On Practices is an editorial platform for dialogue on building and maintaining creative practices.

Each round features ten interviews from ten people to provide stories and insights for establishing a creative practice.

A project by 56.

Sara Du

TIGHT

Delphine Dénéréaz

Thomas Traum

Alice Gavin Services™

What tools do you use for your practice?

That'll be a long list. I am tool obsessed.

Hardware

- 12 computers

- 24 GPUs

- Apple laptop for email and code

CG Software

- All types of CG software

Compositing software

- After Effects

- Fusion

Production

- ftrack

- Notion

- Slack

- Google meet

- Dropbox

Code

- Github

- Meteor

- Vercel

- Sublime Text

- MacBook Pro

- iPhone

- Dropbox

- Instagram

- Post it

- White board

- Adobe creative suite

- Google docs

- Newly Signal (just transferred all discussions from WhatsApp)

- Synology

- iCal

- Kirby

- Figma

- Are.na

- Weird apps

- NTS playing on loop at the studio.

Software-wise, I'm fairly opinionated and I hate most "tools". I tend to end up using things that are stable, performant and fairly generic in terms of look and feel. Like VSCode. I know some people that are obsessed with using Emacs or VIM and I guess I can see the draw towards being into that, but most of the time, tools and tooling are not something I really want to think about. Or maybe I think about the concept of "tools" so much for Are.na that I'd rather not use up any more energy on that in my personal life.

For Are.na, the company, we started using Linear recently for issue tracking. That was the last piece of software I was truly impressed with, and mostly just because it's really solid and fast.

Hardware-wise, similarly. The only difference is that I also stretch out the things I buy for an unhealthy amount of time. Until very recently, I had a nearly broken iPhone 6s that ran out of battery every 2 hours. This particular behavior is not something that I romanticize though, it's a sickness.

I have 6 weaving looms. That's the most important thing for my work, I draw in my notebooks sometimes I use my laptop to make sketches but that’s almost it !

I do all of my digital work on my Microsoft surface, and the main programs I use are Photoshop and Corel Draw. I started using Corel Draw because I was working in the sign industry for a while, and then it just stuck.

Everything I do starts with a sketch on paper, and then I scan it and start working away. I also like running my designs through different processes to acquire interesting textures. For example, I like printing things out on my thermal label printer and scanning it afterwards.

I recently started renting a studio space and I purchased some large format screen printing equipment. I’m experimenting with printing on different substrates; a few things I’ve printed on so far are plywood, aluminum, mesh, and fabric. These experiments are tests for future projects.

The software I use the most: Glyphs! Not surprisingly... Otherwise of course I use Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator. For the hardware I use: mouse, keyboard, screen, tracing paper, pencil and black marker.

I like to keep things light. Google Keep is for all my todo list. Longer term goals, thoughts, & random lists of things I want to look into, are in Notion. Anything that’s visual, like my personal moodboard and meme board, goes in Figma. Recently I’ve also been getting into are.na

We usually shoot with medium frame film digital cameras, Kodak Portra film, sometimes Fuji film as well. When films are scanned we may do color correction a bit using Photoshop.

Vitaliia: Tight is a digital platform with an online store, so all possible aspects of work from communication to production are managed through dozens of digital tools. As a team whose members live in different countries, we rely on them to stay connected basically every day. Through almost 3 years of experimentation, we have found a good workflow that works for us, which can be summed up as "less is more".

We can distinguish a few essential tools for us:

Tight magazine is supported by Webflow. It is a powerful tool for building responsive websites. Webflow allows us to be flexible and have full control over tight web, which is a crucial point since we do not have a developer in our core team.

For communication, we use Telegram messenger, where we have set up a few chats that serve different needs: Chat to talk about current projects and merch, chat where we share interesting findings, budget chat, etc. For video calls, we use Google Hangouts.

Recently we moved all our structure to Notion and with their recent updates like the timeline feature, we will try to use it for project management as well. Are.na is an all times favorite place to store references and notes for various projects in one place.

