Sundays in Medellin are the laziest. Catholicism shutters most shops and the traffic lulls, sheltering the city in a lush hush reminiscent of another era. A touch of a fresh breeze stirs the jungle. I’m sitting at Cafe Velvet, a white mug of Colombia’s finest in hand.

The canopy overhead is a dappled roof of green that shades the patio, a filter for buttery light that spills onto the azure mosaic of tiles below. Relaxation, carried in luminous motes, floats idly between wooden circular tables. Here’s the dreamland atmosphere renowned with visitors and locals alike.

Becca Kang shares my enthusiasm for Sundays at Velvet. She tells me so after I — typography lover that I am — remark upon her sketchbook of stylish hand lettering. We begin chatting about all things creative.

Becca’s a graphic designer savoring her year-long hiatus from America.

She left Chicago in search of artistic realignment. Her travels returned joys she’ll never forget. Today, she shares what it’s like bouncing from Marrakech to Berlin, Bali to Colombia — highlighting what it’s like to discover and sustain personal creativity around the world.

Why is getting yourself gone so essential for artistic direction?

Read below as Becca shares how to balance personal artistry against professional workload. Plus, why living outside the American mindset is a must.

During the last year, she’s inked three new tattoos, donated her services to a farm-to-table-to-healthcare restaurant, and enjoyed enough raw beauty that would overflow 10 years back home.

But now it’s coming to a close.

So Becca talks candidly about her design process, the inner and the outer journey traveler’s face, and how to minimize pains of the creative process while positioning yourself for success.

No matter where you find yourself or where you want to be, this interview offers real insights.

Why did you choose to come to Medellin, a most dangerous city by all accounts?

It just happened. I had a friend here at the time that I was planning to be here. It’s a very interesting city and until recently could still be dubbed the most dangerous cities to see. But you get here and it’s not like that.

You realize that’s it’s moving forward in all the right ways, there’s energy building, and it completely fuels any sort of creativity or even entrepreneurship that you might have, so I think it was a great choice to come here.

What was your plan when you took your work on the road with you? What was the mindset as you embarked?

In the beginning, my plan was very different from what it’s become.

The was to see all these great things I’d read about in history books but hadn’t seen in person. Then it was about tapping into the new and emerging art scenes and design scenes around the world that are so different from what I interact with in the States.

It was more absorption in the beginning.

Now it’s become ‘what have I absorbed and how do I say something with what I’ve picked up from my travels’. It’s been a learning experience that way. You can’t plan for these, they just happen on their own.

You gotta’ pick up what you can be inspired by and go from there.

Where have you found new aesthetics, especially in a professional way?

I was really fueled by Marrakech because of the craftsmanship and the handmade markets.

That all runs so deep, through all the generations of all the people, that’s just something they do normally. It’s how they make their living and it comes naturally to them.

You get to see this style that is Marrakech, a lot of people try to replicate it now, you’ll see things like Moroccan patterns or tradition. To see them in person was a lot more exciting, more authentic, in the place these things are made.

I also really loved Berlin. Their art scene and the way contemporary art is taking fine art techniques and rules and applying them to contemporary meanings or concepts, that’s really fun and exciting. I was also intrigued by art in Asia, mostly Korea and Japan.

Bali had a bit of that creative energy, not that I sought out art museums in Bali, but there’s a huge handcrafted market and overall the way that people live their lives is very beautiful, very pretty, the scenery is pretty.

Things you see are gorgeous. It’s just visually pleasing. That kind of energy was apparent and it was so easy to catch that fever. It was cool to be in a setting that you don’t necessarily feel like you need to be creative, but it just happens to you, fuels you. I love that.

Did you feel you could interact with that different aesthetic by being there?

I felt like it was so tied into life, there was no separation because for them it’s never been any different.

In the US, especially with modern everything, you have this idea of minimalism, of straight and structure and clean and simple, and that’s great — but it also takes away from the aesthetic part, things that are colorful and full of life and energy just goes away. You don’t see that anymore.

