Designing a Monogram

Ian Paget: How I found out about you was through your work with monograms. I understand that you have been teaching and you've also been working on a project called the Monogram Project. I think this is awesome, so for listeners, would you mind explaining what this is and what's the reason why you started to work on it.

Hope Meng: Sure. I started Monogram Project about... I guess it's about four and a half years ago now in November of 2015 and honestly, I sort of started it on a whim after noticing that whenever I sat down to begin sketching logos for a new client, I always wanted to start with a monogram.

Just to back up a little bit, my day job is as an independent designer and I mostly do work in branding. I also noticed that I wasn't really getting hired to do the range of type style that I was capable of or interested in.

I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area and, as you can imagine, there's a lot of startups here, a lot of design-driven companies, but those kinds of companies aren't necessarily going to hire you to do a black letter logo or type with extreme contrast or scripts. Those are the types of styles that I was super interested in.

I wanted to show people what I found interesting and that I was capable of doing more than san-serif logos, which is super-hot in the startup world. Kind of on a whim I decided that I was going to design every two letter combination of the alphabet and I didn't really do the math before deciding that, so for those of you at home who are doing the math, that's like 26 times 26 or 676 monograms. My one rule was that I was going design them in order, so starting from the letter combination, AA, and ending with ZZ.

Now, I'm about four and a half years into the project and I've designed like almost a hundred monograms, which puts me in the... I'm at the letter combination DT, so this is a multi-year project, which has its own benefits and interests. I feel like I've just grown so much as both a designer and a typographer as a result of it.

Ian Paget: I really, really love that you're doing this project and there's so much more that you still need to do. The fact that you're only on D, but you've done hundreds. Everything that you've done is incredible and I think it's already... I'm sure it's attracting work and stuff like that because I really love what you're doing.

It tends to be a common thread when I speak to people that they tend to show the type of work that they want to attract and if you don't have that in your portfolio already, then it absolutely makes sense to create a personal project where you can work on that type of thing because no one's ever going to hire you for something unless they can see that you've done it already.

Hope Meng: Exactly, exactly, and it's also helped with even existing clients that weren't familiar or clients that hire me before they're even familiar with the project because it gives them a body of work to look at and point out, like, "Oh, I'm really attracted to this style," or, "I'm really attracted to that style." It helps you as a designer narrow down what the client is looking for, which helps everybody in terms of success with the project.

Ian Paget: Yeah, that's a really good point.

Now, you mentioned that you love working on monograms. That's also kind of my go-to thing as well. Whenever I'm working on a logo, I'm always drawn to monograms. They work so incredibly well. There's always so many interesting ways that you can combine letters. I think just before we go into the process side of things, would you mind explaining when and why would you use a monogram in a logo?

Hope Meng: Yeah. I mean, I actually don't think a monogram logo is always appropriate, but I do think they serve a really interesting function within the pantheon of logos. Maybe this is just my bias, but I just think monograms are both direct and they have the potential to be expressive. What I mean by direct is there's obviously a straight-line relationship between the brand and the letterforms because it's basically their name, but it doesn't require a lot, like a huge conceptual leap of the viewer. For instance, like the Nike Swoosh does require a little bit of a conceptual leap, but monograms don't necessarily require that.

Then, I mean, if you think about all of or some of the most famous monogram logos, like GE or the New York Yankees, or Louis Vuitton, all of those monograms are so expressive. Yet, they... I mean, they're very expressive to the people who are paying attention to them, so designers and people who are interested in design, but then to non-designers, there's almost nobody could be offended or... I think that monograms occupy this sort of like unique region within logo design in that they're direct and expressive. Then, additionally, they can be so timeless. The GE logo has been used somewhat in its current form for over a hundred years, so that's why I think monograms are really interesting and I believe really strongly in the fact that type can be expressive in its form as well as its content. I think that's a really fertile area to explore as a designer as well.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I really love working on them myself. I recently, like in this last couple of weeks, I was working on... I won't use the company name. It was an E and a C combined and it was for a company that sells model trains. There was so much that you could. If you could imagine the E when you stretch it almost looks like a train. It's got the train movement in there and you can use like the arc of the C almost like a bridge, so you could, you know, combining those. I was playing with that kind of thing. You can easily, or relatively easily, come up with so many different concepts for combining letters to give character and a reference to the product offering, but they can also be incredibly simple. I don't know about you, I always find sometimes there's unlimited directions that you can take it, which is why I particularly enjoy working on them.

