Inspiration in Action with Will Truran

[00:00:00] diane: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Design Recharge or Creatives, ignite, whatever we’re calling it this week. I’m back at school, so I, um, I have Will’s poster is right here. This is a new, well it’s not new. I got it. I think it was maybe two Decembers ago. New-ish. New-ish. Yeah, but it’s been there.

[00:00:23] It was just in, it was in in the other spot. So my friend Janine, I can’t tell where I’m pointing, but the [00:00:30] painting, so I added Janine’s painting, which it will be hung next time and Will did comment that all my other things are not straight and it’s the wall and so I’m not gonna even worry about a re is here.

[00:00:40] Um, it’s awesome to have you. He’s in DC so we love for people to come. Um, live And Will has been one of those people for at least 10 years. 

[00:00:54] Will Truran: It’s been a long time. 

[00:00:55] diane: You’ve been, we. 

[00:00:56] Will Truran: Go ahead. I was trying to think of like when I was introduced to you [00:01:00] and like my clearest memory is, uh, weapons of mass creation.

[00:01:04] Oh yeah. But I also know you were wearing my shirt there, so there had to be a time before. 

[00:01:10] diane: I think so somehow in When was that? 2015. 

[00:01:17] Will Truran: 16. 15. 

[00:01:18] diane: 16 something. Um, I met Will, I thought I met you at Creative South, but maybe anyway you went in 2015 or 14. [00:01:30] 

[00:01:31] Will Truran: I think 16 was my first creative South. Okay. Then 

[00:01:33] diane: I don’t know.

[00:01:34] Will Truran: Yeah, I don’t know either. 

[00:01:35] diane: Okay. So, but we just got together and we became friends and then he came, I think every, you were almost to Amy Lyons, which Amy’s not here. Amy, I’ll be calling you later. Um. But I think that, uh, I, we appreciate it. Rack set. Um, and then we, we’ve had a group for, uh, prayer for designers and that’s where I feel like I really got to [00:02:00] know you.

[00:02:00] We would do bible study, uh, at night on whatever Tuesday or what Monday or whatever day it was. And then it was like he couldn’t get rid of me. I was wouldn’t wanna, here’s here’s what I love about Will, will is such a great cheerleader for me. He is, um, a great designer. We work together on plenty of projects, um, where it’s both of us working on a website or he’s helped me with some of [00:02:30] my client’s websites.

[00:02:32] Um. And we’ve done a lot of different things and he’s somebody who doesn’t not wanna be my friend then. So I think with all those things, and here’s the thing I love the most, is that Will is going to tell you the truth. I think a lot of people are trying to be nice and tell you the truth, but they’re trying to be nice.

[00:02:50] Not that will’s not Will’s, not trying to, I’m not very nice. You are nice actually, because I actually think being nice means telling you in a loving way. [00:03:00] The truth when I’ve asked, um, I would call him after we’d have a group session. I’d be like, how did you think that went? And you were like, you gotta do this better.

[00:03:08] You gotta do, so this something. And that’s what I want. I want to improve. And I think we need people like Will and so Will is awesome. And I am finally, I mean, I have said, oh, let when you do this, uh, Kickstarter, let’s have you on the show when you do this, let’s have, and then all these things, he just keeps getting out of it.

[00:03:27] And then I started doing this, um, [00:03:30] inspiration. So this inspiration started with Mina, who also loves you, Mina K. His, uh, Stephanie Na teaches with her at, uh, university of South Carolina. Um, and I mean, you just have a way, you have such interesting things that you’re interested in. And I was like, let’s let you do the, um, inspiration.

[00:03:53] So it’s like inspiration in action. So who’s inspired you? What [00:04:00] your design life has been like, and then what you’ve been making. And this is how I met you. The one of the first things, I don’t remember how I met you, but whatever. One of the first things is you had a retail company and you had all these shirts and I loved them ’cause they were like Jesus shirts that weren’t real obvious Jesus shirts, you know?

[00:04:18] Um, it was like, see you in heaven. Or it wasn’t, it was like death or something. Like, I don’t even remember, but I still have ’em or show some 

[00:04:27] Will Truran: of ‘

[00:04:27] diane: em. Yeah, I know. Okay, good. So, [00:04:30] but I, I bought I think three, you brought ’em to me at Weapons of Massing in Cleveland. Brian Bundy is in Cleveland, and I wore one.

[00:04:39] I was like, I am wearing one for my talk. I wore green pants and that shirt, and it’s on YouTube. Um, that talk is on YouTube. I, I didn’t put it up, but it’s uh, there somewhere if you do a Diane Gibbs, beavers. I know it sounds like it might not be a good talk, but, um, it was a good talk and it wasn’t, it was a good talk.

[00:04:57] It wasn’t, um. Graphic or [00:05:00] pornographic? I guess so. Uh, 

[00:05:03] Will Truran: well I don’t think anyone thinks that when you say Beaver, but 

[00:05:06] diane: I think I know, but yeah. Anyway, but I, yeah, so will I have not, I, I know how to spell your last name and I, I know you super well and I don’t really, I’m not good at saying your last name, so I’m gonna let you say your, your last name and Rin is what I think.

[00:05:27] Super close. Close. It’s great. I know you, you did 

[00:05:29] Will Truran: great. [00:05:30] 

[00:05:30] diane: Okay. So, um, I want you to tell everybody a little bit of a background. ’cause you worked as a designer. I mean, he is worked for Harley Davidson, done lots of freelance, done your own. You’ve, um, you then you decide, you really felt like you were called, I think to be a professor also.

[00:05:46] And Yeah. You got your MFA at, um. Rochester Institute of Technology, just in case somebody doesn’t know what it is. Lots of people in America call it RIT. And um, and that was all during Covid. And [00:06:00] anyway, tell ’em, tell ’em about you. 

[00:06:03] Will Truran: Yeah, so like Diane said, I’m Will Tru. Um, I’ve been a designer for, I don’t know, 15 years almost, uh, doing random jobs, like working at pharmaceutical companies, wave disease.

[00:06:16] I ran my own studio for a bunch of years. Uh, and then in 2019 I went back to college to get my master’s so I can transition to teaching. Why did you wanna be a teacher? I had, um, [00:06:30] adjuncted for a bunch of years and then found myself mentoring a bunch. And when I was running my own studio, I had to like, make that decision of like, what am I doing next because I don’t.

[00:06:41] Love money enough to do sales. So like, I thought I could live off of like $20,000 a year, like a dirt bag and, and be happy. And that’s not good. Um, so that was just like, what’s next? Like, am I gonna go back and get another job? Am I gonna do whatever? And, uh, the [00:07:00] teaching and mentoring had been like the most rewarding thing for me personally.

[00:07:04] Uh, so I knew I could commit myself to making no money as a teacher, but feeling rewarded at the end of the day because I was pouring into someone else than just like trying to sell crap I didn’t believe in. Hmm. Okay. 

[00:07:19] diane: And when you were at RIT, you took a, what do you call it? It’s not internship, but a, it’s kind of like that.

[00:07:26] Will Truran: Yeah. A co-op or internship, A 

[00:07:28] diane: co-op. And you [00:07:30] worked for Procter and Gamble and you got a, um, whatever, I can’t remember. 

[00:07:35] Will Truran: A patent. 

[00:07:35] diane: A patent, 

[00:07:35] Will Truran: yeah. That’s pretty cool. Yeah, it was fun. I think, uh, Proctor and Gamble gets a lot of hate because they’re, they have the biggest marketing budget of any company in the world and they also produce the most plastic of any company in the world.

[00:07:48] So like, they get a lot of hate, but I think it’s a company that’s trying to do a lot of cool stuff and they allowed me to do a lot of cool stuff in their research department. So it was like pretty inspirational to be around people who wanted to live better. [00:08:00] Yeah. So 

[00:08:01] diane: That’s cool. I’m a Tide 

[00:08:02] Will Truran: man still. 

[00:08:03] diane: I, oh, is Tide not Proctor and Gamble?

[00:08:06] Will Truran: No, it is Proctor Gamble. I use Tide and I use Colgate. Colgate is not, uh, are you a Crest person? 

[00:08:13] diane: No, I actually use, I use this new one called Hello Or High Smile or, anyway, it’s terrible. That sounds like 

[00:08:20] Will Truran: a, a VC funded toothpaste. 

[00:08:22] diane: I don’t know. Yeah, probably. But I usually if I don’t use that, uh, ’cause they’re fun flavors, better flavors.

[00:08:29] [00:08:30] And I use aim. I’m a AIM kid. 99 cents baby. I don’t even 

[00:08:34] Will Truran: know what that is. 

[00:08:34] diane: Aim. Oh, it’s on the lower shelf at Walmart. 

[00:08:38] Will Truran: All right. I use, uh, the baking soda toothpaste that has like no flavor. 

[00:08:43] diane: Well, I think they have baking soda, aim. I don’t know. Aims taste yummy. Anyway, uh, I’ll get you a thing for Christmas, Amy.

[00:08:49] Nice. You get a thing of aim. Okay. So, um, because, because I think it takes some commitment to go to school and you, um, I mean, it’s not [00:09:00] really for the money, but we do make money. We, uh, and then we can make some money on the side. But 

[00:09:06] Will Truran: I will say that when I started teaching in 2021, that job paid me less than the job I got in 2013.

[00:09:14] So, so like almost a decade later, I was like making less money. I was like, this was a bad idea. 

[00:09:19] diane: I thought the same thing. I went, so I was working in Denver and I think I was making about $42,000 a year in 2000. [00:09:30] 2000. And then in 2003, when I got this job. It was like 39,000. And I was like, oh my gosh, I took a pay cut.

[00:09:41] But, um, I was able to make money doing my research, which yeah, luckily I’ve been able to have good clients and build things up and that’s a beautiful part. But I’ve also, because of being a professor, I’ve been able to pour into doing things, projects like this, but you [00:10:00] also pour into projects, side projects, um, and you’ve done a lot of that and that some, you were gonna look at too 

[00:10:06] Will Truran: many today 

[00:10:07] diane: and we’re gonna talk, but I think, um, and we talked about this the other day, but I think that sometimes we, um, we don’t always know.

[00:10:17] Sometimes we have a very clear goal of we’re gonna do this and it’s gonna lead to this and we’re gonna do this. And you kind of take it a different, um, approach. Do you wanna tell ’em kind of how you decide on [00:10:30] projects? 

[00:10:31] Will Truran: Yeah, I, I mean, like a, a bad answer is I don’t, I kind of fall into things, uh, and then like, what I think what you’re alluding to is like my most recent project, I don’t know what the point is or like why I’m doing it.