What's your favourite restaurant to order from?

Colline d’Asie, a vietnamese cantine rue André Del Sartre, all meals are great but the best is the Curry Khmer — only make sure you can nap after that.

There really isn’t that much to order from around where I am! In Brooklyn I would order a California burrito from Maya Taqueria.

I love to order vietnamese or chinese food!

My most frequently visited restaurant here is DNK pho. They know my order as soon as I walk in. Vegan pho, no tofu, vegetable spring rolls, and chillis on the side.

At the moment I'm in the Luberon, in the south of France. And sometimes, I like to order sushi: vegetarian californias are my favorites!

Get the Mentai Kamatama at Marugame Udon. I used to work at an udon shop so it’s by far my favorite food.

We have a delivery that serves orders from many restaurants in the city, we use it every two days, always different food depending on the mood. We are big food lovers, even feel a bit guilty about how big, we even eat at night!

We are all ordering too much food!

One of my biggest lifestyle changes is to cook more in the last few years thanks to my wife.

But I get the question, everyone likes a good take away too and my current favs are "side chick" by Patty&Bun or 40 Maltby street "heat at home" dinner

Sidechick

40 Maltby Street

Tanya: That’s probably the most difficult question. It’s very individual and situational. We usually use Glovo delivery service in Kyiv to order food when we don’t have time (or hungover). But the best scenario is to go to Hanh (Vietnamiesse place in Kyiv), take some tofu and noodles and head to our favorite park Peyzahnaya Alley to have after-work dinner outside.

Maya: Ordering food is always a difficult task for me, I can spend a lot of time choosing an option that suits my mood in the delivery service. I can't pick favorites, but it's always great to order homemade food from different eateries.

Vita: There is this amazing place around my house in Stockholm — Indian Lotus :) So, I got really hooked on their palak paneer. Last few months it's been my choice in 90% of situations. Best hangover food ever.

What do you think is the most valuable asset for emerging designers?

Kindness (for perennity)

Keep drawing. It will allow your ideas to flow freely. It is the most important step in the design process for me. Something else I try to do is design things that come from within. Trying to keep up with trends will become exhausting.

Do not attempt to acquire all possible design skills. Specialize in a skill you love.

It's certainly not "talent". Whats the most valuable asset for any designer? It's probably a willingness to learn and try to improve any day and to not have fear. These are universal but need to be cultivated from the start. It's hard and it's supposed to be hard.

How many people do you consider a part of your practice?

Let’s try an average per year :

Commisionners (clients) = 30

Business partner = 1

Admin support (accountancy etc) = 2

Assistants = 3

Regular design/ coding/ motion collaborators = 5

Co workers from regular clients = 10

Occasional collaborators for specifics projects = 20

Technical supports (such as printers or other suppliers) = 5

Around 75 people ?

Hard to tell exactly !

But yes I’d say since I’ve worked under my own name, my close team got enlarged and my family of collaborators is quite wide.

This is a specifically hard question for me as I did a presentation a few years back about how “everything is collaboration” and now think about authorship in a probably way too loose way. I guess the answer is really unquantifiable. You never know what piece of information is going to change your thinking on a particular topic and the provenance of any particular piece of information is really hard to pin down if you start thinking about “influence”.

But more concretely, we (Are.na) think about the people who are super active on there a lot and take feedback seriously. So even in realistic terms, the number is difficult to quantify.

At my studio I work mostly alone but sometimes I get the help from my former intern, after that I have a lot of clients, around one hundred this year I guess and I also work with gallerists. Maybe i can say there are 120 people !

I’d say about I work with around 10 people in total. I have a small handful of clients that I do design work for on a regular basis, I do the majority of that work solo. When I need a second opinion, I have a few close friends who I like to reach out to.

When I’m working on physical projects, I do a lot of the printing and fabricating myself. But If it's something I'm not able to do alone, my dad's sign shop (Signs Galore Inc.) has a lot of resources that I have access to. They often help me CNC, fabricate and print things.