Just before again we move onto the process, you did say sometimes it's not appropriate. Are there any things that come to mind when you wouldn't use a monogram within a logo?

Hope Meng: I mean, I guess I, when I said it, I don't think it's appropriate, it's more about how the client envisions their brand. I don't think there's any situation where it's like absolutely not okay to use a monogram. It's more that I think sometimes when clients just have a real... actually, you know what? I can think of a situation and that's... it's a project that I worked on recently and it was a huge international organisation. In that situation, they definitely wanted more of a pictograph or a 'logo' logo, rather than monogram because using translations across different countries, that was just not in the cards.

Ian Paget: Yeah, that's true.

Hope Meng: I think that's the only kind of situation I can think of, but yeah, I mean, as we discussed already, I think there's just such a huge range of expression in typography that if you're a smaller business that's really only catering to a specific language speaking audience, then I can't really think of a situation where it's totally inappropriate.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah, but you made a really good point then that monograms don't necessarily work globally, so if the company is multi-lingual, a symbol would probably be a lot better. Can you imagine if a company like Starbucks, if the logo was just an S, rather than the symbol of the...

Hope Meng: The mermaid?

Ian Paget: Yeah, mermaid. I think it might be a siren, but-

Hope Meng: Okay.

Ian Paget: ... I think it would have been such a missed opportunity if it was just like an S symbol in some way.

Hope Meng: That's very true.

Ian Paget: Anyway, I'd like to dive into your process. When you work on a monogram, what's your usual approach?

Hope Meng: Yeah, so it's actually changed quite a bit over the course of the project. In the very beginning, I would reference a lot more existing type because I think I was still in learning mode about the nature of different letter forms. It was kind of my own little crash course in typography. I mean, I went to art school and I took type design classes and the whole deal, but your education continues after school. In the beginning, it was a lot more like looking at existing type and trying to find the relationships between two different letter forms or most type design is an exercise in some level of modularity. It's like finding those modules and trying to create... like, once I found those relationship, trying to create my own form using those.

Nowadays, I almost always start with a really simply exercise in my sketchbook where I basically... I mean, this is like very simple and basic. I just draw out every way I can think of to draw each letter in the monogram, so for instance, if the monogram is AE, I would draw out a cap A, one with like a triangle top, maybe one that has a square top and then one that has a rounded top, and then I would draw a lower-case A, like a single story lower-case A and then like a two-story A. Then, for the E, I would draw maybe just like a simple cap E, and then the one that looks like a backwards three, and then a lower-case E. Then I would just look for to see if there's any relationships between the two, between each column of letters that I've drawn.

For this example of the AE, I would probably notice that the two-story A and the lower-case E are basically mirror images of each other but flipped. I would start there and start doing sketches of A's and flipping them over and morphing both forms until it's a pleasing composition. Then, sometimes I'm also inspired by the work of other designers and letterers. I mean, I feel like I'm just a... I have always been a visual sponge. When I was in art school, blogs were bigger in those days, so I would always read all of the major design blogs looking for visual inspiration. Pinterest was huge for me for a while, and now, of course, like most visual designers, I'm on Instagram and just seeing all the time what people are... like, all kinds of interesting takes on lettering and different letterforms.

Sometimes what I'll do is like, if I find a particular piece that I really like, I'll really try to examine what it is I like about that artist's work. Is it the curves that they used, is it reverse stress, is it... What is it that is interesting to me? I'll try to extrapolate my own design out of it. Like, for instance, if I see a piece and I really like the way the artist drew the letter F, I'll give myself a prompt. Like, well, what would the letter G in that alphabet look like and start there. That's sometimes really fertile ground for coming up with new and interesting forms. Yeah, I guess that's it.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it makes total sense and I think one of the most important things that you mentioned throughout your process is early on how you referenced what was already there. It sounds like now, because of this exercise, you've been able to study each letter, what makes each letter the way that it is, and I think that's one of the benefits of this project.