[00:10:44] It was just like something that looked interesting and I started it. And I’m hoping that after months of this, that like eventually I’ll figure out like, oh yeah, like this could be helpful. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, it’s just like, uh, not knowing why or not having an end goal other [00:11:00] than just like to make, 

[00:11:01] diane: yeah. And I 

[00:11:01] Will Truran: think just making is like super important.

[00:11:03] Um, there was, I mean, we all know Smo Vinali and he was quoted saying, who? No, I’m just kidding. Yeah. He was quoted saying, if you could design something, you can design anything. Mm-Hmm. And like that idea of just like, why do we box ourselves in? I’m just gonna go make like whatever I want, uh, has been super important for me as like a fulfilling.

[00:11:23] Item or a fulfilling object 

[00:11:25] diane: and your range. I mean, some things you’re doing with your hands, some things [00:11:30] you’re messing with technology, we’ll see. And then some things are really tech or old tech. And I think that, um, I love, I love that you pick up trash. I am a, I am a reuse. Oh my gosh. Let’s see what, how we can use something again.

[00:11:46] And I think that, um, but you do a lot of, of things that are social causes. And Kevin Green’s here, I just wanna make sure we said whoop whoop to Kevin. Um, I think I met you and Kevin about the same time. 

[00:11:59] Will Truran: Yeah, 

[00:11:59] diane: probably. And you’re both [00:12:00] New Jersey people, so, but, uh, Hannah said, uh, what’s your patent? Can you talk about that?

[00:12:06] Yeah. It was, 

[00:12:08] Will Truran: how do we encourage kids to clean? And like, take care of the house with the parents. So it was a phone. Can I get my 

[00:12:14] diane: husband to do that? 

[00:12:15] Will Truran: Yeah. It was a phone holder that gets put on a Swiffer and uh, turns your Swiffer into an AR game and like tracks your house and puts like puzzles or coins all around the house so your kid can have like a [00:12:30] reason to go and not like miss a spot.

[00:12:32] Um, I don’t know if they’re ever gonna use it. I think a lot of those companies like patent things, so no one else can do it. That’s cool. But it’s cool. Like, like I came up with the idea and then you have to present in a company like Proctor and Gamble. I don’t know if other companies are like this at all.

[00:12:45] Like if you have a kernel of idea, it’s your responsibility to like pitch it within a week. Like cool. Like do all the research, get a like a pitch together and go pitch it. And then you’re pitching to like scientists and you just have like full [00:13:00] access to these people, like engineers, scientists, marketing people, uh.

[00:13:05] So I had a couple ideas. Most of the scientists were like, this is insane, like, you’re never gonna do this. And then this one, they were like, oh, we can actually do that right now. And I was like, I know you can. Like, so we’ll see. Maybe one day you’ll see like a, a gamified Swiffer 

[00:13:18] diane: I’d like, me and Hannah both want that.

[00:13:20] Um, so Hannah said I’d, I’d use that. I don’t like that. No way. 

[00:13:25] Will Truran: I don’t know. Sounds fine. Right. 

[00:13:27] diane: Who do you feel like you got, you got to tell a [00:13:30] good, uh, intro. 

[00:13:32] Will Truran: Yeah. And I’m gonna definitely touch on a lot of that stuff. 

[00:13:35] diane: So the reason in 

[00:13:35] Will Truran: the slide deck I made 

[00:13:37] diane: Okay. And we’re gonna about to jump right into that.

[00:13:39] Yeah. The reason I did this is because when Mina, which on the show when she was sharing, she decided to do some, she shared some people who were inspiring to her, and I was like, and how they influenced her work. And I was like, oh my gosh, I wanna do a series like this. Because I got so excited by seeing what other people, how other people had [00:14:00] been influenced and inspired and how it’s not like they’re just replicating.

[00:14:04] This. Now I’m gonna make this and make pretty much make the same thing somebody else made. So I love that. And you always make weird things and you think, I love the way your brain works. It’s just different. And I think it needs to be, um, championed that different kind of thinking. So I appreciate that a lot.

[00:14:27] Okay. You wanna start your thing and then I’ll just [00:14:30] interrupt you and Please do, ’cause I’m gonna ramble so you can start this real quick except the, um, I know your dad’s a photographer, right? The the glamor shot thing or whatever, Olin Mills. Um, did he take that photo for you? 

[00:14:45] Will Truran: Yeah, one day I was like, I, I need a picture for something.

[00:14:48] And all my pictures were from like my hardcore metal days and they were all just like. Really serious. A little scary. And I was applying for something. I was like, I can’t use these. So I like went down to my [00:15:00] dad’s studio. I was like, we need to do something real quick. I was like, I need like one of those eighties style glamor shots to like soften up my portfolio.

[00:15:08] He was like, what’s like when 

[00:15:09] diane: you were going for um, uh, RIT or something? I don’t know. It could have 

[00:15:13] Will Truran: been like a job or school. Yeah. It was just like, and 

[00:15:15] diane: since I’ve known you like 

[00:15:17] Will Truran: Yeah, 

[00:15:18] diane: it wasn’t that 

[00:15:18] Will Truran: long ago. I was just like, I was looking through all my work and like you said, like the clothing brand was like all death.

[00:15:24] And then I had like a martyr series in my portfolio and then like all this stuff and I was like, I gotta do something. Like [00:15:30] no one’s gonna wanna be around me. 

[00:15:33] diane: Okay. So how has your work changed in 10 years? Maybe this is a good way to start and pull up your deck. 

[00:15:39] Will Truran: Sure. I think, yeah, I think the deck I have is gonna span.

[00:15:43] Almost 10 years, uh, if not more. Okay. And you’ll get to see a lot of weird transition stuff. Um, cool. So because you’re an 

[00:15:53] diane: explorer, I believe, 

[00:15:55] Will Truran: yeah, I definitely get bored. So [00:16:00] very exploration, I guess the default. Um, so when Diane asked me to do this talk about inspiration, she was like, do it about like people you’re inspired by or, uh, works you’re inspired by.

[00:16:10] And I really had a struggle with that ’cause. I couldn’t think of anybody. And like if I said something like generic like, uh, Mamo V or Michael Beru and you saw my work, you’d be like, there is zero connection here. Right? And I was thinking about that. And I also had this issue where, like when I got into design, like [00:16:30] 2010, 2012, all of my favorite designers were like, just make things you’re passionate about.

[00:16:35] And every single one of them was like, like eighties cartoons. And I was like, I don’t care about eighties cartoons at all. Like, this is, it was like every single speaker at conferences was like, Thundercats and Transformers is what started my career. And I was just like, that’s insane. Like, who, who cares about that stuff?

[00:16:52] So when Diane was like, come to us talk, I, I had to think about it, but luckily I had to do, uh, these long interview processes at [00:17:00] other schools that kind of made me reflect on what I was doing with the, my life, I guess. Um, I. I saw a through line that I’m referring to, uh, the least of these and lesser things.

[00:17:12] Um, so like she said, my name’s Wil Hurand. Uh, on the left there is Little Baby Me, and on the right there is that glamor shot she was talking about. But I made it black and white to keep it classier than, oh yeah, it traditionally has like a really bright gold background. Um, but [00:17:30] if I like have to break down myself by just titles, I think homeschooled artists on Straight Edge, nerd and Christian is like a lot of what my work could get bucketed under.

[00:17:43] Um, and that’s how I’m gonna kind of work through this pro, this whole kind of deck is I’m gonna kind of work through my projects as they fall under these different titles. 

[00:17:53] diane: It’s not necessarily, um, in. Chronological order is what you’re saying, right? If 

[00:17:58] Will Truran: it, if it is, it’s [00:18:00] purely ’cause I got lucky. 

[00:18:02] diane: Okay. It 

[00:18:02] Will Truran: did wasn’t a, that wasn’t a, um, requirement.

[00:18:05] No, no. Yeah, yeah. No. Uh, but the one on there that might be the most confusing for people is trash fiend. And what I mean by that is, when I first started college, I was actually a studio art major, not a design major. And I was actually a sculpture major. And I started making like really big things at a cardboard and found trash.

[00:18:24] So like making nine foot tall deers at a cardboard, or like, I grew up in the [00:18:30] woods and I would go and find like bones and stuff and like just like bring it home so I could like clean them up and do stuff with them. Or, uh, going down the street and finding like things in trash, like this window unit that I was like, oh, I can, that’s cool.

[00:18:41] Make a little cabinet out of it. That’s just like that. 

[00:18:44] diane: That’s like, wait, I have to interrupt. Yeah. Joseph Cornell. Do you know that artist? Probably not. Oh my gosh. You, you would love him. He does these things that you’re like, these. Assemblages or whatever, but he, yeah. Anyway, you should [00:19:00] look him up. Okay.

[00:19:00] Yeah, 

[00:19:01] Will Truran: go ahead. I was definitely, like when I was a studio art major assemblage and found materials was like a real big thing for me, especially ’cause I was poor. Um, so it just like makes life easier ’cause you have no money. Um. So like all of that, like this is 2008 to 2012, like trash became or discarded things became like really important to me.

[00:19:24] Um, but at that same time, I had a buddy introduce me to this band called August Burns Red, [00:19:30] and I don’t listen to that band anymore, but like it got me really into hardcore and metal. Like we spent like many summers just driving around in his Beretta just listening to like this hardcore music that at the time I don’t think I had any idea how much it would like transform my life or my direction.

[00:19:46] But now I wasn’t only being surrounded by like rejected things, I was surrounding myself by rejected people going to like these VFW shows where like kids were just like breaking each other’s faces on a Friday night or going to like barn shows [00:20:00] for $3 where you would get just like 300 kids who couldn’t afford real shows to come to like local shows where people barely knew how to play instruments.

[00:20:08] Like that was really on my life for like a bunch of years. And I think like. Throughout everything, um, that you’ll see a lot of that kind of just rawness or like, uh, lack of fear of just like producing stuff, even though I don’t know how to, and I think it all came from like this hardcore scene in those like summers in that junk car.

[00:20:27] I 

[00:20:28] diane: love that. I like how [00:20:30] the car 

[00:20:30] Will Truran: left the screen. Yeah, everything zooms. Um, I love it. So there’s a couple titles on here like homeschooled and artist son that I’m not gonna like call out specifically on most of the projects, but I think if I explain some of it you’ll understand why they’re there. Uh, the homeschool thing specifically, it’s ’cause when I was an undergrad I was talking to some friends and me being homeschooled came up and a professor overheard it and she said, that makes so much sense.

[00:20:58] And I was like, what do you mean by [00:21:00] that? And she goes, you think you can do whatever you want? And you know what the worst part of it is? You get away with it. And like that mindset has stuck with me forever. Like, I don’t think anyone should wait for permission. I don’t think anyone should wait for like justification.

