We were lucky to catch up with Cory Wasnewsky recently and have shared our conversation below.
Cory, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I don’t know if I have a true answer for this. Optimism is something that I feel everyone has, it’s almost just a matter of how much people suppress theirs. Optimism and pessimism is a peak and valley thing. For me, I’ve seen a lot of both, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve figured out how to spend less time in the valleys being pessimistic, and more time at the peak with optimism. I don’t think cliche sayings are what get you to this point that I feel I am at in life, but rather the connection that I feel empathy and sympathy has to being an optimist. Mine personally stems from years of living through many different lows, but coming out the other side.
I try to treat every moment, good and bad, with a thought of “what can I do to make this a positive outcome?’ Or should something go wrong, how can I mitigate it and turn it into a positive, or a learning experience so that the next time a similar thing happens, I can turn it into a positive.
In a broader world sense, I’ve spent many years being pissed off and jaded about anything that I either didn’t agree with, or that I was ignorant about. I’ve since spent a lot of time working through my thinking to a point where my first thoughts might still be reactionary, but the second thought is more along the lines of how can I put my energy into something positive and create a change, instead of just complaining. That might be through direct action, but it could also be through changing how I present myself when that point of disagreement comes up the next time, depending on what it is.
I’ll end my answer with this, no matter how f*cked up and dismal the world seems, or what is happening over the horizon, there is always going to be someone just like you who wants to make this world a better place. Find your people and use your skills to make the world a better place, in any and all senses of what that means to you.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
In a sentence, I am a letterpress designer, printer, and mechanic. I work a day job at Hatch Show Print, here in Nashville, TN doing the same thing. Off the clock I work under the business name Three Cheers Press. Between the two, I’ve worked on everything from posters and greeting cards to business cards and packaging. From designs for billboards and signage to designs for shirts and playing cards. Some of the best parts of what I do is that I spend every day problem solving for clients large and small. I love getting to use my skills to help a brand, band, or company achieve their vision. Letterpress is also an old printing method that requires constant troubleshooting and problem solving to make sure that the design you’ve created makes it from head to paper. I like to tell folks that I’ve printed a million impressions, on hundreds of thousands of posters, for hundreds of clients. That is experience that I use, and expand on, with every single print or design job that I do.
Outside of client work, I’ve spent the last 7 years creating a series of art prints that are musical instruments printed from the same blocks of type and graphic elements that I use to create posters from. In the next couple of months I’ll be releasing a book of about 60 of those instruments that I’ve made. I’ll be opening up a pre-sale at the beginning of November and the books will be self-published and printed early next year. I’m already incredibly proud of the series, and have received great feedback on the prints, so I am very excited to share the whole series with even more folks! For those interested, you can see some of the prints on my website and instagram, and I’ll be making announcements related to the book via instagram.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
One of the most impactful things that I learned through experience is to lose my personal opinions when it comes to doing design and print work. What I mean by that is every client deserves to have you put forth your best work. If you agree to take on a job, you better put your best damn self into creating something that client wants. You may not agree with their color choices, but you can make sure their color choices look good. You may not like the style that they want you to work with, but they’re paying for you to make it in that style.
That connects into the second most important thing I learned, which is saying NO! Having boundaries is fine, and something you SHOULD have. You need to learn how much time things take, and if you can take on an additional job and meet deadlines. You are allowed to say no to clients who you may be a company that you disagree with their mission statement or morals. You can just say no because you need a lighter load at the moment. What you don’t need to do, is feel pressured to say yes because you worry you won’t get another chance.
Connecting again from the previous two, YOU are your biggest advocate. You can have an incredible group of friends and peers supporting you along the way, but they can’t make you do anything. You are the only one that can actually make yourself do something. It’s something that I still have to remind myself everyday. Having thick skin is part of this as well. There is so much various forms of media that we see, and so much information that it becomes overwhelming. People from around the globe see the work that I am making, and that is fucking scary to me. It also drives me to make sure that my work is the best damn version that I can make it.
For folks just starting this journey, whether it be a creative venture, higher education, starting a new business, learning how and when to say NO, and keeping an open mind will take you further than you realize. I wish I learned those things sooner, but I’m still young, and there are people out there who are older than me learning these bits. That’s ok as well, everyone is different, and different things work for different folks. Find some people that are honest with you as well. Never having someone criticize you and have a discussion on how to improve yourself makes it so much harder to take the negative criticism when it inevitably comes.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
There isn’t a single specific person, but the group of people who I have surrounded myself with, my community. I’ve found people who aren’t afraid to disagree with me and have a discussion on how to meet in the middle. If I need help or feedback on a project, I know who in my community that I’ll ask first depending on what it is. I know I’ll get an honest answer from all of them. I might not like the answer, but I know they’re being honest. I’ve built trust with that community that we can all help each other in the same way, and continue to make each other better than we were yesterday.
Contact Info:
- Website: Threecheerspress.com
- Instagram: ThreeCheersPress
Image Credits
Jerry Rodriguez-Sosa