Hope Meng: Totally.

Ian Paget: For those who are wanting to do something like this, a project like this or to work on monograms in some way, how would you go about understanding the way that the letters should be because I know typography, there's so many nuances, so many tiny little things that can make a big difference. How do you go about really understanding what that is?

Hope Meng: That's an interesting question. I'm currently teaching this online workshop for the Letterform Archive on monograms. One of the students did ask that exact same question and the way that we're breaking it down in the class is like... because basically, what I'm super interested in is we've all seen monograms that sort of weave together two letters and that's totally... I think that that's a very interesting style in that it can be very appealing, but that's just not what my work is about. I'm not super interested in that. What I'm interested in is monograms that appear as a single glyph, so I want that viewer to be able to tease each letterform out of the composition and what that is, is like an interrogation of the nature of each letter form, like what makes an A, an A and what makes a B, a B. How much of it can you remove before it begins illegible as that letter and then, trying to walk up to that line and not cross it?

One of the questions of the students, the student asked is like, she's from another country and she was basically like, "How do I even know how to... all the different ways of writing a single letter?" She said that she had not encountered the E that's like a backwards three before and that was kind of a stumper actually. It took me a minute because it is this... that kind of understanding comes from just years of looking at different letter forms. I mean, I have a bunch of books that I recommended recently. One of them is like the Speedball textbook, which just shows different styles of lettering. I showed a couple of calligraphy books and there are digital resources, too. I recommended that the student take a look at sometimes when I'm feeling stumped on a creative way of drawing a letter, I'll look at the 36 Days of Type. They have hashtags for specific letters, so it's like #36days_K, or whatever it is, and just take a look there and see how people are exploring this particular letter form.

I don't know that I have like a really... I have an art school background; I grew up in this country. My education and design is traditional and I don't know if I have a really great and easy way of telling people who are trying to do it on their own how to go about it, but I think being a designer and an artist is really about just refining your skills at observation. Over time, I feel like my skills at observation have become sharper and sharper and that's kind of the only way I know how to recommend doing it is just like keep practicing it, keep looking at things and trying to break down what it is about compositions or letterforms that you like.

Ian Paget: I personally don't have a formal graphic design education and the way that I've always done it is I've typed up a couple of letters, I've created outlines of them and then what I've done is I've started to really look at them because until... I think that there was a point early on in my career where I started to create my letters and someone who was a type designer looked at my work and said, "Oh, you need to fix your G," or something like that. I was so confused and that's when he started to explain about things like overshoot and lots of different things about typography.

There's so many surprising little things that you don't always notice with your eye. You just assume an O is round, but it's not. It's slightly different. It's slightly more square when it's used within a typeface-

Hope Meng: Yes.

Ian Paget: ... and things like A's, I always thought early on that an A, you draw a triangle and you put a line across and you have an A, but actually, that's not the case. There's lots of minor tweaks. Something that I've done and listeners that are fairly new to typography, this would be worth doing for you, but what I've done is I've, say open up an A and then what I've started doing is drawing lines across and I noticed... Why doesn't that line up with that? You can start to understand, oh, there's lots of optical adjustments within everything and there's lots of minute details.

I think when you're doing a project like you are, you literally have to learn that A-Z and I think what's great about the project that you're doing, unlike things like... there's a lot of projects out there, like the 30-day logo challenge and stuff like that, but what I like about this project that you're doing is you're literally having to study each individual letter so many different times, so you can do so many different variations of it and you can really understand and have a very in depth understanding of each and every letter. To be honest, I should probably do that. It sounds like a really good way of doing it.

Hope Meng: Yeah, and it's funny because you continue learning. Once I've already completed the C series and now, I want to go back and redesign some of them because I thought of new ways to try to create a C or how I could draw a different C. That's sort of one of the both fun and frustrating things about a really long-running project like this is that you grow as a designer. I mean, some of the A series I still like, but some of them, I look at them and I'm like, "Oh, my god. At the time I thought this was the most amazing thing I had ever designed and now, it's like cringy," but it's a great reminder of how much you've grown and I'm not going to take it down or anything like that because I think it's a really great record of what you were interested in at the time and where you were as a designer. I think it's really fun to be able to look back on that and see that like, "Oh, yes. I have really progressed a lot in those years."

