All photography by Geoff Levy
“Just because you’re unsure how it will be received on social media doesn’t mean that the seed of the idea that’s scratching at your soul doesn’t have a home. Instagram isn’t a parameter for your art; it’s a visible publication platform.”
Read More
Members of our Membership Board are not only some of the most talented and experienced creatives on the platform; they also take time out of their busy schedules to proactively vet creative talent on WNW and offer personalized feedback to help fellow members strengthen their profiles.
Read More
London-based illustrator Sam Taylor has created a roster of football gifs with Giphy for the 2018 World Cup. Sam's series is fun and serves up the full range of emotional highs and lows that every soccer fan knows all too well.
Read MorePablo's Instagram hacks, pranks, and disruptions are easily digestible in this age of ADHD, and easily releasable. Pablo also discusses the craft of using Instagram's guardrails to his advantage, whether he takes his pranking spirit offline, and what it's like to get paid by major brands to cause some 24-hour mayhem.
Read MoreCreatives and artists often talk about how certain projects serve as valuable learning experiences. But WNW Member Mark McCormick's ongoing project, Word is Drawn, is literally that. And not the misuse of "literally" that people are often tossing around. Five years ago, during a creative dry spell, Mark decided to hone his skills as a lettering artist and designer by subscribing to Dictionary.com's daily email and drawing whichever word it threw at him. Mark's resulting renderings manage to perfectly blend the word's definition and a good bit of humor. In short, they're both fun and educational.
Read MoreWNW Members Julia Markiewicz and Jera Mehrdad are in the midst of a social good Instagram project, co-created with comedic power couple Paul Scheer and June Diane Raphael. It's called The Big Hundred. As Julia and Jera describe it, "We like to think of this as a pep talk for America. You can barely get away from the insanity, so we really want The Big Hundred to be a nonpartisan, grassroots social media project for good. We are putting out 100 positive actions on social media during the first 100 days of the presidency. Each post is being created by a different comedian, artist, or influencer. We're all just doing this out of a labor of love. It's been our therapy since the election."
Below we interview the duo on how they came to co-found the Big Hundred, how they've gotten such big names involved, and what the project has meant to them and the project's followers. They also discuss the role of creatives in addressing political and social issues in their work. As Jera puts it, "Not to toot our own horns, but creatives are pretty much the ones to bring messages to life. Whether it’s trying to sell 200,000 cars or get people to vote. We are the people that help make others want to do something or care about something. One of the most inspiring and liberating things I’ve discovered on this journey is that we ultimately decided we needed to get more activated in what was going on."
Want to see more and find out how you can help? Follow The Big Hundred on Instagram.
Julia: I started in New York at Publicis, moved to California to work at Wongdoody LA then Saatchi LA. Since my son was born, I went freelance and started doing more personal projects - mostly funny writing for things like Scary Mommy, Huffington Post, and McSweeney’s.
Jera: I started in Las Vegas at R&R Partners, moved around a bit, moved to LA to work at TBWA\Chiat\Day. I’ve worked at Innocean and Saatchi and went freelance after my 3rd child was born. I’ve been known to take on a design project or two outside of advertising that are more for the soul.
Julia: In advertising, I like to find what’s true about a product and connect that to people. I love when there’s friction. Same goes for my personal writing - I love to mine what’s true.
Jera: I like to think I can answer a creative brief in any way that makes sense to the project. Ultimately, I like to make work that makes people feel something. I always try to do this in the most creative way possible that is also authentic and relevant. But sometimes it’s fun to just make work that’s fun. In other words, I have a range...going from silly to really meaningful.
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
We like to think of this as a pep-talk for America. You can barely get away from the insanity, so we really want The Big Hundred to be a nonpartisan, grassroots social media project for good. We are putting out 100 positive actions on social media during the first 100 days of the presidency. Each post is being created by a different comedian, artist or influencer. Follow us on Instagram!
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
We met June in an all-women post-election meeting. We all came together to kind of grieve and then activate each other. It’s been amazing to be in a group of such engaged, strong females. We’ve all been lifting each other up. There are a lot of inspiring projects coming out of that meeting.