[00:21:15] Like if you wanna do something, just like figure it out. Uh, you don’t need someone to hold your hand to do this stuff. And then the artist’s son, like I think I just grew up in a house where like, it was fine. Uh, my dad had a rule where I couldn’t be a photographer ’cause he said it was too [00:21:30] hard. But he was like totally fine with me being a graphic designer, which I think, I don’t think he really knew what that meant.

[00:21:36] Um, he thought graphic design was like, like mad men in the fifties. Uh, and it was not that by 2010. So, uh, we’re all poor. Um, so the first project I’m gonna do touches homeschool and artist son. But like I said, those are gonna fall. I’m not gonna like call ’em out for every project, but those are gonna fall I think, across everything you see.

[00:21:58] Uh, but straight and Christian [00:22:00] especially. Uh, I was gonna say like in college, but like, this is, those are two titles I’ve had for a long time and for those who don’t know what Straight Edge means, uh, it’s like in the hardcore scene and punk scene, uh, it’s like a cooler way to say sober. And when you say I’m straight edge, people don’t think you just have a drinking problem.

[00:22:18] Um, ’cause when I say I tried, I tried, like in my thirties, I was like, I gotta stop seeing straight edge, like it’s really cringey. So I started saying sober and people were like, oh, I’m sorry. I was like, crap. Can’t do this either. Uh, going [00:22:30] back to straight edge and just gonna be cringey about it. Uh, but that project, the first one we’re gonna talk about is Dead fco, which is the clothing brand Diane had talked about.

[00:22:39] I should have worn 

[00:22:39] diane: one of those shirts today. 

[00:22:42] Will Truran: If you, I don’t have any anymore. Oh, I do. 

[00:22:44] diane: Uh, 

[00:22:45] Will Truran: yeah. Everything I had is torn up or, uh, too small. Uh, if anyone needs a small and a black shirt hit me up ’cause I got boxes of them at my dad’s house. Um, but a thing that happened when I was in undergrad was, uh.

[00:22:59] New Jersey is [00:23:00] very tight. So there’s a lot of schools kind of all around, uh, the northeast and outside New York City. So my school would participate in this portfolio review at another school. And when I showed up with my portfolio, the guy would like quickly go through it, right? And then like start over and talk to you about it.

[00:23:15] And he quickly went through it and he said, oh, you’re from William Patterson. And I was like, what does that mean? He goes, oh, I know all these projects. And it was like someone shot me in the gut. Like I was like, oh no. Like I’m gonna be going out and competing against all these [00:23:30] students. We’re gonna have all the same exact work.

[00:23:32] And I was like, how do we like solve this? Like, I don’t know, like I need to figure out a new project. Uh, so I was into the hardcore scene and uh, band shirts started getting really expensive, like 25, 30 bucks in 2010. Like that was something I couldn’t afford. So I was like, I’m gonna just start making t-shirts, selling ’em about shows for kids who can’t afford expensive shirts.

[00:23:57] So like, my shirts were always between like [00:24:00] 15 and 18 bucks, like keeping them where I was making no money. Uh, but kids could feel like they’re a part of something. Mm-Hmm. We all could. Uh, but that part of being an artist son, like my dad being a photographer, I was able to just like, utilize that community or that family or relationship or skills of other people.

[00:24:17] So that, like when I made a shirt line, I was like, well, I need photos of this and it can’t look like I just took photos with my phone or like, don’t care. Like I gotta present this. Like, it’s bigger than itself. Uh, it also [00:24:30] relied on me like calling up friends, just being like, Hey, uh, you want to come gimme a few hours for some pizza and like, just wear these shirts and don’t smile because it was, uh, metal and we don’t smile in the metal scene.

[00:24:42] diane: Kevin says that Jess looks exactly the same 10 years later. 

[00:24:46] Will Truran: We’re not, she doesn’t age. And I just keep getting older. It’s rough. Um, but it also allowed me to like start making work where a professor had no voice, right? Like no one else had any voice in what I was doing. It was just like I [00:25:00] made the decisions, I had to back it up and I had to live with whatever I was doing.

[00:25:04] Uh, so it ended up being kind of like, all right, well if I’m gonna make something, the only thing I care about talking about, or the most important thing I think about talking about is like faith, uh, and being sober. Like these were like really big things for me. Um, so I made this kind of clothing brand, uh, that was like anti verse on a mug.

[00:25:23] Uh, but like, how could it be something where kids could relate to it? And I would, I get emails from like youth groups, like in the Midwest being [00:25:30] like, uh, my kids in our youth group have nothing to hold onto. Nothing’s cool here. Like, you’re giving us like a way to like keep ’em interested or keep ’em around.

[00:25:39] Uh, so like that was really cool. Wow. That is really cool. And I, I ran it for like a decade and the last few years I started just like donating the money. ’cause I started working as a designer. So I started like donating the money to like nonprofits. So like that was another way of just like, how could this be bigger than myself?

[00:25:57] Uh, it already did what I needed. It got me the job. And it [00:26:00] also like opened up community where like I made shirts for bands. I was making shirts for my buddy Biggie and his clothing brand deli Fresh threads. Mm-Hmm. Joe Baron who was in chat, he’s helped me start working for Harley because of this. Like, we all met each other through these clothing brands.

[00:26:15] Um, I found a guy who makes beard oil and I was like, I’m gonna white label your beard oil. And I did two runs of those. ’cause like, again, like no one, I didn’t have to ask for permission, like whatever I wanted to do. Yeah. Which is dangerous, right? Like the, the brand was never gonna be big ’cause I was just like [00:26:30] changing my mind every three days.

[00:26:31] diane: But I love that you had a place to play, you made a playground. ’cause I think that this is something, so I remember had I gone to Atlanta a after Auburn, um. That was what my friends were saying. They’re going to these agencies and they’re like, oh, this was professor, he’s, uh, project. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh.

[00:26:54] And I already knew I wanted to be a professor at that point, but I knew I wanted to work. And I remember saying, I don’t wanna do [00:27:00] that. I’m gonna always do different projects. Terrifying. I do have some of the same, but I always mix it up. I’ve never given the exact same project ever. Yeah. Which I’m glad I anyway.

[00:27:11] Hannah says, you should bring these back as stickers and pass them at at Creative Cell. 

[00:27:16] Will Truran: How about I just give you the files and you do whatever you want with ’em? 

[00:27:20] diane: You do, Kevin. Okay. 

[00:27:21] Will Truran: I don’t care. 

[00:27:22] diane: Okay. Maybe we can, we can, we can pull some of these back. Okay. So, so, but 

[00:27:28] Will Truran: this project also gave me skills [00:27:30] that like a school could not generate.

[00:27:31] Yeah. Right. Like learning how to art, direct photography or how to brand, like in 2010 when I was taking branding classes, it was logo design and like, that was all they were teaching. Like, it had nothing to do with like, uh, how a brand affects every part of a company. Uh, the 

[00:27:50] diane: logo is so small for not, not your logo.

[00:27:54] I mean, the logo is just one portion. So tiny. Yeah. Of a brand. It, and it [00:28:00] ends up getting sometimes overpowered. 

[00:28:03] Will Truran: To talk about that, like when I made this logo, which isn’t great, right? It’s whatever. But I remember thinking like, oh, I can’t just do a circle with a line through it. Like, that’s not gonna be enough.

[00:28:12] And then I was just like, oh, I’m never gonna like put it on anything. So like, it really, or when I put it on. So it’s gonna be so small, like who really cares? Um, but like, it did, it was like, all right, I’m going to do this clothing brand to like, make t-shirts. Little did I know it meant I had to learn how to like, do marketing and [00:28:30] seasonal sales and give, uh, put away like collateral so I could have returning customers or how do you create a lifestyle out of this, not just merchandise.

[00:28:39] Like, it was a lot that I didn’t expect. And there’s no way a multi like 16 week project at school could do this. Like this was 10 years of just like grinding, um. At the end of the day, like when I look back at my work from school back then, like I’m kind of embarrassed about it, like who made that? But with this work, because so many [00:29:00] people like got around me and like supported it and other people were like proudly wearing it.

[00:29:04] Like when I look back at it, it’s more than just mine. It became like everyone’s, and there’s like no reason for me to be like embarrassed about it because like they weren’t Right. And I, yes, I, I still see, like sometimes these shirts pop up now and then it’s just like, oh, like I should be stoked on what I made.

[00:29:21] And it’s not because of like, I made it or because of what it looks like. It’s because of how, like the reaction around it was 

[00:29:28] diane: and people found [00:29:30] something that they connected to and yeah, it became a symbol of their community. It was, it became less about Will and more about what the, the yeah, the company was.

[00:29:41] I’d love that. 

[00:29:44] Will Truran: So, uh, that’s that project at the end of each project, I’m gonna do like, kind of just like what it taught me. Slide. Yes. I love that. Uh, just so you can kind of get, I, I guess like if there’s anything to get away from this. What I’m hoping people realize is like personal projects are like super [00:30:00] important, at least to me.

[00:30:01] Um, and I would encourage everyone to like, make stuff. And if you need to like sit down and be like, what’s important to me? Do it. Uh, but if you can just like, go make stuff, there’s like payoffs that aren’t financial, right? None of these projects I’m gonna be like, oh, I made X dollars or, because I did this project, I worked for Harley and made X dollars.

[00:30:21] Like it, the money really doesn’t matter. But like, this taught me art direction, merch design, uh, social media. I wrote kind of, ’cause I’m still really bad at it. [00:30:30] Um, it taught me marketing, it taught me how to go invent in person. It taught me like what true branding meant. It was more than a logo. And honestly the, the biggest thing was just like, oh, you can go start whatever you want.

[00:30:43] Right? Mm-Hmm. Like no one gave me permission. I was just like, oh, I’m gonna find someone who can screen print t-shirts and then I’m gonna figure out how I can get a website together. And like as designers, we have these skills that like everyone else needs that we can utilize to do like whatever we want.

[00:30:57] Yeah. Right. And I think that’s like a big part. Like [00:31:00] my buddy Biggie, who I do t-shirts for, he’s not a designer or a photographer. Like if he wants to do a new shirt, he’s gotta bring all these people to help him do it, which is financially hard. None of us designers have to do that. Right. Just like it’s your time.

[00:31:13] And like, yes, time is better spent doing this than scroll on YouTube, which is what I did this morning. So should be making more stuff, I think. Um, so yeah, that’s that project. I. 

[00:31:26] diane: Okay, let me see if I have a question. Um, go for it. [00:31:30] Okay. Well this one does. I said do, can you see a direct correlation to what you make, um, from who’s inspiring you or maybe some of these elements?