I work as a freelancer so I'm working alone - however I also work at Louis Vuitton and Dinamo. In addition to my clients, I would say that there are about twenty people around me.

It really depend what exact project we are talking about. If our personal ones (like Slightly Altered or Supernatural) - its only two of us doing one hundred things, everything from creating idea to producing props and making installation. We only give films to be developed and scanned in photo lab in the end. Even postproduction and retouch we got used to working on ourselves. If talking about commercial projects the team means a lot, they all have to be professionals, we often work with same team of hair/make up artists, stylists, who are well trusted in any situation..The team can be both small or big, it depends. Advertorial team may be 5 people, advertising campaign or video can be 20-30.

What might be interesting to know, if you are in the business for a while.

I find it’s striking how long you work with some people who are not immediate collaborators or team members.

I work in CG and from the outside you would imagine it's a fast moving space. It's going through a crazy change in the last few years. However I worked with the same clothing modeller for almost 7-8 years now. There are peers who I observed and followed their work for more than 10 years and only now I am starting to collaborate with them.

Maybe its luck. When I started a lot of other interesting people started working. Like 90s hip-hop, its a specific time and place.

Tanya: The core team of Tight consists of 3 people - us and 2 editors/translators Nikita and Yustyna, but of course the network of collaborators is all encompassing: we work with translators, freelance writers, graphic designers and visual artists, web developers, lawyers, contractors in clothing production. Furthermore, we think that the main ingredient of our ongoing practice is basically our community - readers, fellow artists, followers who all in all are very talented and inspiring people. We learn a lot from them, try to nurture and support. So it’s one united organism that can not exist in parts.

Where do you spend money and where do you make money?

I invest money to make the studio sustainable and to be able to approach the best conditions of work possible with all collaborators : buying time seems like the biggest deal — either to enjoy time spent at work as well as to enjoy our personal lives.

If you're asking about Are.na we spend pretty efficiently. Most of what we make in a month goes right back into Are.na, either through paying ourselves so that we don't have to do outside work, paying part-time engineers to help us improve the product, paying infrastructure costs, etc. We keep a healthy buffer for emergencies, but apart from that, we try to stay flexible and scale our investment into Are.na right alongside our revenue growth.

I spend money to increase my studio, in loom, materials and I make money by sending my pieces, and sometime by making some workshops.

Right now my main source of income is freelance design. I reinvest most of that money into my personal projects.

In this period of covid... in food! My boyfriend and I are vegetarians, we cook a lot. It's still not so easy to eat in restaurants in France when you're vegetarian! Otherwise; trips, hotels, or good restaurants (occasionally).

Pretty much all of my income comes from my salary at Alloy. I don’t freelance since I prefer to invest my time in my company, and I don’t invest in stocks. These things will probably change.

We spend money on food! And traveling. And make money on photography, mostly ad campaigns and commercials, or selling prints via galleries and exhibitions.

At the moment we spend money on talent and projects in the pursuit of making something half decent and we are making no money at all.

Privately I don't spend money other than on good healthy food, selected pieces of clothing and knowledge and tools. A book costs £5-10 the price of a Deliveroo (=uk instacart) delivery, even most knowledge is free which is a good thing.

I started a newsletter with Philip Rouse from Not Summer called "Protect Me From What I Want" a play on Jenny Holzer's work best artwork ever made? and that has been the mantra. I completely clocked out of hype and consumer buying cycles and I am only interested in long term thinking about any purchase. I do love products but the older the product the better to me.

Tanya: Right now, our main source of the income, which covers the basic costs of the project, is Tight Apparel. We also work with cultural fundings, gain some profit from guest-curatorship for festivals, music events and other initiatives, and work as creative consultants for various side projects.

As for spendings, everything is pretty simple. We use our small revenue to cover fees for freelance writers, our small team of translators, subscriptions (eg.: Webflow, Tilda, Soundcloud). Also we invest money to improve the quality of our clothing line - we always search for better production companies, fabrics, printing, make a lot of samples, etc.

How do you see yourself in the future?