It becomes less part of your daily life and less part of what you’re used to seeing.

You forget things and how beautiful they can be.

Bali reminded me of all that. It doesn’t have to be so structured, straightforward, set in all ways. It can be messy, loud and wild and still be beautiful.

We talked about the built-for-business style, that minimal and utilitarian design, the always-has-to mean something way of doing things that has the tilt of capitalism behind it.

What’s it been like moving outside the American pro-creative scene to someplace new?

When you grow up in the States there’s a way your plan is supposed to play out. You go to school, go to college, graduate, get a job, you get married, etc.

In between college and a job you realize that part of this process is that you get a job just for the money and it becomes less about what you love to do and more about how do I make a living and support myself moving forward. They are important questions, and I’m not saying that not something to consider, but it does for someone who is creative and who needs to express themselves.

It kinda kills you inside in a way is how I felt.

I took this leap to travel because I was feeling very uninspired.

As a creative person in any field, no matter if it’s just a job, that’s a bad thing. I could see it in my work in the way I approached my work, I wasn’t excited about anything. So I had seen this TEDtalk with Stefan Sagmeister, who talks about how every seven years of working he takes a year to travel.

He basically says that after seven years or so you run out of inspiration, run out of things to motivate you, inspire you, to do more and new and creative work, something that you can tap from yourself from previous years.

This year of travel for him is to gather inspiration and see what else is out there, basically.

I tried to approach this year’s as that, to see what else is out there, what else inspired me, and what I can bring back home with me and hopefully apply to my work moving forward.

But who knows? That’s the great part of it.

You get to go around the world and see all these amazing beautiful things and keep them in the memory box and then see what can come out of it later on. It might be years from now or the next project, but who knows.

I have this box of inspiration just waiting to be used. It’s cool to have that collection.

Because of that seven-year cycle, do you think you’ve got a deeper alignment going on than let’s say your average 9–5 zombie cookie cutter, young professional?

Is there something bigger now that you’re following through on?

I would like to think so. I was and somewhat still am one of those zombie office people. That way of being was drilled into me while growing up, that this is just the way your life needs to go, that’s why I’m at that place.

But I’m also finding how many people are not happy with their or are dissatisfied with their lives.

It’s this illusion of society that these are your measures of success and if you don’t have these things you’re not doing it right. Having a career is one of those points, but it’s realizing at the end of it might not be the lifestyle you’re’ meant to live.

I think that as a millennial and a generation of Americans who think that anything is possible, literally, and feel so motivated to be innovative in every other way, this is just another one of those things.

I need to feel happy or content, so what’s’ going to get me there? I actually have that opportunity to go out and try and find that. So why not?

There are times of doubt, I assume. How do you bring yourself back to the positive message that you’re living?

There’s nothing I can do about the doubts.

I feel they’re part of the process, any kind of big change you make to your life you’ll have doubts about. It’s very personal too, depends on the person, what you’re going through now or what you’ve been through in the past.

I always have those doubts and fears, and at the end of the day, I have to remind myself that these things are things I’m allowed to feel, and maybe this doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.

Maybe this means that this is the right thing because it scares me so much to do it.

I try to take those negative feelings as a positive at the end of the day. I try to realize that at the end of the day, no matter how many doubts I have I have this resolve to make sure that I do something I love and that I’m content with the work I’m putting out there.

I know personally that it’s hard to start despite the face of doubts and follow through to an uncertain end. How do you temper this during your creative process?

Everyone has their bad days.

I think I mentioned this to you before, but you just have to show up to work, and if you don’t, there it goes.

You have to have a sort of commitment to at least give it a try, at least make an effort, see what happens, and if one a particular day you get to work and you realize there’s nothing inspirational or anything to think of like that’s coming out of you, that’s OK. You’ll have those days.

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”

— Chuck Close, painter

And they’ll suck. They’ll feel like shit. You’ll feel like you’re failing but then you just gotta get up the next day and come back to work and see what else happens.

