traditions of Ted Lasso, I can’t forget and move on to the next page immediately. At least, not in the same sketchbook.
I’ve found it helpful to have 2 or 3 at the same time. To make it make sense, I created a different purpose for each. The first sketchbook, the somewhat A5 sized perfection, is for everything. It started as a place for masterpieces, of course, but ended up transforming into a learning curve. Trials and errors. Mostly errors. And some masterpieces on the first 3 pages of it.
The second sketchbook is a tiny one. The one I take with me when I’m out and about. I never understood the purpose of baby sizes before, but it actually softens the blow. The smaller the size, the easier it is to draw anything.
It takes less lines, less time, it’s more controlled. It makes drawing from life particularly sweet. 20 minutes of charging a car can transform into 20 minutes of practice, and it might not even look horrible at the end. I recommend.
The third sketchbook is a bigger, A4 dude. I got it to learn the gouache and mix it with pastels, and accidentally ended up developing a new illustration style. Now, it’s my absolute happy place even on my worst days creatively, and I use it to only draw in that style. Exploring and pushing it forward. A chef’s kiss mwah.
The reason I started drawing in sketchbooks is not to become an amazing hands-on illustrator. If one day I get there naturally - great. If not - that’s fine, too. Not everyone needs to be great at everything.
What I actually wanted was to overcome my fear of paper and messy materials, get myself away from systems and styles I developed in my previous roles, and learn to slow down and notice things around.
Like, really notice. As much as drawing from life is a challenge for me still, it makes me feel like life is not always swishing by at a rocket speed. That I get to capture a moment or two, experience it by being and drawing in it, and finally feel like I’ve lived a little.
Before I went on my corporate career break, I felt like I was locked in a box full of task mastering, packed schedules, and deadlines. Taking a breath felt expensive, unaffordable even.
The only indicator for time passing by I had was my son’s transformation from a baby to a toddler, to a beautiful boy he is now. It felt like living someone else’s life while mine existed in parallel. There was no slowing down, just acceleration.
That’s why even when I do suck, I still enjoy drawing. From life, from head. Drawing from head avoiding drawing from life and on paper. Any of these practices are giving me my life back.
Of course, they won’t bring back the time I’ve lost, but I want to be in it for the future. I want to not just play with my son but also sometimes draw the hot wheels crashing against my foot so that I can bring back that memory. I rewatch Ted Lasso for the 4th time and I draw the room around as I’m sitting and rewatching it alongside my husband. I draw the imaginary room I want to be sitting in one day when we finally decide on where “home” is.
I love all of it. I’m glad I started. And I hope to continue.
When Raspberry Clouds Are Perfect
I’m a very lucky girl. Girl? Woman. Not only do I get to be a mother of one very funny boy and have all-time access to kid-friendly venues that make me feel like a girl again, but I also possess something special that’s talked about a lot in design communities all over the world.
LEGO. No. Innocence. Innocence? Yes, innocence.
There’re many talks and workshops on how to unlock the childlike innocence for creative process. Tune in to childlike nature. Connect with childlike vision. They teach grown-up creatives to stay curious and confident. Not overthink. Rebel against perfectionism. Break free from the rules. Enjoy the process. And other things that come naturally to kids and cause existential crisis in adults.
Luckily, I don’t need a workshop. I live with a little guy who paints raspberry clouds with purple shells and draws aliens that look like monkeys. Watching him create makes me jealous in a sweet kind of way because I want my brain to be free like his brain but I don’t get salty or upset that I can’t achieve it to that extent.
Because I won’t achieve it to that extent. That head of mine has too much clutter. The one I started collecting when social norms and expectations began to sink in. And rules.
All sorts of rules. Being a good girl kind of rules. Social etiquette rules. Inequality rules. Immigration rules. Corporate rules. Silicon Valley rules. Design rules. Perfectionism rules. And other rules… More rules…
Screw rules. For the sake of creativity at least. Because when we create through the maze of constraints, the result is worlds away from the innocent expression I see in my son's art. Or other children’s art who don’t yet create from the place of anxiety or competition. Who don’t try to impress. Or don’t try hard at all.
That’s why those workshops are so popular. As adult designers, we struggle to get to the space where our creativity flows in its purest form, before self-doubt and censorship emerge. We’re sandwiched between social media algorithms, trending styles, likes and approvals. We’re sauced with past traumas, present dramas, and future uncertainties.
To be honest, if it wasn’t for my son, I don’t think I’d start to rethink my approach to creativity. Mostly because I wouldn’t have many reasons to pause, take a step back, and really think if I’m drawing from a place of trend or if I’m drawing from my head. Freely. The practice I started earlier this year in my sketchbook that still terrifies me.
My son draws and builds and sings and dances from his head and freely all the time. He’s not terrified. He makes my portraits special. Hilarious. Non-human. I might appear as a lobster today, an insect tomorrow, or simply a collection of shapes that capture the feeling of what I mean to him in that moment.
And when it looks like a lobster, I’m not entirely sure it actually is one. But I don’t ask because I don’t want for him to adopt the line of thinking where everything he creates needs to fall under a category of something that already exists. Because it shouldn’t. Because it’s awesome if it doesn’t.
I’m trying hard to learn this innocence, but it is. Hard. There’re a lot of things he doesn’t do that I can’t help but do. He doesn’t plan, he doesn’t sketch. He doesn’t know of composition. He discovers color combinations, completely unaware of a color wheel concept. He doesn't try to "develop his style", this is his style.
He just does things and those things work.
I wish I could do that. Five years in the motherhood, I feel like I’m still learning the basics. Like being able to publish a wonky sketch and not want to delete it minutes after. Or accepting that art pieces that don’t align with the visuals of cool cats on design block have just as much value. Maybe I do need a workshop after all.
It’s a process, and I’m going through it. Slowly. Feeling so incredibly lucky to have this beautiful boy who is kind and generous and willing to share the way his imagination works with me. One raspberry cloud and a monkey alien at a time.