Meet Julian Hubbard

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Julian Hubbard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Julian below.

Julian, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

I think the idea of keeping your creativity “alive” is actually a much more serious thing than we give it credit for. When we’re kids we’re actively encouraged to be creative, curious, and always be receptive to new things but somewhere down the line, we get away from that, we get forced into little boxes at a young age with questions like “what should your career be?” and “how are you going to make money and survive?” and often those questions set the majority of us down a path where being creative just isn’t an option anymore. We as a society will simultaneously love and idolize artists for their passion and creativity and willpower in the face of adversity but at the same time find every opportunity possible to crush said creativity out of people with the notion that “art is for little kids” or having to work in stale, grey, soulless office spaces, its no wonder why so many people feel like creativity is such a foreign concept for them.

This is to say (in my long-winded sort of way) that even creatives struggle to keep their creativity alive, I say you have to allow yourself to be receptive to it, push back on the programming we’re taught as young adults to just “shut up and do your job” and actually see the world for its beauty and find ways, even if they’re small, to re-connect with your inner child who saw the world as such a magical place.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’m a graphic designer of 8 years, I primarily worked in a more corporate setting for the majority of my career post-college. I worked in the Real Estate business as a creative director and in the professional sports world doing a good amount of social media and branding content.

These days I’ve gone solo and started my own freelance design business. I launched the design studio known as “Rusevelt Design Co.” this year as the next step in my design career.

I’ve always been a “jack-of-all-trades” kind of creative, I always have my hands in about 8 different cookie jars at any given time. Jumping from branding work, to logo design, to event collateral, social media, illustrations and even photography, I try to make myself as well-versed as possible to be capable of tackling any kind of project a client might throw my way. So far in the very short time I’ve been freelancing full-time (about 6 months now) I’ve been able to really flex my creative muscles and gotten the chance to work on a huge variety of different projects. I pride myself in being able to say ‘yes’ to any kind of project and deliver something worth talking about.

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?

In my time as a designer, I’ve had quite a few ups and downs, the creative industry is pretty ruthless and the worst part about it is everyones journey is different, there’s no one true way to crack it, which can be equal parts amazing and terrifying for young people trying to get into the business, but for those who may be reading and might be wondering if they have the skills, I’d love to share some of the things I think are most important to being a successful creative and these can apply to any kind of creative job, not just graphic design.

1. Be Stubborn: Seriously, this can apply to just about every part of being a creative, rarely are the best creatives the “most talented” talent is overrated, talent is simply an accumulation of time and passion, but also stubbornness. Being stubborn will keep you in the game when you’ve been laughed out of the room, or kicked to the ground after getting fired from a job or seeing somebody who’s way better than you, it’ll give you the staying power to say “I deserve to be here and will not be told otherwise”.

2. Be Kind To Yourself: This is huge, we as creatives often think every single project needs to be our magnum opus, 11/10 projects every time or we’re failures, this just isn’t true and will lead to a lot of problems down the road, at the end of the day, if the client is happy and the bills are paid, then you are being a successful creative. If you have a creative block or maybe didn’t think of something as cool as you wanted, its not the end of the world, evaluate where you might have done something differently and try again next time.

3. Be Receptive To Harsh Criticism: This is probably the most important thing to learn as any creative. The amount of times I’ve been asked in an interview “how well do you handle critique?” has been incredible. As creatives we sometimes get attached to the things we make because they’re often times expressions of our inner selves and come from the heart. Well sometimes some marketing executive without a single creative bone in their body is going to rip it to shreds and force you to make something ugly that you hate with every fiber of your being. Its ok to feel the things you do, but being receptive to feedback and not internalizing it as an attack on you as an artist is VITAL to succeeding, thick skins are required.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

“The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron has been pretty game-changing for me lately, as I write this interview I’m still working through the book myself but so far it has been undoubtably a huge boon to me as not only an artist but as a person and I highly recommend it to anybody who may be struggling with art either as their identity or how they perceive themselves as artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ruseveltdesignco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruseveltdesignco/