Steal Like an Artist

I read the book “Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You about Being Creative” by Austin Kleon some weeks ago. It was a quick read and quite insightful. I have started to implement some of the things I learned in the book, such as sharing my work.

I want to share what I learned from each of the 10 things in my next 10 blog posts; one chapter per post. Generally, I’ve learned a lot from the book, one key aspect being his creative freedom. The book is a work of its own, design-wise. One look at the book, and you know who wrote it if you are familiar with his style.

He designed the book the way he wanted it. The book was not really about page count but the content. So, you see a lot of scribblings, artwork, pictures, quotes, oversized fonts, and titles, creating a beautiful fusion between analog and digital formats.

So one key takeaway for me is creating what you love without being stuck with existing formats, but expressing your creative freedom. On top of that, the fact that we are all content creators. We have something to share. There is a piece of us, a creative aspect of us that we are at liberty to share with the world, to express who we are, and to connect with people who share the same interests, impacting lives beyond our geographical boundaries.

As stated in the title, the book has 10 chapters:

1. Steal like an artist.
2. Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.
3. Write the book you want to read.
4. Use your hands.
5. Side projects and hobbies are important.
6. The Secret: Do good work and share it with people.
7. Geography is no longer our master.
8. Be nice; The world is a small town.
9. Be boring; It’s the only way to get work done.
10. Creativity is subtraction.

I look forward to diving deeper into the chapters in the upcoming posts.