There isn’t an answer for that, there’s no way to have a creative process that doesn’t hurt you at times, that doesn’t make you feel like crap. It’s part of it and it has to happen and that’s how you get better.

There’s a book called The War of Art, the author of which was patently unsuccessful and unhappy until age 35, at which point he went and lived in a van down by the river in Nor Cal.

All he had was his typewriter in the back of the van and he cut away everything else.

What he wrote at first just sucked and no one liked it.

Then he finished his novel, which sucked and no one liked it.

The mentor he had in the campsite, another writer living similarly, said: ‘Ok. So go start the next one.’ Eventually, this guy succeeded.

Is there anything you can say to help people get through those hard times? What’s your creative process on a daily basis?

Overall, I usually start by sketching.

I’ve drawn since I was a kid, painted my whole life, so fine arts and pencil has always been my friend and medium. I’ll whip out a notebook, start sketching ideas, have a certain keyword that I want to remember so I’ll write those down.

I’ll always have some sort of icon or logo or some sort of visual representation of whatever idea I’m trying to represent. I’ll go from ‘here’s an apple’ and draw all the fruits, just because they’re all fruits. I find commonalities in a category and put them on the paper, because who knows what might inspire me later on.

Most of my work has to do with advertising, marketing campaigns.

In that regard I’ll always reel it back from the brainstorm to something like what are my main points, messages to get out, how do I visually represent that and go from there.

That’s my brainstorming session. I go crazy with pen and paper.

I’ve picked up hand lettering as a hobby, so I’ve had these different ways of playing around with that.

I’ll have a notebook that’s sayings, phrases that I’ve come across and try to create a cute composition that displays it in a nice way. That’ll take the font and ask myself what sort of feeling I want someone who’s reading this to have when they see it.

I’ve also recently been picking up designing tattoos for friends. I started doing one for a friend at work and then I’ve had friends that I’ve traveled with ask me to design for them. Very simple things usually, it’s just easier to have something here I want, give it t artist, let’s put it on my body.

Tattoos have become my favorite because you can play with so many ideas.

They want a compass and a globe and a whatever. Tattoos have been fun because they give me a lot of time to sketch and that’s what I like most about it. It’s a lot of ‘here’s one thing, do it in a million different ways, and see what comes out’. That’s what I’ve liked, exploring the realm of one aspect and connecting it to another.

You run a permutation, get exhaustive about it.

I see one tattoo which leads me to believe you have other tattoos. How many do you have?

Four.

I’m looking at this one on your wrist — the circle triangle square — neat, geometric. Where are the others?

One on the back, one on my ribs, and one on my left thigh.

How do you choose tattoos, prioritize them, design them for yourself?

All my tattoos have been about traveling.

The first one was purely representational and it was to mark a period that I’d spent in Honduras. It was a very memorable experience, also during a time when I was really interested in, still am, doing social work.

That trip reminded me of how, no matter where I go in life, I want to be doing something that helps people. I wanted it to be a reminder of that.

The other three were done within the last year. All of them have a sort of tie with inspiration for design. I want to cover my body. I will be one of these people covered with tattoos at 35.

I want them to be symbols of certain things I really loved aesthetically.

For example, this is a tile I found in Portugal. All the buildings in Lisbon are covered in beautiful, unique tiles, They’re amazing. I had chosen a pattern that I really liked and got a tattoo that I liked.

I look down and think of Lisbon, the houses, how you can live in a city where you walk around and think everything is fucking beautiful — because it is.

And that’s not necessarily how it is for me when I’m in Chicago. Reminding myself how it can be to be in an inspiring environment is attractive to me. That’s the way I want to live.

You mentioned social work in Honduras. What were you doing there?

I was in college and joined a club where you volunteered time to go and help people. I was on the dental brigade, so we had a dentist with us, a local, and they would check out all the people’s teeth for free and we helped them.

It was my first experience with realizing, and I’m sounding spoiled here in a way, that living in America and growing up in America you’re very very fortunate and blessed and things like knowing how to use a toothbrush you take for granted because you think it’s normal.