One thing I did want to bring up is some of the tips that you're giving about optical adjustments and some of those where, for instance, an O is not actually completely round, are you familiar with OH no Type Co?

Ian Paget: No, I'm not. Can you explain what that is?

Hope Meng: Yeah. It's a type foundry and actually, they're here in the Bay Area and it's run by a typographer named James Edmondson. The name of his type foundry is OH no, that's O-H N-O Type Co. They're doing this really fun series right now on Instagram that basically breaks down all of those little weird tricks and tips for each letter, so I recommend that you take a look at that because it is a really great and fun primer on how typographers have to make optical adjustments to each letterform to balance the negative spaces, for instance.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to go and found that myself after this and what I will do is I'll link to it in the show notes as well, so people can quickly and easily find it.

Hope Meng: Awesome.

Ian Paget: That sounds really good. Really, really good, so yeah, I'll definitely look at that. I mean, someone could do it, doing a poster of that type of thing, so that you can just look up in your office and reference it when working on monograms.

Hope Meng: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: Because you have been working on lots of different combinations of variants, out of interest, have there been any that have been a lot easier than others or more complicated than others?

Hope Meng: Yeah. I mean, the most obviously difficult monograms are those that don't really appear to have a relationship at the beginning, so for instance, the letter... like the letter combination of C and W or V, actually the entire C series gave me a really hard time. When you think about a C, it's this sort of partial circle and there's not even really any form to the letter on the right side where it needs to connect to the other letter. That was a huge challenge for this entire C series. Then, if you on top of that put... so, it's like this rounded letter and then you add to that a bunch of diagonals, like a W or a V, it just becomes really challenging to figure out how to make these two letterforms connect in some way.

That's what I would say immediately in terms of what I think to be the most challenging, but actually, when I drill down a little bit, even two letter combos that have an immediate connection can also be difficult because you don't want to design something obvious. Kind of like what's the point of just adding to the noise if it's not going to be something interesting. My letters or my monogram, H and M, there's a very obvious connection in the vertical stem. The right side of the H is a vertical stem and the left side of the M is a vertical stem. It's like, it can almost be more pressure when you see that relationship right away because then you're like, "Well, I can't do that. I have to do something else that's actually going to be interesting for people to find a new way to look at these letters."

I don't know. They can all be kind of hard. Sometimes they come... sometimes I'll spend many days over several days, many hours over several days doing several iterations of a monogram and sometimes it's like it just comes immediately.

Ian Paget: Are you always creating them from scratch, or do you sometimes just take a typeface, put the letters out and then start adjusting from existing fonts?

Hope Meng: I always do them from scratch. That was another... I have a bunch of little rules I've picked up along the way and that's one of them for me is like not using existing typography.

Ian Paget: Why is that? Is that just so that it pushes you, so that you learn how to create a letter properly, or is there another reason to it?

Hope Meng: I mean, I guess at the beginning I felt like... a little bit like it was cheating and now, it's more like yeah, I feel like it opens up the possibilities a little bit more for me. I'm kind of old-school in that I always start with pencil on paper. I mean, I have an iPad, I have a computer. I always want to start with pencil on paper because I just think you have much more flexibility with your hand. Yeah, I think existing type just kind of fixes you to a certain way of looking whereas, I kind of want to make... I want to feel a little bit more expansive when I'm first starting to interrogate those relationships.

Ian Paget: Well, you seem to be doing quite a few personal projects, so we've spoken about the monogram project and we've gone quite in depth on monograms, but I know that you've done a couple of other things. One of them is TEXT/TILE Studios.

Hope Meng: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: Would you mind explaining about this one as well because it's kind of related and it would be really fun to speak about it as well.

Hope Meng: Sure. Yeah, so this particular project, TEXT/TILE Studio, has a long history in that I... When I was in art school, at the same time, I was an entrepreneur. I had, with two good friends, I had founded and opened the country's first sewing lounge. It was basically like... remember when like... Well, I don't know how old you are, Ian, but when there used to be internet cafes where you would go.

