"Do you what you love, it will lead to great things, but it better be good."

Independent Designer & Illustrator Matt Stevens joins the show this week to discuss personal projects and how they can help us get better at our craft and possibly even lead to work from our dream clients.

Since joining the freelance world, Matt has worked with brands such as Facebook, Pinterest, NBA, WWE, Dunkin Donuts, Nike and more. We discuss his transition from employment as an unknown Charlotte, North Carolina agency creative director to making the jump into independence and becoming "Internet famous".

Matt also touches on the troubles of learning how to price for big brand work and how making side projects for fun lead to some of his dream clients such as Nike.

We do a deep dive on his successfully funded Kickstarter project, the MAX100 Project, a book with 100 profile illustrations of the Nike Airmax 1 in different visual styles.

A golden nugget is shared about a fantastic email that the renown Nike sneaker designer and VP of Nike Design, Tinker Hatfield sent Matt after his MAX100 Project.

Finally, we talk entrepreneurship, The Designer Fund's Bridge Program and how creative people should found their own businesses and ideas.

Mentions Include:

Matt Stevens

@MattStevensCLT

Nike Freerun 2

Nike Air Tech Challenge

Nike Designers Marc Dolce, Denis Dekovic, and Mark Miner Hired by Adidas

Nike Free Run+ Designer Mark Miner

Max 100 Project

Nike Air Trainer 1

Aaron Draplin

Nick Felton

Dunkin Donuts April Fools Rebranding on Brand New

Howler Magazine

Episode 12 with Eight by Eight Magazine

Eight by Eight Magazine

Lotta Nieminen

Adam Garcia, The Pressure

Tad Carpenter, Illustrator

The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines

The Designer Fund

The Designer Bridge

How Rules and Repetition Inspire Creativity, a Bridge workshop by Matt Stevens

My next guest is Tyson Beck, designer and founder of Posterizes, an NBA digital art design collective.