But it’s not, unfortunately. It wasn’t feeling bad for them but realizing how much I have in comparison and how it doesn’t mean anything. I met so many great people down there who were completely content with their lives without any of these things and I was very touched by it.

It opened my eyes to the rest of the world. In that regard i think I’ve always wanted to do something that either helped people in a positively or somehow gave back to people who are less fortunate.

What was the charitable design you were talking about?

When I was in Bali I went to a restaurant that all the proceeds go to provide free healthcare for local Indonesian people.

It was run and founded by a Swedish doctor who came to Indonesia and was very moved by the fact that most Indonesians don’t have healthcare, don’t know anything about healthcare, don’t have any money to give to healthcare.

He created this foundation and its been very successful.

When I was leaving he was building a children’s hospital. Basically, a meal at the restaurant would provide two health care appointments for two people. I think it was very profitable in that way.

That’s a meaningful model. At the right restaurant, you could do a lot of good.

And the food was good, and fairly cheap too. So it’s good for both ends, works out very well.

So I had approached him asking if I could redesign their menu. They had a booklet on the table with the menu that explained the foundation but it was a hodgepodge of images and stories and quotes and everything. Every page is filled to the brim.

Anti-design.

Yes, all the things I don’t like.

So I said to him I would love to offer my services for free. I’m only here for a month and help you out in some small way because I was so moved by the whole model and concept was very exciting to me. He liked his booklet enough not to change it, but I could help him with a logo refresh.

It wasn’t much of my time. He was easy to work with and I tried to give him some design structure to put in place for continuing on.

Redesigned his logo and some of his social media posts. It wasn’t a lot but it was such a fun project that I was excited to work on, and I felt I was doing something meaningful. And not just something to sell.

That is something I wish I could do more often in the place I travel to. It’s just not easy to find those sorts of opportunities.

How do you toggle between the working professional and the personally creative sides of your brain? How do you balance between work and your own desired creative freedom?

There are days when I wake and know I have to do a certain kind of work. I say this is the day for that. All day, that’s all that’s on my mind. To think this way, to think about what I’m working on in this direction.

And those days that you kind be freer because it’s your mindset, I think really just the act of devoting the time to a certain project and what that requires.

I don’t find days where I can do both and be successful at both.

I can’t wake up knowing that I have to work for my job but then later on also do the hand lettering stuff I wanna do.

I’ve tried to do both in one day never works out.

It’s never the way I want it to be. It has to do with the mindset that I have to bring, in yogic terms, to set your intention for that day. So if I set my intention for this project, then I’m gonna focus on that project that day and not waver from that, solely have that focus.

For me, it works better via days.

How do you manage working on the road?

As I work part time with my job, I only work three days a week for them. There are days when projects for couple weeks at a time or maybe they’re on for three straight days, I devote all those days to the project.

Your work only gets better and better by how much you criticize it.

That has to be a continuous process. At the end of a project, if I think I’m at a good place to stop, I’ll sometimes come back the next morning and say it’s shit. I could have done this better, that better.

After a break, I can look at it with new eyes.

If you notice things you don’t love, what do you do? And what if you’re stuck?

I would say that if I’m stuck on something, I try to come back to it. That’s what I mean about taking a break.

If I’ve been looking at it all days it becomes so normal to me that I can’t see it unless I take a step back. There are days when I look at an issue and say I don’t necessarily know how to resolve it, but mostly it’s just taking time with it, knowing the dimensions so the project, knowing this is usual as I get it where I want it to go.

I’ll look through some other blog of inspiration that might trigger something.

If I have a problem or something is feeling off, I just spend time thinking about it, letting it be. Trying different things here and there, going back again if it doesn’t work.

It’s a process of chipping at it until it’s what you want it to be. It’s not always something you can predict. With my job especially, it’s nice to have a team.