Hard to say with the pandemic, there’s a 50% chance for the same old in a mature version which I would like very much as well as a 50% chance of a complete change of life, who knows.

Having said that, and because I am more of an optimistic, my dream to achieve in the upcoming years is to develop a similar format of project I have just experimented at Ballet national de Marseille directed by collective (LA)HORDE.

It’s a long term project as associate artist : it’s an art residency with a practical case application within the institution and I loved this format. With the Ballet National de Marseille, my subject is to work with 22 dancers in order to mediatize dance through image direction.

This residency goes by 2 years with a special budget and no other constraints but to use my creative direction and graphic design background.

This kind of mission has awakened my desire to work on long term projects with institutions or brands, I think it’s important to create a relationship of trust, a real collaboration in order to be the most relevant in the creative and artistic direction.

For example, in Marseille, I had no commission, no hierarchic corrupted decision and it felt like building a new corpus of documentation and design completely from scratch.

In the end, I had been designing the new visual identity of the institution, I’ve created artistic documentation that is also archives, I have been curating hybrid artists editions such as branded ceramics with belgium based artist Eleonore Joulin and more is to come… The residency ends this year. I’ll be presenting the whole display over a public presentation on October 8th in Marseille, if you want to join ;) So far, it was the most interesting collaboration I ever had - and the most interesting outcomes.

I can't wait to accompany other projects in a similar way.

In the next year, we'd like to double our monthly revenue. That would really put us in a good position financially to be able to hire more people and improve Are.na and enact some of our plans faster.

In three years, we want to figure out either a system or corporate structure to start to provide liquidity to our early investors (from the crowdfund and outside the crowdfund). We think there are ways that Are.na can be structured that more accurately reflect our values and involve the broader community more (see this article about Exit to Community).

In five years, we would love to have a more permanent physical space. Think libraries and a dedicated space for residencies.

I hope in one year i will have a big solo show, and after that I would love to open a space dedicated to textile( especially weaving) history and research with loom, and invite professor, artsits, art teachers, crafters, historicians to make some talks

And still working on my weaving art of course

I'm trying to transition into making my living from personal projects. I want to create things to sell at all different price points so that there is something for everybody. That is my main goal.

I confess, I don't know. But I would say keep on being freelance, and on having clients like today! I'm so grateful. Otherwise, become a yoga teacher in Los Angeles when I would be 50 years old.

In a year we’ll probably be 15+ people strong. I’ll probably be growing a lot as a CEO in this next year. In 3 years we’ll see PMF, profitability, & growing influence in the ecomm world. In 5 years, all ecommerce stores will think of Alloy first, even before they try Googling best practices.

Yes, we are the people of major goals, we always think big. We would like to basically do what we do but develop ourselves in more directions, we already work with video and start working with 3d, cgi. In future we will be working more with mixed media. This year we got our book published by Louis Vuitton (called Fashion Eye of Ukraine), it is one of the major steps in the way to our big dream, and our major goal. The next thing we would also love to do is creating video clip for some artist as we love music a lot.

Predictions are hard to do in this environment!

The bear case would be hoping to still be able to earn a living through what we do.

The bull case is having Traum Inc to run on its own without me.

Myself, being 1% better every day. I am at crossroads in terms of my own work. I want to seriously innovate and break out of what I am doing right now.

Tanya:

Unfortunately, in the current times long-term planning sounds like a huge privilege for us. The plans we made for 2020 have changed dramatically so we understood that now it’s very important to have a certain malleability to fit into a fast-changing reality.

But of course there is definitely something we are trying to work on step by step. In the foreseeable future, we’d love to level up Tight to a larger multidisciplinary project by maintaining editorial platform, clothing brand, special digital and offline activities. And the ultimate goal for the next few years is to expand our reach, income and team.

What’s your daily schedule?

Taught one!

Although we all arrive at 9.30 no days are really the same.

The routine starts by talking as long as we can on mornings in order to produce or think in the afternoons — meetings are due in the morning as much as possible to stay focused.

