Signature Style Stories: 3 of 5

​(Click here to listen to an audio version of this email.)​

Hi Reader,

In my last email, I made the case for why your creative voice matters more than ever. If you missed it, catch up here.

Let me take you back to the late '80s and early '90s. I was a kid with Print Shop Deluxe and a dot matrix printer, making greeting cards and happy birthday banners (and thinking I was absolutely incredible). There was no Procreate, no iPads, no Spoonflower, no Etsy, no Instagram. NO INTERNET. If you wanted to be an artist, you probably went to school for graphic design and then went to work at a design or advertising studio. At least, that's what I did.

Now? You can make a piece of art, post it, and have an art director on the other side of the world find you by morning. You can self-publish a book on Amazon, launch a pattern collection on Spoonflower, build an Etsy shop, and email your portfolio directly to licensing clients, all from your kitchen table. You are in charge of your creative career in a way that genuinely wasn't possible even twenty years ago when I was coming out of college with my graphic design degree. (Has it really been twenty years since I graduated? 😬 )

But here's what I've noticed. All of these opportunities require one thing to really take advantage of them: you need enough artwork. You need to be making art consistently and confidently. That comes from having a signature style — a repeatable creative process that means you're never starting from zero.

The artists who are thriving right now aren't necessarily the most talented. They're the ones who know who they are creatively and make work from that place, consistently. That can be you.

In my next email: the mindset that was keeping me from taking advantage of all the opportunities we just talked about, and how a signature style fixed it.

Talk soon,
Genna

P.S. A reminder that Signature Style Week, my free 5-day workshop, is coming up soon. Save your spot here.

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