Since we’re in LA, there were some talented people in the meeting with social reach. As ad people, we thought we could use the talent in the room to amplify a campaign about positive change. We pitched the idea in one of the follow-up meetings of doing a social media project using influencers about one positive action every day for the first 100 days.
On the phone with Paul and June, we mentioned that if we were doing this at an agency we’d do a teaser video. They said, “Well, let’s email Funny or Die and see if we can make it happen.” And it did. Paul and June are amazing partners. They are just doers - they make stuff happen and have amazing, super smart feedback.
There’s been a lot of back and forth with creators and non-profits so we had to build an infrastructure and team out of nothing in a short amount of time. It’s been a lot of “fix it as you go.”
Luckily, we’ve had an amazing team of people helping us and cheering us on along the way: Damara Dikeou (Social Content Strategy), Yunilda Esquivel (Production), Mitzi Young (Project Management), Mona Lipson (Nonprofit Outreach), Adrienne Fragatos (Influencer Outreach), Tana Lauritsen (Design & another WNW Member). A friend, Anna Patel, edited a manifesto video and another friend, Mark Byers, wrote the music for it. We even had the PR team at the amazing Raconteur PR come on to write a press release and pitch for us.
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
Part of the idea is to make each positive action more sharable, so we’ve been reaching out to people who create content we think is awesome and fits with our tone.
Paul and June reached out to their Hollywood contacts. An amazing art producer friend (Deb Rosen) helped us reach out to artists who she thought might be interested. Then we just started reaching out to people whose feeds we liked.
We have had some very talented WNW people work on posts like Javier Torok, Melinda Keough, Janete Chun and Ivan Cash.
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. We never expected to have so many amazing people contributing but it’s been a labor of love from everyone working on this and also from each creator. We have been so lucky to have connected with so many talented people who are also good humans. Most of all, Paul and June, who have completely put their faith in us to pull this thing off.
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
When we started working on this it was right after the election and we were scrambling for things to do. Now it seems like every day on our newsfeeds we are being handed different action items and numbers to call. There’s definitely a sense of action fatigue. We wanted our project to have a different kind of tone - that was nonpartisan and positive. Almost like your social media respite from all the negativity swirling around the rest of our feeds. Instagram seemed like the perfect home for that.
Lin Manuel Miranda.
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
Jera: Not to toot our own horns, but creatives are pretty much the ones to bring messages to life. Whether it’s trying to sell 200,000 cars or get people to vote. We are the people that help make others want to do something or care about something. One of the most inspiring and liberating things I’ve discovered on this journey is that we ultimately decided we needed to get more activated in what was going on. We rallied some people. We got a lot of them to say yes. We’ve created stuff and we’re making it happen. So, I’d say, find a cause you care about, lend your creative self and make stuff. I think we’ve been seeing a lot of that and it’s been so amazing.
Julia: Whether you are a writer or artist or someone just good at getting people together, you can use your talents for good. Find a cause you care about and put some time aside to make that your client.
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
Julia - Amy Poehler, Joan Didion, and my husband (WNW Member) Marcin Markiewicz.
Jera - My aunt Debbie, Caravaggio, Andy Warhol, rock-n-roll posters & album covers and Margaret Keene.
We’re both moms. We’re also both very, very slow runners.
A post shared by The Big Hundred (@thebighundred) on
WNW Member and Photographer #5727 Jeff Hodsdon has developed such an excitingly simple yet refreshing style, and we can't get enough of it. His project, "The Moments", is an on-going portrait series that captures his subjects in slow-motion, soft-focus. It's actually a hybrid of still and motion, in part because the first frame works deceptively well as a still image. And when the image comes to life, we're both surprised and hooked. We asked Jeff what it is about the idea of a moment that fascinates him. "I like the idea of ‘breaking the fourth wall’ — portraits that feel like someone is in their own life, yet giving you a split second of attention."
Make sure to check out Jeff's Instagram account to see all his Moment. And if you're attending the WNW X Print All Over Me Launch Party tonight, he'll be the one with the camera.
I live in New York City by way of Califonia. I got here by motorcycle — took about a month and I journaled it on a tumblr. My focus is on taking images of people. Lately, my time is spent walking the streets of New York in search of people who I feel are in an interesting moment and photographing them. I post to an Instagram account and blog called “The Moments”.