Ian Paget: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hope Meng: I'm 43, so you would go, and you would rent time on a computer to surf the internet. We had this similar idea for sewing machines because my friends and I back in those days, we would go to Burning Man every year and we would haul our sewing machines over to each other's houses and craft together. It was just unwieldy and, of course, it's not really fun to haul a sewing machine over to your friend's house, especially when you're in a small apartment.

We envisioned this space where you could go, and you could rent out the whole entire space and you could do these crafting parties together. That was my business while I was going to art school as well, which is like a huge... It was a crazy time in my life. We had this very young, do-it-yourself kind of aesthetic and as a result of that, our sewing lounge taught a bunch of classes and I took a quilting class. I just fell in love with the aesthetic, with the process, all of it.

I have a really mathematical brain, which is kind of unusual, I guess, for an artist. My first degree, so design is actually my second career or... yeah, depending on how you count the careers. I've had a lot of careers, but my first degree was actually in economics and economics is all essentially... it can be like essentially applied math, so I have a really mathematical brain and I just loved how quilting is like really applied math. It can get quite complex.

When I was in art school, my thesis project was actually a set of quilts and quilting has always been this preservation of time and quilts, especially if you're familiar with the Gee's Bend quilts, they have embedded messages in them. It's like, the material can tell a story, the way that people pieced it can tell a story, so I was interested in this commemoration of time. For my thesis project at California College of the Arts, which is where I got my graphic design degree, I did a series of quilts that essentially... I designed these books that went with each quilt and I had a program written for me that tracked my mouse movements and then I stitched those mouse movements into the quilt, so sort of like this relationship between the book and the quilt.

That always sat in the back of my mind throughout my career. I've always wanted to try to mesh my two passions of sewing and design and typography and all that. I've been thinking about this for like 10... it's been, I graduated in 2007, so it's been over a decade that I've been thinking about this and it finally came to me a couple years ago and I thought, "What if I used the visual language of a quilt, so the triangular modules, to develop this typeface that appears quite abstract, so if you use this alphabet to write a message, it would look just like this cool, abstract pattern, but then once you understood what the system was, you could read a message within the quilt.

TEXT/TILE Studio is this... it's a typographic system that's built like based on the language, the visual language of quilt squares and the intention is to make quilts that have an embedded message in them. I made the alphabet quilt about a year and a half ago now and it's been in a couple shows, which is really great. I've made some smaller pieces that are proof of concept for the embedded textile, embedded messages in a textile, and now I'm moving on to much bigger pieces. I have a series already designed and I'm halfway done with one of the quilts that are about my thoughts and my experience of this COVID time, so it's like a series of COVID quilts. Hopefully, I will finish them. They take a really long time and I work, and I have kids and all that.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It's a fascinating project. Are you doing that just almost as a hobby because it's something that you've always wanted to do, or have you been able to find a way to monetise or use it as an opportunity to get clients?

Hope Meng: Yeah. I mean, since it's still kind of in the new baby phase, the idea is that... or the hope is that this is like my, or I think of it as my art practice, which is like a little bit different than my design practice. I mean, of course it all bleeds together, but yeah, the hope is that these are collectible art pieces that people would want to own.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Well, I mean, I can definitely see graphic designers in particular, how cool would it be to have clothing or bed sheets or something that has a typography system within it. On the outset, it just looks like a cool pattern, but actually, like you said, once you understand the system, you can then read it. That would be a really cool shirt.

Hope Meng: Yeah, yeah.

Ian Paget: I could see how it could be collectible and you can get cushions, you can get... well, you can get so many different things that uses that system. I guess you could probably license it to other people as well and get lots of opportunities in that way.

Hope Meng: Yeah. That's sort of something I've been thinking about. How do I want to approach this? Right now, what's really wonderful about the project is that it's forcing me to find my voice, so I've been writing more and as somebody who works with letters, who designs with letters, I think at some point you need to figure out not just how you want to say it, but what you want to say as well. It feels like really fertile ground and it's sort of the beginning of that journey of finding my voice as an artist, which is... I guess that's why I feel like it's sort of a baby phase because I'm just entering into that.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. Interestingly, I interviewed James Victore recently, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him?