[00:31:45] Will Truran: Yeah, I mean, like, if I’m gonna say that there’s correlation to who inspired me, it’d be like, oh, that pastor taught me something in the Bible that like resonated and that I had to react to. Right? Or there was a band that I thought was doing a really cool thing and that I wanted to be in a [00:32:00] part of, in a small way.

[00:32:01] So I don’t think it was, um, I don’t think there’s anything visual that you’d be like connected to. No. Be like, oh yeah, that’s like the inspiration. But I think there’s a lot of people in my life who. For sure were pushing me in different ways that I didn’t expect, or at the time probably didn’t even realize.

[00:32:17] Right? Like looking back, I could be like, oh yeah. Like I know the pastor who kind of like took that clothing brand and like made it even more intense because of how much he was resonating with me and like how he [00:32:30] made me take my faith more seriously. Or the skateboard guys I was hanging out with, I was like, oh, I really wanna be a part of this and I can’t ollie.

[00:32:38] Like how do I get a part of like this community more and how do I like encourage them through it? If that makes Okay, cool. Yeah. Yep. Sense. That’s it. Okay. So that was like the biggest project for sure. Um, so the next projects will all probably be a little bit smaller, but that straight edge thing. It was really important to me.

[00:32:57] I mean, and still is, like I still don’t drink. Uh, [00:33:00] it was really hard then though, ’cause like when you’re in your twenties, everyone’s gonna bars, you’re hanging out bars a lot, or you’re going to, uh, like house parties and you’re like always there holding like a seltzer or something to keep your hands busy.

[00:33:13] Um, and through all that, I started this little tiny side project called X Mocktails X, which, uh, straight edge bands would put like xs at the ends to like tell you that they were straight edge. Oh. And it just said like a hardcore loving straight edge living guide to non-alcoholic bar options. [00:33:30] And it was just like, how do I kind of like make jokes about this?

[00:33:34] Because like back then, this is gonna come a couple, couple times, but like 15, 12, 15 years ago, like. Mocktails weren’t a thing that people cared about, right? Like we all knew like Shirley Temple, but now there’s like bars you can go to that have no alcohol. So like, this was like a weird thing where like, I started like researching like, and these all have existed probably forever, you know, like, I guess people have not drank forever, but like now it’s like a thing.

[00:33:58] And back then it was like a joke. Yeah. [00:34:00] So I would make these kinda like recipe cards I put on a website called, uh, and I think I have a link to it later if you wanna go see ’em. But it was just like, how do I like, do like illustrations that are very different than like the really heavy skulls that I was doing earlier?

[00:34:17] Uh, and show some variety of my portfolio. How do I have some fun with this? So like the dirty Dr. Pepper, the Harris Crown and the Brown Paul, did you always like 

[00:34:26] diane: drawing? No. Because your [00:34:30] style I know. ’cause I’ve seen Yeah. A lot of things. But you have, you have, I’ve never seen this so. But I’m thinking, wow, these are very different than the others.

[00:34:39] You’ve been very exploratory in style, even of the type of illustration work you’ve done. 

[00:34:46] Will Truran: I’m gonna talk about it a little bit, uh, in another project, but I think, so I didn’t draw at all physically. Like my art started on the computer. When people are like, oh, I wanted to be an artist since I was like four.

[00:34:57] Like I wanted to be an [00:35:00] explorer. I wanted to get in a boat. Like I didn’t wanna do art at all, uh, until I had to go to college. I was like, well, I guess I’ll try something in art. Uh, but even that, like the sculpture, I wasn’t drawing, I was building things physically with my hands. Uh, but I got a cracked version of Photoshop from my dad, from his job.

[00:35:18] And then for Christmas one year, or like a homeschool thing, they were like, you need to learn more stuff. ’cause that’s what homeschooling does. They got me a copy of like a student version of Maya, which is like a 3D program. [00:35:30] All that to say like, I think when you have. Digital tools, you are not bound to any aesthetic, which has gave me the freedom to like, jump around and do like vector skulls or these things that are vectors using different brushes either found or made.

[00:35:46] Um, when you have a pencil like you do, I feel like a little bit more boxed in. ’cause like a pencil works a very specific way. Obviously you can manipulate it and do things and there’s charcoal and graph. But like with digital, uh, I was saying, a professor [00:36:00] used to tell me a lot where like, pixels are free.

[00:36:02] Yeah. Like there, this costs me no money to do, uh, other than time. Right. So like, you, you don’t have to stick to a style, you know? ’cause like who cares if you fail? 

[00:36:12] diane: Yeah. Well you did that drinks thing when with design, recharge. Did a drinks challenge for like a month, I think. I think that was a 

[00:36:20] Will Truran: part of this.

[00:36:21] diane: Dungeons and Dragons. No, you did these. 

[00:36:23] Will Truran: Oh, you’re right. Dungeons and 

[00:36:24] diane: Dragon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thingies. But a a again, it was, there was some sort of [00:36:30] drinking. Hey, Jason Karin. Okay, keep going. 

[00:36:33] Will Truran: So I made all these and then, uh. I saw, like my mom used to be into cooking shows a lot that I thought were always so boring.

[00:36:43] Uh, so then I went down to the basement and I told my dad to set up his camera. I was like, I’m gonna make like really sarcastic videos about how to make these drinks, but I’m gonna reach out to straight edge bands and then use their hardcore music as the background so that when people open up, like they’ll see [00:37:00] this on YouTube, like, Ooh, how to Make a Dirt, uh, dirty Dr.

[00:37:03] Pepper. But then it’ll be like a dude in the basement listening to hardcore music. And it was like, really bad, but like super funny. And, uh. I have them all up on my YouTube still. So if you wanna go see, it’s actually, I was, I have a friend, Patrick Hill, we do videos together. I sent him a screenshot because there’s a thing called a hockey stick where it’s like your, your video gets no attention and then it escalates.

[00:37:25] This video’s been online for 10 years, I think, and in the last like three months, it just shot up. [00:37:30] And I was like, why does YouTube work the way it works? And, uh, so people are watching this thing that’s very embarrassing now. Um, but it was just like, how can I just go down like with Zero Care and make stuff?

[00:37:43] Uh, and I would share this video, but I don’t want Diane’s channel to get like copyright strikes. Oh, right, right, right. 

[00:37:50] diane: Yeah. 

[00:37:50] Will Truran: So we’re not gonna do, I’m not gonna show a lot of stuff or I’m gonna kill the audio on some stuff. But, um, yeah, I just went down to the basement again. It was like using my dad’s stuff just to be like.[00:38:00] 

[00:38:00] I woke up one day and I was like, oh, I’m gonna go to the grocery store and I’m gonna get some stuff so I can make a video about how to make like Harris Crown and like, I’m gonna try to garnish for the first time ever on camera because like, who cares? Like, it’s gonna be hilarious. Um, so what this taught me, this like stupid little project, right?

[00:38:19] And this was, we’re talking maybe two weeks in total, right? This was not a huge thing, but like just going and trying something and obsessing over something for a [00:38:30] couple weeks, like it taught me a different way to illustrate and like a style I could like put in my back pocket if I needed later. Uh, it taught me how to make video content, which, who knew back then that like Instagram would be all video content now.

[00:38:42] Uh, so like that was cool to see. Like I’m still using the same camera as my web camera that I used back then. So it’s like a lot of this all stand the same. Um. Just ask, like, I didn’t wanna use copyright free music, but I didn’t wanna get copyright strikes, so I just like started reaching out to these hardcore bands.

[00:38:59] I [00:39:00] was like, Hey, can I use like your track? And they were like, that sounds so dumb. Of course you can like, ’cause it’s like the sense of humor in that group, right? It’s just like everything’s a joke until it’s not. Um, and then, yeah, it’s just like another example of like how good it was for me just to make something, not ask for permission or ask for someone to like get me to do the work.

[00:39:21] Like just to go make something real quick. Any questions that I’ve spurred up? Okay. You can [00:39:30] say no, I got more. 

[00:39:31] diane: How do you think your styles ha has evolved? Or do you think like, I, I know because I know you and I talk to you every week, but like in terms of materials, I know that you’re always trying new things.

[00:39:44] You’re even going back old school, old cameras or old monitors like. 

[00:39:50] Will Truran: Again, it’s that trash. I think the next project, okay, think in next project we’re gonna start talking about scanners. So yeah, that what you’re saying is true, like the style changes a lot [00:40:00] and I think it’s a hundred percent on like whatever toy I’m playing with.

[00:40:04] So like the first project was like, oh, how am I gonna use like Illustrator and Photoshop to like make a brand? And the tool there was actually like the brand in a weird way. Mm-Hmm. It wasn’t the software. And then this was like, uh, the tool was Illustrator and then my camera in the basement. Right. Um, with this next project, which gets on that trash fiend, right?

[00:40:25] Like, I don’t think I touched trash for the most part. Um. [00:40:30] Since school until this project, but I made a zine called, you Are What You Eat Now Go live in it. And I was trying to figure out how to like explain this project. Uh, and uh, I’m just gonna read the foreword that I put in this project. It’s a little long, so bear with me, but I think it does a better job at than I could do, like verbally or off the cuff.

[00:40:50] Uh, but the about section the beginning says, while living in New York during the peak of Covid, my eating habits quickly deteriorated all across my desk, laid wrappers, napkins and cups [00:41:00] from an assortment of fast food joints. As I sat another day in my creaking chair pushing my mouse through a perimeter of multi-material packaging, I realized I had not only gained dozen of pounds, but was also creating my personal landfill from the greasy remains of paper and plastic.

[00:41:15] These empty calories were making for a filled out waistband. But what was even more disturbing was that each meal left a small bag of materials our planet would be stuck with for decades, if not centuries. This realization has left little to no impact on my behavior, even as I relay [00:41:30] relocate to a new city.

[00:41:31] And as Covid lost its intense cra on our collective action, fast food still makes up too many of my meals. What does it take to break habits and force someone to choosing momentary convenience? And I think this was like the first project where I was allowing myself to like, bring emotion into it. Mm.

[00:41:48] That is great. I was 

[00:41:50] diane: That’s a powerful, what you wrote was, was really concise. It’s clear, but it’s also, it is very, um, [00:42:00] emotional or impactful. And this comes before the thing you did at the end of RIT, right? 

[00:42:06] Will Truran: No, this is, so this started, it was right around the same time. Okay. Um, so 

[00:42:11] diane: very emotional, uh, or, um, yeah.

[00:42:15] Will Truran: Yeah. I was so, I was, I. I don’t know mo where most people here are from. Uh, but New York took Covid extraordinary. Seriously. Um, I remember being in the lab before spring break and a professor coming, being like, pack your stuff [00:42:30] up. Like, we’re not coming back. And us being like, ha ha, ha ha ha, it’s a China disease.