But particular projects require particular plans — I live and work in both Paris and Marseille (South of France) since I am associate artist at Ballet national de Marseille and we all navigate there from time to time.

It does add a layer of organisation to keep workflow fluid.

Really having trouble answering this question because Are.na is such a small company, and we end up doing all the jobs, and that involves being fairly reactive to whatever comes up. So my day to day is pretty varied, not a lot of hard hour-by-hour schedules, apart from meetings. Generally I get up around 7:30, make coffee and start a fire (I live in a place that is primarily heated by a wood stove) and then I read for an hour or so. That is really the only constant day to day.

Something I think about alot: both Ian Cheng and Cory Arcangel, two people who I really respect, have extolled the virtues to me of getting all one's creative work in the mornings and more admin-type work in the evening. I love this idea, and my ideal self sticks to this concept with rigor. Unfortunately, the real me cannot do this. It takes me a while to warm up and I usually don't get into a good groove until after lunch time.

So I arrive at my studio between 9 and 11 depending if I have some stuff to make before, like going to the post office or buying some material for work.

I put the radio on, I answer my emails, I organise my day and then I can start weaving for 7 hours with a break for lunch and teatime when my studio mates are there.

Every Week I have some visitors to see my work, to meet me ..that’s pretty cool

I wake up around 8:00AM to an espresso shot. I get ready and I try to make it to the studio for around 9-10:00AM. Once I get to the studio I take some time to set the tone for the day. I make some tea, listen to some music and go through some books. Once things are feeling good I’ll get to work. I usually work until around 8:00PM.

First thing, I brush my teeth. Because the second thing I do: Yoga! That's my real routine. Then I eat a big breakfast and get to work. I have lunch with my boyfriend around 1pm-2pm and at 6pm I stop working and I go for a walk, or watch TV, it depends on my mood of the day!

I wake up at 6:50ish AM (varies based on sunrise time). Spend the first 30 min of my day eating cereal & making coffee while enjoying the morning silence. I’ll spend 30 min clearing my inbox (I try to have it at inbox 0 every night) and then at 8 AM we have team standup. The rest of the day is a blur of calls, sometimes no lunch, and then before sunrise I’ll take a 30 min walk. I’ll do dinner for an hour then get back to work. Usually work after dinner is permeated with personal catchups and scrolling social media. At 9 I force myself to prepare for bed so that I can go to sleep by 11.

Is it a shame or something to be proud of to admit we wake up in the afternoon? Mostly because we are so much more productive in the evening and at night, it is our time to work creatively. Our day is: breakfast/coffee, then go for a walk and do minor things like stopping by post office, or bank, then coming back home to basically start working at around 4pm, and it can last all evening (or night), being interrupted by some entertainments like food or 5 minutes of meme scrolling. During the day we deal a lot with emails, shooting organizations or work on exhibitions. Sometimes we have days of nature - just take our enduro motorbike or car and drive away. The other days Roman is making music, playing piano or synthesizer, and Tania is making jewelry as part of our charitable project called Crystaltania.

I am super regimented and I love a routine. I have to say things always get in the way.

6AM until 9AM: Training + Family

9AM - 11AM: Office team standup meeting then admin

11-1pm: Work on creative

2pm-7pm: Work on creative if I can, but mostly broken up with less fun things I need to do.

6PM-9PM: Family and dinner

9PM-12AM: Work

Maya: Since we are working on the project on a distance, as well as managing in parallel our day jobs, we all do long hours. We have developed a system to synchronise, stay connected, and keep track of each other's tasks. For example, on Mondays we have a morning check-in, we share the list of completed tasks for the past week and plans for the upcoming week. Every Thursday we have an update call. We chat on Telegram in several groups: a chat for casual conversations, a work chat, a chat where we share finds.

Internet communication does not replace meetings in real life. Before the pandemic, we agreed to see each other at least every 2-3 months, in Kyiv, Stockholm or someplace out, for instance in Berlin. Covid-19 has changed our plans a little, and travel from Ukraine to Europe is not yet possible so we usually meet in Kyiv as the current regulations allow travellers to arrive in the country.