Hope Meng: Yeah.

Ian Paget: He was talking about this, how it's more about what you want to say than the final piece and you need to know exactly what you want to say and then you can put it out into the world. I think it's the type of thing that there's a fine line between design and art. It's more, I feel it's more related to art, that type of thing, so it would be fantastic for this particular project. I totally understand what you mean.

Hope Meng: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: Now, I really like that you do have these side projects. The monogram project that we mentioned, the TEXT/TILE Studios project. I probably need a side project like this. Now, I know Logo Geek started off as a side project, so what I'm doing now. The Logo Geek podcast and client work, that was all on the side for a long time. It was on the side of a full-time job, but now it's my full-time thing. I mean, you're a full-time graphic designer, you're a mum, you're doing all these other things. Are you intentionally making time for the side projects to stretch your capabilities and learn and, I guess, be more creative in some areas rather than just churning out client work constantly?

Hope Meng: Yes. I mean, Monogram Project was probably more intentional in that I saw an opportunity to stretch myself and I saw it as a place for me to work out different interests. Like, Textile Studios just feels like what I was born to do. It is like a... it's not as intentional as like almost like a compulsion. You know?

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah.

Hope Meng: I mean, sewing has always been like a great source of creativity and comfort to me, so even if I wasn't doing this particular project, I'd be sewing other things. Like, I often make clothes and, like I said, I love doing... love making quilts and that sort of thing, but yeah, this is just a more applied, intentional use of that sewing time.

As you mentioned, there are major constraints on my time, and I think maybe it was probably about a year or two ago I made a really intentional choice. Like, okay, I have all these passions, I have these personal projects that I feel really committed to, so how am I going to spend the few hours that I have in the day? Am I going to watch TV after the kids go to bed or am I going to work on my personal projects?

There were a couple of really intentional choices that I made with my time. For instance, I cut out TV. I used to have a glass of wine with dinner and noticed that that was making me tired or not very motivated after the kids were in bed, so I cut that out as well. It's like, when you get to a point where you're juggling a lot of things, you do have to make that intentional practice, just say like, "Okay, this is what I am passionate about and if this is what I feel like my life's work is, then I have to start walking the walk."

Ian Paget: Thank you for sharing that because I don't know if you want to add more to that because you are doing a lot. You have your graphic design practice, you have these projects, you're a mum, like you said. In terms of managing your time, are you literally working through the day and then, putting the kids to bed and then continuing on afterwards?

Hope Meng: Yeah, I mean, things are a little different now because the entire schedule is out the door since COVID.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah, you've got kids at home.

Hope Meng: Yes, prior to that, it was essentially like I would work throughout the day and then, once I picked up the kids, which is usually I would stop working at 3:30 or 4:00 or something instead of like 5:30 or 6:00 like other people, other full-time people might be doing, and make dinner, be with the kids, basically, until around 8:00. Then, it's not like I'm working every night, but sometimes I would read or do other things that were letting me blow off steam, but this work that I do is... it's not draining. Like, it's not-

Ian Paget: Yeah, I understand.

Hope Meng: ... it kind of fills my bucket, so it feels like a really good and energising use of my time.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I understand. I think the main point is there's probably people listening that have always dreamed of working on some kind of project and might be inspired by the project that you're doing. I think the important thing is that if you really want to do it, most of us can make time to do it. You found that time in the evening where you could have been watching TV or you could have been just not really doing anything productive and you're using that time to do that.

I've also got friends that, what they do, they work early in the morning, so they see it as time that other people don't want. What they do is they go to bed early and then they'll wake up at say 4:00 AM, which sounds horrifying to me, but they wake up at that time. What they'll do is the work from 4:00 or 5:00 AM up until 8:00. Every day they have that stretch of three hours. The kids don't want them at that time, partners, friends don't want them at that time because it's ridiculous AM.

Hope Meng: Yes.

Ian Paget: They're able to use that time for benefit to work on the side projects in pretty much in the way that you have done. I think if you do have huge aspirations and really want to learn and improve, I personally think it's the only way to do it.