I try to create an image that represents about one second of elapsed time. Not much happens in a second — if you look at any slice within a second the moment hasn’t changed really. I want someone to view them at any point in time and still see the same moment.
I usually don’t. I like to shoot the idea of someone that I have since that is what made me curious enough to ask for a quick photo. Everyone is different — sometimes I end up saying a couple words, then others you have a conversation with.
If you document it right with an image, it can bridge what happened and what you understand.
I find people very interesting. They are so visual: what they wear, their environment, their posture, their expression, how they carry themselves, etc. New York City is one big set with millions of subjects. I love not looking for a particular image; I like to have a positive/curious feeling about someone I see and then shoot that feeling. You never know what you’re going to get.
Nothing too surprising yet. I suppose everyone is a surprise because I don’t know anything about them. What mood they’re in, if they want to smile, if they want to be told how to stand or not.
I don’t really do video where a story is unfolding. Nothing over a second of real time. It matters to me how you compose the feeling you had when you decided to capture the subject. The way I built my camera is to have just one button, nothing else to distract from figuring out how to capture what is in front of me. I like the idea of ‘breaking the fourth wall’ — portraits that feel like someone is in their own life, yet giving you a split second of attention.
I like the energy here. It makes me want to do more.
Slim Aarons, Scott Schuman, Norman Parkinson
Approaching people.
Switching careers and starting over.
A photo can bridge the gap between what happened and what you understand.
Party more.
In our continuous pursuit to uncover the keys to productivity, we turned to WNW Member #1168 Chris Piascik. He's an accomplished illustrator who has posted a total of 2,000 original works since 2007. If anyone can teach us how to be disciplined, its Chris.
Not only has he inspired folks like Josh LaFayette along the way, he's changed his own life. Chris credits his daily posts with granting him the freedom to go independent. His work ethic is inspiring and his work? Fucking awesome.
I spent the majority of my childhood drawing all the time and that continued all through school. Drawing new packaging for the albums around my house made me think I wanted to be a graphic designer. So I went to art school, majored in graphic design and became a graphic designer. After a few years I realized I wasn’t drawing as much as I used to. The only drawing I was really doing was sketches for the projects I was working on. That realization kind of freaked me out, so I decided to make it a point to start drawing more. Being an obsessive, workaholic I decided the only thing to do would be to post a new drawing on my site everyday. That was at the end of 2007.
I actually posted, "I have set myself a goal to spend a few minutes each day drawing something (anything) in my sketchbook."
I wouldn’t say Instagram is my medium, it just happened to be a popular outlet for viewing my drawings. I’ve always used social media to share my daily drawings and when Instagram came out it was a good fit for me. I started my daily drawings pretty long before Instagram was around.
Once in a while, I wish I did more. I really only stockpile if I am going to be traveling and won’t have time. Even then, I often find myself working in a hotel room late at night getting a new post ready.
Nope, I really enjoy doing a new drawing each day. Sometimes it’s a struggle, but once I am drawing it’s usually all good. I like the process and support/feedback I get on social media.
My illustrations have vastly improved and I’ve gotten faster, smoother, and more consistent.
Coming up with ideas. I used to be more willy-nilly with what I drew, more random nonsense. At some point, I raised the bar for myself. In the early days, my dailies were just quick doodles in a sketchbook. Now each drawing has become a finished illustration.
It’s been great watching my friend Josh LaFayette grow through his daily drawing series. His drawings are the best and he always makes me laugh.
Doing something everyday definitely pays off! My daily drawing series literally changed my life. When I started I was a staff designer at a small studio, a year into my dailies I started getting commissioned client work based on my drawings. A couple years later I was a fully independent illustrator. I’ve been working for myself doing exclusively illustration since 2010, I never would have imagined that would be possible.
I had no plans for my dailies when I first started. I wish I did because it would have saved me a lot of work digging through sketchbooks trying to wrangle and scan each of them. After I got to around 500 I started thinking it would be cool to do a book. To me, 1,000 seemed like the magic number. I’m getting close to 2,000 now and I’m planning on doing a second book.