[00:42:34] Like, we’ll be fine. Um, and then not going back. And also being encouraged and mandated not to leave our apartments. So like, when you’re living alone for months, my only interaction was like with a grocery store clerk every few days because we weren’t supposed to go every day. It was like every few days you’d go to the grocery store.

[00:42:54] So then you were eating out a lot. ’cause for some reason in, uh, the infinite wisdom of our government, [00:43:00] like that, DoorDash was still okay. So like people were still driving around and delivering trash and like, I sat in this room like weeks of just like isolation and there was like piles of garbage. I was like.

[00:43:12] Like I am spiraling right now. Uh, and that probably is why I started like another manic project for my thesis. But, um, I wanted to figure out like how I could, uh, push these emotions through a project to like just work through it. Um, so [00:43:30] I took the wrappers and cleaned them off and then put ’em on a scanner and then started moving it while the scanner was going to try to like, replicate how I felt inside, kind of like that deterioration and grossness and then like, how do I recreate what this trash is gonna look like in 10 years where it’s just like melting and soaking into the ground and like being ripped apart.

[00:43:52] Um, so every time I took fast food, I would just like. Clean off everything. Go to the scanner and there’s like, sit there and I have a [00:44:00] video to show you, like how this all got made. Um, but it just started out as like posters. Like I had no idea what zines were. I had like a tertiary idea of what zines were, but like, I had never like explored it.

[00:44:11] Um, but eventually it, like, I just kept making these posters of like fast food and then I move cities and it’s like, oh, there’s a whole new crop of fast food out here in the Midwest. Like the Midwest really loves their fast food. Um, but then I was like, how do I, what do I do with these? Right? Like, I was posting ’em on Instagram, but like, who cares?[00:44:30] 

[00:44:30] Um, so I bought like a little eco tank printer for Epson, uh, so I could get a laser printer or inkjet printer pretty cheap. Um, and made the zine where like, uh, a bunch of the spreads are shown on the left there, just like printed. But then I took velum and started dissecting, uh. The posters so that you could like manipulate it so that the viewer had a chance to like, participate in the creation of these posters and these guards.

[00:44:56] ’cause like I know what I was going through wasn’t the only thing. [00:45:00] Uh, and then on the left I also showed the impact on my health from like, everything I ordered from each of those meals. And it’s like terrible. I mean, if you never had a Zo, like it’s the worst food I’ve ever eaten. Uh, and that meal cost me 2300 calories.

[00:45:15] Like, that’s like really not great. Uh, one meal. Wow. Yeah. And I still eat fast food all the time. Like these that this didn’t do anything to stop me. I don’t know. Um, but you can see like, so I made it a product, [00:45:30] shipped it out. Uh, but you can see here, like the lessons I learned from the clothing brand was like photography really matters.

[00:45:37] Uh, so like I collected garbage in a trash can and like put it in the trash can. I did some other fun stuff. Like I recorded a lot of video like I did with the, um. Mocktails project just to like help build out like, uh, a selling point, which is insane ’cause I was only gonna sell like 12 of ’em anyways ’cause they took so long to make.

[00:45:57] Uh, so I put like way too much effort. They sold [00:46:00] out instantly. ’cause like I had spend two weeks building it up and then I was like, oh, I’m not actually making any of these. Um, so I did take a video. I think it’s already muted because I don’t wanna cause any issues. Uh, I’m gonna skip around a little bit.

[00:46:15] Yep. So there’s the scanner and when it started, this is all going like, kind of fast, super fast. Oops. Turn that off. Um, when the scanner goes, you just move the packaging and really it was just like experiment and you don’t see what it does [00:46:30] until afterward. Right. It’s kind of like film photography. Like you do all of this and then you wait for it to show up on your computer.

[00:46:35] Right. Um, and you just like slowly go through each thing. Uh, trying to get each of the little logos, the print anywhere, like print was, uh, on napkins. And then with napkins, it’s like such a scrunching material. Like you could also like manipulate the material, not just the position. Yeah. Uh, with the cup and then trying somewhere in here.

[00:46:57] Uh, where’d it go? I don’t know. Uh, [00:47:00] the clear, like barely works. Like then you put paper inside to like, try to get it to work there. So it really is just like play, but it’s play in like a 10, 15 minute increment. Right. Like the whole point of this was like, how do I not spend too much time trying to make this perfect ’cause it should look terrible?

[00:47:17] Uh, and then I went to, but it looks 

[00:47:19] diane: really cool. Like it looks, I mean, well, I appreciate that the manipulations are, they’re very different than anything. Anyway. I love it. Keep going. 

[00:47:29] Will Truran: Well, and then even [00:47:30] the Photoshop here, like anyone who does Photoshop is gonna like cringe so bad. ’cause it was like using the magic wand tool and then like you could see me kind of erasing and then just being like, eh, uh, just leaving the rest.

[00:47:42] And like, uh, a lot of like using the mouse to erase things rather than the pen tool. Like it was really rough. Like that was the point, right? Like, this shouldn’t look like something that is super heavy or super intense because it was like made in a depressed state. Like it should look like I couldn’t even [00:48:00] sit there and doing it.

[00:48:01] Um, but then it’s just like a lot of blending, a lot of, uh, layering over and over and over again. Just like going through like that library of scans I’ve got. 

[00:48:10] diane: Yeah. 

[00:48:11] Will Truran: Can you hear that horn? 

[00:48:12] diane: Yes. It’s weird. 

[00:48:14] Will Truran: Just some idiot. 

[00:48:16] diane: Your DoorDash is here. 

[00:48:19] Will Truran: Yeah. No, it’s some drunk guy probably in the street that some car can’t get around.

[00:48:24] Uh. So 

[00:48:26] diane: Jason Kern says, it would feel wrong if it was more polished. I agree. [00:48:30] Um, yeah. And dirty approach is what something like this needs. I totally agree. 

[00:48:35] Will Truran: Yeah. I, I, I think that’s exactly where my head was at. It was just like, if this looks polished, then like I’m missing the point. Like this was actually, so like dead flesh Co had a point, right?

[00:48:45] It was like about my faith and my, my lack of drinking. The mocktails had a point, but like, this had a point where it was like equal therapy, equal output. Um, and it was another thing where like, while making it, people were like, relating because like a lot of [00:49:00] people in New York were really stuck and it was like, oh, we’re all kind of going crazy.

[00:49:03] Like we, this is how we all feel. 

[00:49:05] diane: Daniel has a question. Uh, wait. Um, Daniel has a question. Did you get this text effect the same way? Did you create copy, print it out, and then move it around on the scanner? 

[00:49:13] Will Truran: Yeah. Yeah. I’m just using the same tricks for sure. 

[00:49:17] diane: That’s cool. Um, Gabriel says, what kind of scanner do you 

[00:49:21] Will Truran: use?

[00:49:21] Will Gabe, I made these all with the scanner at your school. You should go try send it to 600 dpi. I so it moves a little slower. [00:49:30] Um, but yeah, so like, this project taught me like binding styles. Mm-Hmm. Like, there’s no way you’ll be able to see it on camera, but like it’s all bound by hand. There’s videos on my Instagram, like how to do that.

[00:49:42] Um, it taught me how to mess around with printers like printing on vellum. It’s like not great if you buy a vem and it’s like inkjet approved. It’s not like it smears every time. And I had to print on both sides. So it was like, how do I create a, um, oh, what’s that thing [00:50:00] Ford made the, making the cars, um, 

[00:50:04] diane: oh, a assembly line.

[00:50:05] Will Truran: Yeah. Make an assembly line of like, all right, I’m gonna print all of the one sides, let them dry, and then by the time I finish printing all of those, I can like flip them over and print on the other sides and let them dry. Um, and then the scanners, obviously, uh, this felt very new and cool to me. Uh, evidently people have been doing this since like the sixties and seventies, so like there’s nothing new under the sun.

[00:50:27] Uh, so that was, uh, [00:50:30] humbling. Um, and then using emotions to make something, something I think a lot of designers sh shy away from. ’cause everything we do is so commercial and is so important to keep like that, I think we should allow ourselves like. Make stuff that matters to you and not your customer. Uh, and then like shipping zines, like I had spent so much time shipping shirts, but I learned about media mail and how I could ship these things for like three bucks.

[00:50:51] It was great. Uh, and I learned how to argue with people at the USPS ’cause they were like, this is not a book. And I was like, it’s bound. And they’re [00:51:00] like, fine. Like, they’re like, it might get sent back to you. I was like, it’s not going to. Like, I’ve been sending these now for months and you’re fine. Um, so yeah, like that project, like you were saying, like the aesthetic changes completely.

[00:51:13] I think it was com almost all because of like where I was mentally, but more than that, like what tools I decide to use. Um, somewhat, I think so Dan was, uh, no, not Dan, it was, uh, crew. Uh, the guy I know on Instagram was like, did you make this [00:51:30] in Figma or did you make it in Photoshop and then bring it into Figma?

[00:51:32] And I was like, I use scanners bud. Like, I have no idea how I would do this in Photoshop. Like, I’ve got no clue how to, I’m sure you could maybe, um. But just like go get play with scanners. Uh, it’s fun and like the smell of, uh, the reason I got an inkjet printer instead of laser, because I hate the smell of toner, but my apartment smelled like sweet, sweet inkjet for weeks, and it was wonderful.

[00:51:57] All right. Next project, unless you have [00:52:00] something you want to interrupt me with. 

[00:52:02] diane: Mm. Okay. How does your process change? Depending on the medium or the subject matter, like how, if you think, oh, I’m gonna do something with all this trash. 

[00:52:13] Will Truran: Yeah. 

[00:52:14] diane: Did you think, oh, I wanna do something with the scanner? Or like, how do you decide what medium is peaking your interest or, 

[00:52:24] Will Truran: I don’t know.

[00:52:24] I probably saw something about someone accidentally like moving something on a scanner. [00:52:30] And I was like, oh, like that’s, and it probably like pulled type. And I was like, oh, that’s like really interesting. And like if you look at like trash, uh, it’s crumpled up in the garbage can, it like creates that kind of like weird manipulation where things look scrunched up or if you like tear things, everything, like starts getting extended.

[00:52:49] Uh, and I didn’t wanna do it with cameras. Like I didn’t wanna just do like a still life photo project ’cause that didn’t feel fun. I think if I was a real photographer, like that could have been very cool. [00:53:00] Like showing your daily food through its garbage is would be very cool. Um, but for me, I, I knew I wanted to do like posters.