Sara Du

Sara Du is the CEO and founder of Alloy Automation, a no code e-commerce automation platform. Before Alloy, Sara dropped out of Harvard, worked at Snap and DoNotPay.

Portfolio Twitter Alloy

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What led you to starting Alloy?

Sara Du

My first job ever was at this small semiconductor startup actually, it was such a minor experience that I don't have it on LinkedIn. But it sort of speaks to my past life as a hardware person actually - the first big project I made was this little 3D printed coffee cup lid that could shock your taste buds into perceiving sweetness. I was really interested in the physical world, and only moved to iOS / web development because I wanted to make some $ before college. That transition was pretty smooth; hardware is hard and debugging mobile apps was just such a breeze in comparison.

I worked at a few startups for free to build up some experience and then my first paid iOS gig was at a local 100-person startup. My last semester of high school was spent there rather than going to class, and then I dipped from high school to go work at DoNotPay. A lot of stuff happened those few months, I got some experience in VC at this firm called Sway Ventures as well. But I went to school still and my freshman year at Harvard was a nice pause for my career.

After a year of school I wanted to do a gap year, so I was at Snap for a summer and then I transitioned into product design at Wish. That transition was also gradual; I'd been designing for all of my side projects so I'd built up a huge portfolio.

I see Alloy as this culmination of all the random things I did. Building it was a real test of my design and engineering skills. My hardware background gave me the patience I needed to persist through those tough early days.

How do you see yourself in the future?

What tools do you use for your practice?

What does Alloy's stack look like?

Sara Du

Our stack is huge so here’s everything top of mind -

Admin: Rippling, Notion, Slack

Sales: Hubspot, Otter

Eng: Github, Jira

Design: Figma, Fullstory

Marketing: SEMRush, Google Search Console, Mixpanel

What’s your daily schedule?

Where do you spend money and where do you make money?

Pretty much all of my income comes from my salary at Alloy. I don’t freelance since I prefer to invest my time in my company, and I don’t invest in stocks. These things will probably change.

What is Alloy's personnel

Sara Du

We’re pretty flat. Everyone on the engineering side reports to the CTO while everyone on the GTM side + design reports to me, just because I’ve been running design from day one and have particular views on aesthetics.

What advice do you have for emerging designers, engineers and founders?

Sara Du

Designers: Develop good taste by consuming a lot—I never studied design, but I feel like training my eye was the most important part of teaching myself.

Engineers: My advice here is totally different from design. I learned the most by building and not by reading or studying. The beauty of engineering is watching a project come to life IMO.

Founders: Get sleep and take care of your body because that's the only hardware you have. Most founders know how to grind but not many know when to pause and do what's best for both themselves and their company.

What are your thoughts on the increasing verticalization of software and brands?

Sara Du

We’re a verticalized, ecommerce-specific automation tool. When the Internet was first starting out, I’m sure it was just enough to have a general purpose tool for every type of functionality. People and companies weren’t sophisticated enough yet to need the nuances (I think). Over time though, everything online has become a bit more complex. Take accounting for example - it used to be enough for everything to be on paper. As we transitioned online, people were fine with a piece of software being the replacement for a piece of paper. But over time, you start to realize that it doesn’t make sense for a mom-and-pop shop to be using the same software as a creator / solopreneur or a large enterprise. Purpose-built software creates efficiency and drives enough ROI to justify the existence of verticalized software.

What is a prediction you have about your industry that others may not know or agree with?

Lately a bunch of people have been pointing out this trend of D2C brands becoming “brands”. I think a new chapter will start soon, where the brand aesthetic no longer matters as much - being beautiful will be table stakes.

I can’t take credit for this idea obviously, but I recently read a piece by the chief brand officer of Banana Republic and she had some interesting thoughts around curation being that key differentiator for brands going forward. Companies like Telfar have risen to their current status because of the way they curate the consumer’s experience with their brand, via multimedia performances, magazines, and unique retail popups.