Say that I’m thinking this way, this is what I have so far, it’s not feeling right, can you take a look at it and see what it might be, how you feel when I show this to you. It’s nice to have because you get that input, different perspectives, and have someone say hey I see your way of thinking, where you’re going, and maybe it’s better said this way.

As you chip away a project, what hacks do you have to jog yourself into a new creative space?

I do very specific things that I enjoy and make me feel more creative, so this varies by everyone. I love art museums, I will go to any and every one I see in any country I’m in.

My office back in Chicago is very close to The Art Institute of Chicago, one of the biggest art museums in the country, so I go there pretty often. Its large, different art all over the place, plus the contemporary wing is changing all the time and there’s always new things to see.

Also, there’s a large collection of classics that are always great to see too because it’s very different from anything you’re doing now. But I think it inspires me to think of all labor that’s gone into it. So that’s a favorite.

I also like to go to a park and lay in the grass. It’s a bit like my own meditation, not that I meditate, but it feels on some level like it because it allows me to sit there and stare at the trees and sky and be immersed in the environment, not necessarily thinking about anything, things that might bore or stress me out.

A kind of observing and letting things clear my head. I’ve used a lot of Instagram and Pinterest and a few other small blogs that I’ve bookmarked as finding news ways to view things.

But I’ve kind of stopped doing that because a lot of what I see on social and the internet is so catered to you, to be something they think you want to see, but it’s not really what you want to see, especially not in that moment.

I want to see all the crazy other inspiring and unique things, but I’m not getting that.

I’m getting targeted marketing to what they think you’ll enjoy and it’s never anything different anymore. It was feeling very stale. But I haven’t had that problem while traveling because I can go out and find something new.

Can you recommend ways for people to enhance or improve their creativity?

I see a creative process as arduous in any way, there are no shortcuts or get there as quickly as you can.

That’s not to say that every creative process is as long as painting or drawing. Fine arts overall is very long practices, it’s a lot of time doing one thing, basically. That’s hard to rush because the repetition is so important.

Design is more flexible in that way.

It depends upon what you wanna learn, but I think to learn how to use the software and to figure out how to do things that you wanna do, that’s not very hard. There are Youtube tutorials out there for learning photoshop, it’s just not very hard. It’s just a different medium.

But if you wanna make good stuff, you just gotta keep designing to become better and that’s your practice.

I picked up hand lettering within a year, and I wouldn’t say I’m amazing or anything, but you gotta practice and that’s all you can ask.

So just practice those things you like.

Yes, there you go.

What do you see in terms of the future of your design, as you come to the end of the trip?

I go back to Chicago and have my full time position waiting for me there. I’ve told myself to give it a shot, going back to being a zombie cookie cutter 9–5 person.

I’ve committed to picking up jewelry making, which I used to do as a kid and just fell off.

But while traveling I’ve picked it up again and learned to love it again. So I’ve told myself I’m gonna go back and try to figure out how to make that work. Trying to keep myself open.

What would you tell someone who wanted to start traveling? Who wants to unlock their creativity?

If you wanna travel to be inspired and fuel the creative fire, find places where the history and culture really intrigue you.

Hopefully you can go to places with surroundings that will inspire you.

I would say visit a country you don’t feel the most comfortable in, because those challenges are really great for you as a person.

This shows you how you adapt, how you survive, how you get used to a sort of culture that’s different from your own and that’s great to learn. And I think it also builds your character and opens your mind to different things you’d never have thought.

As a creative person, opening and keeping open your horizons is very important. Also, if you wanna travel just fucking do it.

There just isn’t any way to say it, no amount of people who can tell you how amazing traveling is until you go out and do it yourself. Your experience will be very different from anyone else’s.

Signing off here, where can we find you online?

I took a hiatus from putting myself online. A lot of the work I did in the last year, I didn’t want to use as promotion for myself. Didn’t want to put anything out there that said how good I am. I wanted to the last year to just be for me, if that makes any sense. But i will think about that when I get back

Maybe the jewelry?

Haha — I’ll think about that!

)
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