[00:53:10] Um, so like I don’t, I don’t know if it’s like I didn’t, I didn’t choose it right. I stumbled on it and then just like did it, or if it was just like. Good timing, or if I had made this like a month later and I had seen other stuff, would it have turned out totally different? Probably. 

[00:53:26] diane: Well, and you did kind of like, you started with posters and then you were like, oh, I’m [00:53:30] gonna try this zine because the z might I package it might be a better package.

[00:53:33] Yeah, 

[00:53:35] Will Truran: yeah, yeah. I know. I, I wish I like a better, like more like clear answer of like, this is why I did these things. But most of the time it’s just like, oh, I felt like it. Which is not super helpful. 

[00:53:47] diane: Well, but it, it means that you’re looking at things, you’re, um, always thinking about, could I do this? How can I do this?

[00:53:55] How is this affecting what, what I’m thinking or what I’m doing? [00:54:00] So I, I like that it means that you’re not just in a, in a vacuum. 

[00:54:04] Will Truran: Yeah. Yeah. I, I try, hopefully I. With each of these projects. Hopefully you’ll see that. Like I try not to like lock myself into some rule set ever. Um, once I do like, even like Def Leco died, ’cause either I had to start going to like big wholesaler conventions and like actually take the brand seriously and try to get into places like Zoomies or I had to [00:54:30] like just keep doing what I was doing and like, I was so bored after 10 years I was like, eh, I’ll just kill it.

[00:54:34] Um, ’cause it was easier, right? And then I moved on to something different that allowed me to do something, uh, opposite. Uh, all right, let’s hit one of the nerd topics. And I think the rest of this probably has nerd going through it and it’s gonna be a lot of different, uh, avenues of Nerdo. Um, but I was talking to a friend, uh.

[00:54:57] There’s like a big new, uh, somewhere in [00:55:00] Utah. They’re doing like a, a Star Wars themed kind of like, uh, Airbnb. And I said, it’s just like really weird to see, like the stuff that made me not cool in high school become like something I can’t afford now. Right. And she was like, when was Star Wars not popular?

[00:55:17] I was like, during the prequels where everyone hated it. Like, that’s Star Wars DD magic gathering, like this like nerd thing that, like me and my like core group of friends, like really found, [00:55:30] uh. To be like, I don’t know, like the most enjoyable, most bonding thing we could is now like becoming like mass material or mass consumption.

[00:55:41] And DD is like in a weird spot where it’s like that now ’cause of shows like Stranger Things or, um, there’s a critical role which is a little bit more like less mainstream, but like these big multimillion dollar or billion dollar things are now like pushing a hobby. That made me like the weirdo is now like [00:56:00] making it like, cool.

[00:56:01] So dungeon designers. 

[00:56:03] diane: I think it’s because now we have the internet and the people that were on the outside can now find their other people. And they couldn’t, you couldn’t really do that before. 

[00:56:14] Will Truran: Yeah. I think that, and I also think culturally, like it was very normal for me to make fun of people in high school about stupid things and like we were cruel to each other.

[00:56:25] And it’s probably, you know, part ’cause we, like it was New Jersey, but like we were cruel. And I, and I [00:56:30] think Gen Z gets like a lot of hate, but I think a lot of that has like, gone away a little bit because we’re, we’re accepting everything. Right. And maybe like then this project will kind of show this, like a lot of people wanted to play d and d in high school and didn’t because they thought it’d be made fun of.

[00:56:47] Hmm. Right. And I think now with like people just being like, um. Just being like, yeah, like, oh, we can just do like whatever. ’cause like, who cares what people think about us? Or they need to accept us no matter what, [00:57:00] I think has allowed some of these, like, hobbies to like really explode. 

[00:57:04] diane: Yeah. 

[00:57:04] Will Truran: So Dungeons and Designers was a podcast I started because when I went to grad school, uh, I was losing my d and d group and I knew I couldn’t play d and d anymore.

[00:57:13] And I was like, how can I keep playing d and d? And I was like, oh, I could con my designer friends to make something because designers always need a product at the end. Uh, so we made Dungeon Designers, which was a weekly podcast where me and my friends played d and d often with a designer who had never played d and d before.

[00:57:29] So like, we [00:57:30] would bring on guests and a lot of times we’re like, Hey, do you wanna play DD? Or they’d reach out to us, be like, I’ve never played before, but like, I’ve always wanted to, can I? And we’re like, that’s exactly who he plays. 

[00:57:39] diane: Didn’t bond play with you once? 

[00:57:41] Will Truran: No, BVO knows d and DI 

[00:57:43] diane: know he did the logo.

[00:57:45] I’m like, 

[00:57:46] Will Truran: glowing. 

[00:57:48] diane: Oh, I love it. It looks like it. That didn’t help at all. 

[00:57:51] Will Truran: Yeah. What, I guess the, I guess the cloud’s broken. Like I’m now like fully in it. Um, so I made this podcast and it, this was like a [00:58:00] very, very different thing that I made in the past because it required like a weekly commitment, right?

[00:58:06] Like I had to release every Tuesday or Wednesday, whatever day we used to release. Um, I had to make the art. I was like kind of organizing it, but I had, uh, a bunch of people helping me, which was awesome. 

[00:58:19] diane: And you got play with your brother? 

[00:58:20] Will Truran: I gotta play my brother. Um, but it was like another thing where it’s just like, how do I use my design skills to help me create a different product that is totally [00:58:30] different than what I’ve made in the past?

[00:58:31] So these are all like the little Instagram ad things that we would release to like, try to get people to go list to the show. This is like the 

[00:58:37] diane: beginning of those, the little, I don’t know, not blender, but those, you’re using the, you know Yeah. You’re making things on Instagram. I remember. ’cause I was there.

[00:58:48] I mean, yeah. And now it You’re still doing, you here, you been here for a long time. I’ve been here, yeah. 

[00:58:53] Will Truran: Okay. So then, well, in addition to Instagram, you also, like, I took it more serious than we [00:59:00] probably should have, right? But it was just like, if I’m gonna put this on YouTube eventually. First it was just audio and then it was like, we’re playing with screens.

[00:59:07] Like I can see everybody, like let’s just like record the video. But I didn’t want it just to feel like you were. Tuning into our discord call. Like I wanted to package it and make it be like, Hey, these guys care. Right? Like, put in some effort so that when people go and watch it, like there’s something, and there was also like a standard being set by other shows that were doing similar things, uh, but also ’cause I’m a designer and like a DD, like, I could [00:59:30] change it whenever I wanted.

[00:59:31] So like, the consistency was like never there. Every couple of days I was just, I got a new idea. Um, but that’s cool. But that’s exploring, but pretty cool for sure. It’s just not real good for brand equity, 

[00:59:42] diane: but, but as, as something’s growing, you get to decide. So this is the beauty of testing and figuring things out, right?

[00:59:52] You’re like, okay, I have a new idea. Well, maybe I shouldn’t change it next week, but maybe in six months we have a different, or you know, like, [01:00:00] 

[01:00:00] Will Truran: well I think too, you’ve been doing this, you’ve been doing your show. For a long time, longer than I did anything. Uh, but if I didn’t change things every couple of months, like I would’ve been born, just stopped.

[01:00:11] Yeah. So like for me, I had to do this stuff to like keep engaged and not feel like I was just like spinning wheels. Um, but yeah, so our first like foray onto YouTube, I was playing with Courtney, my brother Dan, uh, Zach Wilkinson, who are like all still good friends. Like I [01:00:30] love all these people still. And they didn’t know, like, and I didn’t know I started this during 2019 fall when I was moving to RIT, but like they would’ve played, they were gonna play DND with me through Covid.

[01:00:41] Right. Which, which was another like really important thing where like every week I had this like, touch point of like, people that like we could check in on each other, um, even though we were geography like, uh, in different states. And Zach were like in different parts of North Carolina. My boat was in Jersey.

[01:00:56] I was in New York. Um, and then [01:01:00] eventually, uh. The project has changed. ’cause like my life changed when I started teaching and I was like, I need a, a different schedule that didn’t work for those guys, but I, we already were streaming all our stuff through M of one podcast. Um, so then the M of one crew is like, well, let’s us try to play DD once in a while during this.

[01:01:16] So like, we brought them on and like, they’re still like really good friends. I still talk to all of them like a ton. Um, and then on the bottom right, I, Jonathan Catrell, cut Catrell. Uh, he was one of our guests where he was just like, uh, [01:01:30] I’ve played D Pass, like, can I play with you guys? And he was like, cool man.

[01:01:33] Like, just jump in. We’ll give you a character for like this one session and then like you’ll be on your way. Um, so it’s really cool, just like a way of like meeting new people virtually. Uh, but it also, we started at Patreon and I think we started at Patreon a lot because you recommended it and like other people did.

[01:01:49] But it was a cool way to like start making products again. Like I was with the clothing brand. But we would just, like, if you’re a Patreon follower, you’d get stickers every month. And it was just like cool way of us just like make little pins and a stickers. A [01:02:00] postcard 

[01:02:00] diane: with a, you signed something 

[01:02:03] Will Truran: I think.

[01:02:03] Yeah. I can’t remember if I had it. Yeah. So like there’s just a little thank you know of like, thanks for Mm-Hmm. Playing along with our dumb game. Um, so yeah, it was just like a cool thing that taught me again, like. If you can, I think it’s like the fourth project we looked at, or third, I can’t remember. Uh, but it was like totally different aesthetically right.

[01:02:21] And software was different. With this project. I had to learn how to do like, audio recording and streaming and go into, um, software to clean up the audio. [01:02:30] Uh, it taught me new 3D stuff and new motion things. And like the most important thing was like, fun can be enough reason to do it. Mm. Right? Like that was never gonna make money, but it was like a blast.

[01:02:39] And that was super important for me just to go have fun. 

[01:02:41] diane: But even in, like, if it’s just fun for you, if you’re ever working with a client, you can say, oh, have you thought about this? Like, it gives you more things to be able to monetize if you’re, if you’re going to, or things for sure that you could teach a student so that they can be able to monetize those things 

[01:02:58] Will Truran: well.

[01:02:59] And I still make [01:03:00] videos and stream with M of one. And I think a lot of the reason I can do that stuff is ’cause I had done it on my own for other things. Right. Like, none of these skills just like go away. Like you can just pick these things back up whenever you want. Like if I want to go make t-shirts again, like.

[01:03:14] It’s not that hard, like I’ve done enough times. All right. Back to nerd. Um, so this is where things get weirder. Um, and the next few I think are gonna be weird. I’m gonna try to go quicker ’cause I think I’m running out of time. Um, but this project was called a child, and one of the [01:03:30] things that I am worried, worried about a lot is like our mental wellbeing on social media.

