In Our Community
Jessica Hische, Lettering Designer
The Bay Area designer and new mother talks carving out her own path, parenthood, and (really good) pork chops.
Welcome to Scratchpad, an ever-growing glossary of I-don’t-have-time-for-this-interview interviews with the badass producers, teammates, and customers that make up the Good Eggs community.
Today: Legendary letter-er and long-time Good Eggs customer Jessica Hische invited us into her home to chat about navigating the ups and downs of building her own name in the arts, transitioning into motherhood, and how cooking has become a source of creative, private time during days that always seem to be in flux.
Let’s start at the beginning — how did you land in the Bay Area and get into the world of lettering?
I grew up in Pennsylvania in a town called Hazleton — the way that I describe it is two malls worse than Scranton. I always wanted to be an artist, but didn’t really know how that was going to be possible. A passionate art teacher of mine helped put me in front of the right people, and I ended up attending art school. I’ve just always had a designer’s sensibility and I like working with and for other people. After school, I worked for a couple small design studios in New York, then ventured into the world of illustration when I started freelancing and ended up incorporating a lot of hand drawn type in my illustrations, which was how I ended up in the world of lettering.
My husband and I moved out to the Bay in 2012 when he got hired by Facebook. I do a whole variety of freelance projects at my studio, which is how I like it — a lot of local work, a ton of book cover work.
Freelancing is a rollercoaster at times. How do you handle that?
What’s interesting is that here in the Bay Area, the issue isn’t necessarily feeling like you’re unsuccessful, but rather feeling like you’re making the wrong choices when it comes to success. When I first moved here, I felt really awkward as a solo artist when everyone I knew was either working for a startup or building up a company. People here are so focused on scale. Because startups are always hiring and a lot of the companies offer such amazing benefits, the argument for staying solo can be really hard to make unless your business is doing amazingly well. Why wouldn’t I want to make $150k a year? And get amazing benefits and get free lunch every day? Not scaling felt like the wrong choice for so long. In New York, you couldn’t spit without hitting a freelancer. In the Bay Area, I felt like the odd man out — like I was the one clearly doing it wrong.
But it seems like you’re the one doing it right.
Ultimately what I came to understand is that I’m doing it right for myself and that’s really what counts. I’ve had so many people working for startups lament to me about how they wish they could have the freedom that I have. There are pros and cons to both, and it was hard to accept that I made the right decision at first, but now I feel like it’s really paying off.
What does it mean to you to have that freedom as an artist and as a mom?
My life is so complicated in so many ways. It would be one thing if I was only a lettering artist and didn’t have a family. But the reality is there are just a lot of things going on that are all at odds with each other. Having the flexibility to let components of my life take over when they need to and let the other ones die down a little bit has meant the world to me. Being able to set the boundary between my work and the rest of my life so it can be this very movable, malleable, but still structured thing is really important for maintaining my sanity.
A lot of my social life is now like, “Okay who has the children that my daughter likes the most that we can hang out with?”
But at the same time, my work-life balance is completely different. My idea of work-life balance used to be I work when I want to, and I live when I want to — work and life are the same. A lot of my social life is like, “Okay who has the children that my daughter likes the most that we can hang out with?” I have a harder divide between work and life now just because my daughter doesn’t understand that momma is actually working when she’s drawing on her iPad. She just wants to take over and draw on top of all of my stuff.
What’s been the most difficult transition for you in motherhood?
Well, the hardest transition was when I had my first child, my daughter. I didn’t have the problem that a lot of women have, where having a child leads to an identity shift. When I had my daughter, I still felt like myself. But I did have some major problems dealing with the fact that my life was not my own and I didn’t have the life that I used to.
When I had my daughter, I still felt like myself. But I did have some major problems dealing with the fact that my life was not my own and I didn’t have the life that I used to.
Work was how I lived, how I valued myself for so long. As long as I was busy, and as long as I was proud of the work I was doing, I felt like I had value. When, all of a sudden, it was all about family because the work wasn’t coming at the pace that I wanted, it was really hard. It was a moment of low self esteem.
With your kids it’s just a different kind of validation, right?
Yes, I care deeply about the work that I do and I know it’s super necessary for my happiness to stem from creativity, and to feel like I’m contributing to the world. But that’s nothing compared to how directly I contribute to a small person’s life. First and foremost, this is the one thing that I can’t fuck up. It’s also so fleeting. Their actual childhood is so short, and each stage is so brief. If I miss this four to six months of my kid’s life because I was too busy working on this project, I’ll never get that back. I would never be able to forgive myself for missing my kid’s birthday, but I’m not going to give two shits about this project three years from now.
[Motherhood] is the one thing that I can’t fuck up.
Okay, let’s talk about a little bit about food because I’ve heard you’re into food. What does your food routine look like?
Once I had my daughter, cooking became a necessity. As soon as I became more familiar with cooking, it became a pleasure activity that I could claim as my “me time.” I get to be like, “Here you hang out with the children while they scream and do whatever they’re going to do, and I’m just going to quietly hang out in the kitchen and make this meal.” It ends up being this really nice private time when I can be creative amidst family life.
The thing is, if I can be a person that cooks every day, I feel like everybody can. Start simply, rather than trying to replicate complicated recipes. Understanding the basics of how cooking works is so empowering. I started with literally no skills whatsoever, and feel like an incredibly competent cook a year and a half later.
Do you have any specific go-to meals in your arsenal?
Good Eggs sells these maple-brined pork chops that I think we probably have once a week just because they’re so good and no work at all: turn on the grill, grill the pork, and you’re done. Grilling is a huge part of our life. That plus grilled broccoli or asparagus — that’s definitely a major staple for our family. I think there was a Dinner Kit that had za’atar in it a few weeks ago, and I got inspired and ended up going to Oaktown Spice Shop to buy a jar. Now I just try to recreate that dinner kit dish with different ingredients. We also do a fresh pasta dish at least once a week. If you have access to fresh pasta, you can make a meal feel gourmet in 15 minutes.
What’s coming down the pipeline for you that gets you excited?
This new children’s book project I’m working on right now really made me stop and reflect on where I am. I was really enthusiastic about the project, but it was such a big, nebulous undertaking that I never found the time to devote to it — it felt like this impossible mountain that I had to climb. So I met with a bunch of publishers to talk about it, and almost everyone I showed it to made an offer — the whole process was so frictionless. When you go out into the world and other people want to listen to you and latch onto your crazy ideas, that’s really what it feels like to be successful to me. It’s easy to lose sight of how special that is when you don’t take a minute to sit back and appreciate it.
And, you know, there are such good lady vibes in this city. I always had a few lady friends in New York and now I have more than I used to, but it always felt like everybody was their own separate island — it wasn’t this singular island of awesome power ladies. And here, I feel like all the successful women make a real effort to get together and be like, “We’re awesome.” It’s really quite nice.
