A SMALL LETTER

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PREVIOUSLY

Marie Kondo
Like every other Netflix subscriber in the world, we are in the process of Marie-Kondoing our house, getting rid of any clothes, books, or jars of broken pens that don't necessarily 'spark joy'. Me, in my absolute element, loving a good clear-out; Neill, a keen keeper of things, less enthusiastic. This TV show has just sparked the perfect time to go charity shopping, he says, mournfully.

Joker
The trailer for the new Joker movie was released and, needless to say, none of the graphic props that we worked on here in my studio are in any way visible whatsoever. Welcome to design for filmmaking! Still, any reservations I'd had about a new depiction of this character (should the Joker really have a backstory, etc...) were quashed by this trailer: a perfect two-and-a-half-minute piece of filmmaking in itself.

Parenthood
Our son will be turning three this summer: a proper child now, with his own scooter and his own opinions and everything, sparking joy with each new weird and wonderful thing that he comes out with. Do you ever miss the baby days, asks my heavily pregnant friend, about to have her first kid. Ermm... how can I put this without alarming her? I didn't exactly enjoy the baby days to begin with. In fact, let's just say that not a day went by that I didn't imagine faking my own death, putting on a wig, and running away to live the rest of my life alone in Sweden.

Impostor Syndrome
In a Q&A after a talk at a design conference recently I was asked about impostor syndrome, "the psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a fraud". Of course I said yes, I have it too, because what kind of an asshole would you have to be to say nope, not me! But honestly, I think the internet has a lot to answer for when it comes to self-diagnosed neuroses. The reality of a creative career is that your days are most likely all going to be edged with self-doubt, no matter how experienced you are in your field. That's the nature of creativity: we have to keep questioning ourselves in order to make something that's worth anything. The trick is to not let that doubt stop you from actually doing things: starting a project, finishing a project, getting on with that difficult long middle bit of a project... You just have to keep at it: you will figure it out.

The olden days
If you're nervous about starting your brilliant new creative job tomorrow, instead of asking the internet whether you're an impostor or not, why not do what we did in the olden days and ask your mum instead? Don't worry love, you'll be fine, remember the time you made that brilliant thing for that thing, you're going to be great, do you need to do some laundry?

Charity
While Neill is slowly coming around to the idea of giving nine tenths of our belongings to charity, Marie Kondo's preferred method of thanking each discarded item before bagging it all up is less appealing. At this point, he says, my preferred method is to walk out of the house one morning leaving the door open so somebody might just rob the place.