[01:03:35] I think like it’s, we’re deteriorating as a culture. Um, and this guy David Yeg wrote, uh, these results are striking, it’s like a very long paper, but he wrote, these results are striking in part because the adolescents aren’t getting bullied or harassed, they’re just not getting liked as much as they want to be.

[01:03:52] And that’s leading them to show, uh, symptoms of depression. And this was about like, uh, rates of suicide in young women raising. [01:04:00] So I wanted to make, uh, something that again, kind of emotional like the zine was how do I make like a new kind of experimental thing? So I made this. Uh, website and you’re gonna have to try to track with me ’cause it gets weird.

[01:04:13] So my phone is doing Instagram live and pointing at my monitor that has a website that I created that is hooked up to a webcam that is watching the Instagram live. So it is a closed circuit of things that people could tune into. So there’s like the webcam pointed at the phone. The phone was [01:04:30] pointed to the monitor on the website.

[01:04:33] It was monitoring this little tiny square of pixels on the video where, uh, anytime it got, I got a heart or a like, it would know because the colors would change. And what would happen is that little black square, the thing I call a child, would start at the top and then go all the way to the bottom and the screen would get blacker and blacker and blacker.

[01:04:53] And once it reached the bottom, the website would kill itself. Showing like, if it’s not getting attention, like it’s, it’s going away. [01:05:00] And then you can like all you want, but it’s over. Right? It’s nothing you can do ’cause it’s too late. Uh, and I have a video of like a time loss and that’s powerful. Yeah, except Instagram live, no one interacts with, so the kid just died every time.

[01:05:13] Um, and I don’t have many followers, so like, it didn’t work. But this is that closed loop where it, you can see kind of a clock speeding up. So you can see it’s much faster. Like, this was like a five minute thing where it’s slowly move and you get a lot of people just being like, what is this? This is weird.

[01:05:29] Uh, but not doing [01:05:30] anything, right? So eventually, uh, it gets to the bottom and then the website just dies, and then I, I end the stream. Um, and it was really cool. Maybe it needs a 

[01:05:39] diane: better call to 

[01:05:39] Will Truran: action, like, so I’ve got a version two. ’cause I agree. I, I think both the, I wanna save the kid. Both the medium. I don’t think Instagram live is the appropriate thing.

[01:05:51] And I think people read and they don’t interact. Right. I think you need something else. So I’ve got like a version three I’m playing with, that’s like a big pixelated [01:06:00] face, which fe anyone grew up with. Nickelodeon, like any millennials with Nickelodeon, there was like this big face before cartoons and it goes from smiley to sad, it goes from green to gray.

[01:06:09] And I’ve got it so that, uh, it can generate, uh, these little quote bubbles with messages. And I just asked Chacha, bt to gimme a hundred quotes from a super desperate streamer, and it’s like begging for likes. Uh, and it gets, I teared them in like severity. So as it gets sadder, the, the messages get more desperate and [01:06:30] desperate and desperate.

[01:06:31] Um, so I’m playing with like maybe installing it in physical space, like a hallway or something with just like a like button. So if you walk by, you can just like reset it. Uh, but while you’re walking by it could like yell at you. Not audible, but vi visually yell at, you’d be like, please, like gimme your attention.

[01:06:48] Um, but again, like I don’t know where it’s gonna go, but it gave me excuse to learn a, a framework for JavaScript called P five js, which is like an artist framework for JavaScript. Um, I think you, [01:07:00] so like, that was really cool. Think you go to 

[01:07:00] diane: the psychology department and talk to them. ’cause I think that would be a really powerful, um, like a study maybe.

[01:07:10] Will Truran: Maybe. I mean, so you’re probably right. I see it as just being a fun tamagotchi or I guess a depressing tamagotchi. So like, I don’t take it that serious, but you could be right. Uh, anyway, psychologist scare me. So what that taught me though was, uh, a lot of new programming concepts, which was really cool.

[01:07:29] [01:07:30] Like I think learning how to program is hard if you don’t have reasons to keep expanding your knowledge base. So this gave me that reason to expand my knowledge base. Uh, design tools can be like weird stuff. Like, I think for most of us, we went to school, we’re like making posters and logos, but like end of the day we can make whatever we want with this stuff.

[01:07:47] Like, it does not need to be like, cool or clean. It can be weird. Um, so like, that was a really cool example of like tools dictating output. And I think two more [01:08:00] is do we have time for me to run through two more? Yep. All right. So these are, uh, two current projects that are kind of going on. Uh, this project is called Trash Files, uh, and I’m going back to those trash roots, uh, very similar to the zine, but I thought what would be way cooler is if I bring in community and allow other people to contribute and make kind of their own assets or posters or whatever.

[01:08:23] So this is a database called Trash Files, and if I change, I think I’ve got it. [01:08:30] So Trash Files is like this weird website that has, um, a very kind of like DOS type, uh. Database field. Mm-Hmm. But if you click into each one, it gives you, oops. It gives you a 3D where you can scan around and move and go see the trash that people are finding with all the information about where they found it.

[01:08:51] So it’s like creating this live database of like our impact on our environments while allowing other people to like, or forces other people to [01:09:00] like recognize it. Like look at the guard you’re walking around. Um, but this project has taught me a lot because I think it’s probably the first like, big failed project I’ve had.

[01:09:10] Right. It’s cool. I’m happy with it. It looks exactly like I thought it would or wanted it to, but to participate right now you have to download a program called Poly Cam, which you can use for free. You have to go scan, which is, uh, it scans by taking hundreds of photos. So you like, walk around as your phone is just like rapid firing photos.

[01:09:29] Then you have [01:09:30] to download an app called Road Reporter. To get the noise pollution. ’cause that’s another part of the website where there’s audio playing while you look at the model. Um, then you have to get your, uh, GPS locations ’cause we want to geotarget all of this. Mm-Hmm. And then you have to go to a form I have set up and then input all this stuff.

[01:09:48] It, I’ve done like 50 of ’em and it takes me like five minutes to do one for a new person. It takes like half an hour. So like this showed that like, even though I found tools to do it all that [01:10:00] like worked for me. If you want to have other people start involving themselves in your projects, you need to open it up in ways that are more accessible.

[01:10:08] Uh, so I’m talking to a developer now about like how I can get most of this stuff to be built through the website. So it’s like one stop shop and then it can automate some of the things for you. Um, like right now, like there’s no reason for anyone to help contribute to this. Right. Like, and I, and I wouldn’t expect them to, but, 

[01:10:25] diane: but what it, what I love about these ideas of these projects is people [01:10:30] say lots of things like, we need to recycle or we need to, whatever.

[01:10:33] But then they, maybe they say it, they might have the shirt, they might have a sticker on their car, but they’re still walking by, they’re still, um, overlooking things. I mean, me included, right? Yeah. Um, or, or eating too many Chick-fil-A’s or something. I love to, I mean, to keep your 

[01:10:50] Will Truran: sanity, you have to not look at it like if you, you have to be able to 

[01:10:54] diane: turn some things off, but instead of it’s saying action means more than your [01:11:00] words.

[01:11:00] So I love these, all these, and I, it creates community. It says, for the people who really care, it just mean means that you have to get connected to the people who really are doing something. I, I think even Patagonia would like, I think they would think this is cool because. They recycle things and make clothes outta it.

[01:11:21] Well, anyone knows 

[01:11:22] Will Truran: that Patagonia hit me up because I will sell out to any company. It’d be great. [01:11:30] Um, but yeah, like I’m really happy with the project. Like it’s been super fun. I now have a database of around 103 D models, audio recordings, uh, material data that I’ve been able to create other assets with, which I don’t know why I didn’t show, but like I’ve made, like animated projects made still photos or posters.

[01:11:47] Like, it was really cool just to now have like this, like plethora of like assets. I can just do whatever I want with. Um, it taught me new three things about 3D like how to render 3D in your browser, which was really cool. Something I had never done before, [01:12:00] but like the biggest thing was like this was the one time where I really did not equip the people I needed to interact with it.

[01:12:07] Well. I think Dead Flesh Co. I just kind of like, I fell into it like, it was like family and friends who would like go outta the way to help me for this type of thing. When you want like a larger global community to start, like scanning trash, it’s up to you to like make a tool that they can use. Um, and I think I under, uh, prioritize that when I was like, concepting the [01:12:30] workflow.

[01:12:30] diane: But that is just, that’s the, the beauty of learning and like, oh, we need to make this user experience easier to be able to make this more known. How much trash we’re walking by or like, yeah. I, I 

[01:12:46] Will Truran: look at it now as a proof of concept, right? Like everything was enough to get like a working mockup of everything, right?

[01:12:52] Like the, the data’s all there, it’s all interactable. You can go to trash files.net right now and go see it all. Um, [01:13:00] but like for me, I. Now it’s like all, how do I get to step two, which means like, how do I pay a developer to help me build the stuff that I know I can’t? Like that’s just past my skillset.

[01:13:10] Right. Um, so we’ll see like, it, it’s not done like this one and the next project are like ongoing things that I’m like actively still trying to figure out. Um, so in the next nerdy project, and this is the last one, I think, uh, is this new software I started using, not, it’s not new software, it’s new to me, called Touch [01:13:30] Designer.

[01:13:30] And Touch Designer was built by a guy who helped make the first, um, few versions of Houdini, which is a 3D software of people aren’t familiar with. So this is like a spinoff of that 3D software. But it allows you to make software or experiences where you can bring in a ton of different inputs and drive lots of different effects and outputs.

[01:13:53] So the idea is, like for us, like our input is usually like keyboard and our output is like poster. This allows my [01:14:00] input to be audio, video, body tracking, keyboard, um, imagery. Like all those things can drive different effects. Um, so what started as like silly little, kind of like early two thousands audio visualizers, like on iTunes when you like, would click on the I visualizer, it was just like vibrating things or things like warping to the audio became more storytelling assets where like I would take videos of like these [01:14:30] bison from my road trips and then create these kind of almost microscopic organism effects on top of it Then that those.

[01:14:38] Overlays are all being driven by audio. That’s like manipulating noise fields and things like that. But then it, like, it opened up a whole like bunch more things to start playing with where like, I like And this has been within 

[01:14:52] diane: the last year, right? Like you’ve been doing Yeah. Like 

[01:14:55] Will Truran: last six months. 

[01:14:56] diane: Yeah.

[01:14:56] Okay. 

[01:14:57] Will Truran: Um, so like playing with like old CRT [01:15:00] screens and like, how do I loop, uh, these graphics like over multiple screens so it’s not just all locked into one frame? How can the medium or the, the formatting impact the visual as much as the content itself? How can I like, take, uh, performances in real life and like pull that through the video and have that kind of like, drive these effects?

