June 08, 2022

192 - You Can’t Be Good At Everything — with Kyle T Webster

1 hour 4 minutes

Kyle T Webster is an award-winning international illustrator. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, TIME, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Nike, IDEO, and several other distinguished clients. Acclaimed industry publications like the Society of Illustrators, Communications Arts, and American Illustration have recognized his illustration work.

Kyle also teaches at UNC School of the Arts and works for Adobe, hosting workshops and helping to make digital products like Adobe Fresco. But you may better know him by his best-selling Photoshop brushes.

The Origin of KyleBrush

As an illustrator, having a distinct visual style is a point of pride. But that's not something Kyle was interested in. He wanted to offer clients a range of illustrative styles. And to do that, he needed a range of flexible tools.

As a result, KyleBrush was born.

KyleBrush is a collection of thousands of high-quality digital brushes originally created for Adobe Photoshop. What started as a practical necessity transformed into a full-time business.

Kyle's products became an industry staple. You could find his digital brushes everywhere, from Pixar to boutique animation studios.

In 2017, Adobe acquired KyleBrush making all of his digital brushes available to anyone subscribed to Creative Cloud. They also hired Kyle to help their product team develop new digital drawing tools.

In this episode

We talk with Kyle about navigating the creative industry, price negotiation, overcoming anxiety, and the calculated career risks he took along the way.

Beyond that, Kyle also offers a variety of practical tips that you can apply to your professional life right now. In particular, a clever way to connect with seemingly unreachable people.