Hope Meng: I agree. I mean, there's no shortcuts in a design or an art practice. You kind of just have to put in the time. I mean, some people are gifted with a lot more talent than the rest of the world and they may have a head start, but you still do have to put in the time. If you feel like you don't have to have the time, maybe examine exactly what you are doing with your hours through the day. I also have a bunch of... we don't have to get into this if it's not interesting, but I do have a bunch of productivity tools and that sort of thing that I-

Ian Paget: Oh, no. Do, carry on. Speak now, because we're on the topic. I'm more than happy to go into it. We've got about 10 minutes left, so please, if you have some productivity tools, please go into that. I think that'd be a great topic to dive into.

Hope Meng: Yeah, so I for the last year have been working with a business coach and one of the tools that she recommends is this thing that's called Ideal Work Week. Basically, you plot out your entire week. I mean, I don't think this is like revolutionary in any way, but some people may not have heard of it. Basically, like you print out a little schedule of your entire week with the... in half hour increments, so it's just like a little chart that I made in design and you literally black out all of the time that you are not at your desk or working. You literally fill in half an hour for lunch each day or whatever you're doing, all of the major, already predetermined spots in your calendar, and then you plot out what you want to accomplish or what you want to be working on for each half hour of the day.

I guess one of the tools or one of the recommendations is to leave yourself less time than you think it's going to... or give yourself less time than you think it's actually going to take or a certain task is going to take. If you think that something... you want to give yourself two hours to work on something, like make some sketches for a logo, maybe just give yourself one hour. That kind of like, if you do have your entire week plotted out, it forces you to be really focused and productive during that time that you allotted yourself.

You're supposed to do it for the entire week, like on a Sunday night or something, but I do it the night before, so for Monday night, I will do it... or at the end of Monday, at the end of the Monday workday, I'll do it for Tuesday and I literally put that in my schedule, like the last half hour is scheduling the next day. That's one tool and then, I also do... I mean, I'm like a pretty... I have a very developed meditation practice at this point. I think all of those things help with focus and managing some of the anxiety and doubts that might come up for artists and designers.

Ian Paget: When you say meditation, you just set aside time to sit down and meditate to some music? I mean, I've looked into a few different techniques for this. Is there a particular way that you do it? Do you just put music on and sit down and breathe?

Hope Meng: Yeah, I actually, I use an app that's called Headspace. Have you heard of it?

Ian Paget: I have, yeah. I don't use it, but I think I might look into it actually because I think it'd be beneficial for me because I'm generally a little bit nonstop, especially since now I'm a parent. Life just seems to be nonstop.

Hope Meng: Yes.

Ian Paget: I think it'd be beneficial for me to look into that. I'm sure there's people in the audience that will find that beneficial.

Hope Meng: Yeah. I mean, I started with Insight Timer, which is a free app, but the way that it works is like there's a bunch of different teachers and all the different kinds of content on there, so you sort of have to find what works for you. What's really great about Headspace is that it's the same voice for all of the guided meditation. I don't know, for me, that's very calming. I know what to expect because I have had the experience of trying a guided meditation on Insight Timer and then, I don't like their voice and then two minutes in, I'm like, "Oh, I can't do this."

I do really like Headspace for that reason and they are more guided meditation, so usually he starts off with a little brief talk, maybe a minute long, and then you do a 10-minute meditation where he will occasionally prompt you to breathe or pay attention to your breath or sometimes there are practices where it's like you're body scanning, you're focusing on particular points within your body. Yeah, I think all of that really helps with focus and... I mean, it just has these side benefits of being able to concentrate more directly.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. Sounds like a really good idea. You made me think, when my partner was pregnant, we were doing hypnobirthing and the first time we did it, it was with an actual person, but then we got this CD and the first thing we noticed was this woman's voice is horrifying.

Hope Meng: Yeah.

Ian Paget: It's so off putting when the voice is bad.

Hope Meng: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Anyway, I think that's probably a good point to wrap up the interview. We've gone into loads of different things, monograms, and I wasn't expecting to go into productivity stuff. I think that's been really useful, but I think we'll wrap up the interview now. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been really great to speak with you and I'm sure listeners will learn a lot from that, so thank you.

Hope Meng: Thank you so much Ian.