[01:15:21] How can I take all those kind of sci-fi things I love and like create weird things that, like any audio that comes through it, it will look different. Or anytime you [01:15:30] listen to it at a different point of the audio, it looks different. It’s not the same looping thing. Um, and it’s just been a really cool way of stretching my aesthetics to like a whole new category that I’ve never done before.

[01:15:42] Uh, which has been pretty encouraging. But like you were saying, like, I don’t know why I’m doing this. Like, the posters I knew were like a therapy thing. The dead flesh coat was like a community thing. D and d was like a fun thing. Like, I don’t know where like this goes. And I think that’s okay. 

[01:15:59] diane: Yeah, I think [01:16:00] so too.

[01:16:00] But it’s also a different way to process audio. Like we have just had waves, you know? Mm-Hmm. Like, now you’re processing it in lots of different ways. And that is the type, that’s the way, that’s what I love about you. You think different. Like we’ve just, I just accept that that’s how you, you show a audio file, but now you’re showing us we could do audio file or you know, like it’s just, there’s lots of other options.

[01:16:29] We [01:16:30] just have to. 

[01:16:31] Will Truran: I think this all goes back to like two things I said, which was like, mamo, vignelli. If you design something, you design anything. And when you’re using digital tools, there is no aesthetic bounds, right? There’s no output bounds. And I think myself included sometimes, but like a lot of designers really limit themselves to like one thing, right?

[01:16:52] And it’s just like you’ve got a computer in front of you that can do anything. Uh, the only thing that’s like limiting you is [01:17:00] like time and imagination and like the, these people who are just like, like some of my favorite designers who just make logos, like they’re so creative. Like I, I don’t, this is not dig to them at all.

[01:17:11] ’cause I think they’re genius. It’s like Michael Beirut is a genius to me, but he’s, he’s limited himself so much to like a, a fine tuned set of skills that he’s like mastered. We’re like, I would’ve loved to see what he would’ve done. And this goes back like Mamo. Vili was designing furniture [01:17:30] and tableware and posters and maps.

[01:17:33] The BA house as part of their curriculum would force you to do like performing art, welding furniture. Like I think as creatives, we are meant to create lots of things. And the more we like bound ourselves to like just this one single output, the, the, the less we’re giving ourselves a chance to like be truly happy with what we make.

[01:17:56] diane: You know what I think, at least for me, I 

[01:17:57] Will Truran: think, 

[01:17:58] diane: I think we’re just [01:18:00] afraid we get good at something and we don’t really wanna not be good at something. It’s like that the child, we don’t want to, um, not get likes, not get likes, or it’s about failure or rejection. And I think that this is something that you’ve embraced as like, it’s, it’s what, um.

[01:18:20] Benjamin Franklin went through, or Edison, you know, they were, try a lot of different things. And my dad always reminds me about the Edison [01:18:30] one, that somebody said, sure, you found another yet another way to not make, uh, the light bulb or whatever. And he’s like, no, son. I son. Yeah, it 

[01:18:38] Will Truran: was, you failed again at making a light bulb.

[01:18:40] And he said, no, I found another way. You can’t make a light bulb. 

[01:18:42] diane: Right. And he’s like, it’s just knowledge, it’s information put in. But I think we are really afraid of rejection and failure, me included that. It makes us so that we fear holds us back. And it is like, maybe this is the homeschool part of you that [01:19:00] you’re like, oh, I didn’t have that.

[01:19:01] I didn’t. Well, 

[01:19:02] Will Truran: and I would also say like, we all have Instagram now, right? So we are all aware that we are not the best. So like, what is the risk at doing something bad? Like nothing I put on Instagram is gonna be better. Like Jason Carter was here and I pointed Jason Carter all the time being like. His type is like, I’m never gonna be as good as Jason Carn.

[01:19:21] diane: Amen. And he’s doing, he used to do so much by hand, you know, like, 

[01:19:25] Will Truran: oh, he’s great. Yeah. Like, but like, if I’m not gonna be Jason Carne, they’re like, what’s the [01:19:30] risk of like doing something ugly for a while? Like, I’m still gonna, as long as I like it, 

[01:19:34] diane: but I think it’s that you’re, you’re confident in who you are and whose you are, and that you, you’re like, okay doing that.

[01:19:43] And I think a lot of times people have, um, it, it takes a lot of guts. And that’s another thing I just love about you. I’m so glad you’re my friend. Like, I just, you are inspiring to me that you explore so much. I think you’re inspiring to your students that you [01:20:00] do that, but it is helpful to see that you just keep trying and exploring to me personally.

[01:20:09] Will Truran: Yeah, I, I mean, I’m glad, I’m glad that it can be encouraging to you ’cause I know you’ve been encouraging to me with this podcast and all the stuff you’re doing. Uh, so it says what it taught me, but it should say like, what it’s teaching me. ’cause this is like clearly going on. Uh, but this showed me like, tools can direct aesthetic more than like any past project.

[01:20:26] Like my aesthetic changed completely because the tools [01:20:30] I was using, um, tools can inspire, right? Like every day I’m going in playing with touch center. It’s not because I have like some genius ideas ’cause I just, the tools are making me want to make. And then like the most important lesson, and I think this is something all of my projects have probably taught me.

[01:20:46] I think exploration and discovery are better than learning. Right. Like, I’m a teacher, so like, it might sound crazy, but like, if I can get my students to discover and to explore on their own and come to like their own conclusions, it’s gonna be so much [01:21:00] better than like, if I just feed them information that they just accept rules.

[01:21:04] Like if my students are debating me in class, I’m so happy. Like, I’m like, let’s keep going. Like, uh, ’cause I’ll always win. Uh, but I like, I like that they do it like, ’cause I want them to come in and like figure it out on their own, like scrape their knees a little bit, like run through the woods and learn.

[01:21:25] Um, my students have 

[01:21:27] diane: taught me things that I was like, oh, I didn’t know I could do [01:21:30] that. And I love that. Thankfully. Yeah, 

[01:21:33] Will Truran: that was the last slide I had. Uh, if you want these slides for some reason Sure. And you’re watching on YouTube or on Zoom, you can scan that QR code Or if you’re on your phone, I think you can screenshot it and then click on the QR code.

[01:21:45] Uh, you could find me on the Graham at wilin uh, wilin.com. 

[01:21:50] diane: Spell it out, or if you 

[01:21:51] Will Truran: W-I-L-L-T-R-U-R-A-N. Can you not read what’s on the screen, Diane? I am. I’m, but for I people who are audio, I’m joking. Audio you only, I [01:22:00] always 

[01:22:00] diane: like to read out the link. So Will, I was totally 

[01:22:03] Will Truran: joking too, because like the type is all destroyed, 

[01:22:06] diane: but I can still read it.

[01:22:09] So on instagram, instagram.com/will. T-R-U-A-N. And then you have this other thing that I had not seen, it’s posts. So p osts.cv/will T-R-U-A-N. Highly 

[01:22:23] Will Truran: rec if, if you are, especially if you are a digital creator or a product designer and [01:22:30] you’re crying because Twitter is dead. Um, posts is like a really small social media, uh, low thousands of people where you can find like true community of like-minded people.

[01:22:41] It’s almost a hundred percent developers and product designers, but they accept my weird touch designer stuff and everyone loves it. So like, it’s just been really cool. Like it’s, it’s what Twitter probably felt like the first days. Hmm. Um, they also have a cool resume CV builder where you can just like autopopulate a [01:23:00] CV by like the projects you’re doing.

[01:23:02] Um, so if you’re a designer, check out posts. Can’t recommend them enough. They’re really good people over there. I’ve spoken to Andy a couple times who’s like leading it up. Uh. It’s my Twitter replacement. ’cause Twitter was my favorite social media and I almost cried when Elon Musk took it over. 

[01:23:21] diane: So I also wanna make sure people know YouTube.

[01:23:24] You can go to YouTube at will. WILL in the South we say it’s sort of like Will [01:23:30] Will. So, uh, will T-R-U-T-R-U-R-A-N and then de I added these two. They’re on the link for where your show is, which is creative ignite.com/will terin, I think. Um, let me make sure, um, of course it’s not telling me now, um, but I’ll get it in just a second.

[01:23:52] And um, and then trash files is trash files.net. We looked at that. And then dead flesh. [01:24:00] Dot CO slash X-M-O-C-K-T-A-I-L-S-X. So, and yeah, if you go to creatives ignite.com, all these links are there as well. Um, and you can find all that stuff here and I’ll put it in the chat too. So Will Turin, um, or whatever, I don’t say your name, I’m sorry.

[01:24:22] You’re good. Yeah. I probably don’t even say wheel right? No, that’s good. You and uh, Alan say wheel the best. [01:24:30] Alan has the best. Alan definitely says it. Carrie knows Alan. Um, alright, will, thank you. Thank you for doing this. I love the way you think, you think differently and for me, um, I love that you try things.

[01:24:45] It inspires me. I hope it’s inspired. Y’all, thanks for hanging out for a little bit longer than an hour. And next week we are wrapping up, um, the sketchbook. I’ll probably do another sketchbook series, maybe November, I haven’t decided. But, um, we have a couple things, [01:25:00] different things in September and then October is gonna be product design.

[01:25:04] So we’re gonna have some neat people who are doing different pro product is very broad. Um, but um. Next week we have Amarillo Henderson. She’s been on the show before. She, um, is a, she uses her sketchbook a lot and we’re, this is the last one in this small part of the series. But we’re gonna try to do these, like what Will did, um, once a month or once every couple months because I really love [01:25:30] seeing what inspires people and how they make stuff and why they make stuff.

[01:25:35] So Will, thank you. Thank you for all Thank you. The support all the years and just being such a good inspiration. And I hope that people go out thinking differently because you think differently and it inspires us to have less fear and go be bold and make community. And I love that you’re using emotion more in your, your work.

[01:25:59] I’m [01:26:00] gonna work but not my face. No, will does not. He has this face all the time. And I said when he went to interviews, I’m like, you’re gonna have to smile. And he, I, I think you said this, my face hurt at the end. My face 

[01:26:12] Will Truran: hurt. 

[01:26:13] diane: Like it, I, um, yeah, you really have to practice. Uh, smiling lot will helps me at Creative South a ton.

[01:26:19] And, um, he was me, um, that year. Uh, so in lots of years you helped me. So I appreciate it greatly and 

[01:26:28] Will Truran: I will keep 

[01:26:28] diane: helping you. April. Okay. [01:26:30] Yeah. Kim, what? 

[01:26:30] Will Truran: 10th? 

[01:26:31] diane: I don’t remember. 

[01:26:34] Will Truran: Cool. Thank you so much, Diane. 

[01:26:35] diane: Thank you. And I’ll see you guys next week.