We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Taylor Hungerford. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Taylor below.
Taylor, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Creativity is something that I think you either do or don’t do. It comes from a simple need to express yourself. I express myself in so many ways, from music, to music videos, to graphic design to photography. It all feeds into one another in how I exist as a creative force in this world.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Silversparkprintworks grew out of a need to have my graphic design and visual art expressed outside of my music. I have done short documentaries, show posters, music videos and photography. I think what makes it unique is its Bukowski-esque quality of being unapologetically itself. It isn’t perfect – it’s gritty. My visual art has grain. So do my photos. In that it is honest and is what people are attracted to.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Well it simply comes from liking something and wanting to do well in it. I have done graphic design for the better part of four years, and have transitioned from just doing stuff for myself to being hired to do stuff for other folks. I always strive to make something that’s engaging and unique that I’m proud to show folks. This has come from doing posters in Apple Pages which was very limited to Illustrator where I am much more free to do what I want. It has resulted in better posters and a better product. And if there’s anything you don’t know how to do, YouTube is your friend.
Just be a little better today than you were yesterday. That’s all you have to do.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
As of late, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. This book affected me in so many ways, from spirituality to just a desire to do good work. The book’s main question it puts forth is: what is quality and how ought we to define it? The author makes the case that it’s like Aristotle’s shapes, which exist as a form unto themselves. But the big takeaway here is quality itself is something that is CREATED that we merely support or have threads of in the physical world by our knowledge of a thing. The motorcycle is a thing made by man’s hands but the quality of a motorcycle comes from knowledge of how it works. Same for any form of art. Knowledge and discipline support quality but quality itself is a thing separate from these.
If you pursue it, you must have discipline. And to have to discipline you must do something you like doing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @silversparkprintworks
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silversparkprintworks?mibextid=2JQ9oc
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-hungerford-520b74a?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Twitter: @SilverSparkP
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@silversparkprintworks?si=niMmCkbKdSxmpmM2
Image Credits
Photo of myself: Nikki Neumann All other photos by me.
