Glue's Letter

That’s it for now and much love.

Talk soon.

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Why I’m Making Something New

Jesse Nyberg — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:12:58 GMT

Hey everyone,

I’ve got something new to share and im super stoked about it.
This is a show I’ve been quietly building and thinking about for a long time.

I’m starting a new podcast called glue.fm.

For years, my work online has mostly revolved around design, the design community, and all the cool people I’ve met along the way. I love that world and I’m so grateful it’s given me a career, opportunities, and connections I never imagined growing up.

But I’ve also changed a lot over the past few years. My interests have expanded. The things I think about every day go way beyond just graphic design.

This has transpired into me really wanting a place to explore that side of myself without worrying about algorithms or staying in one lane.

That’s where glue.fm comes in.

What glue.fm Is About?

The show is basically all the stuff that holds my life together.

Stuff like cars, music, climbing, mental health, really anything that’s fueling my curiosity right now.

This will not be a “design podcast.”
But design is definitely part of it (to some extent).
At the end of the day, design is my first passion, and I’m sure that through line will be evident even if it’s just from my subconscious.

And quite frankly, I have just been really missing a more laid back long form style of content ever since i stopped doing the Jesse Nyberg Podcast (after 100+ episodes!)

So anyway, think of glue.m as more of a collection of honest thoughts and conversations about being a person who makes things.

I also have the insane privilege of knowing so many cool people on the internet now, so expect some dope guests whenever I can fit them in (in person only too).

Why Make a Podcast Now?

The first episode is out now and it’s basically me laying it all out:

Why this exists.
Why now.
Why I’m stepping into something new.
And why it feels exciting (and scary) to try something that isn’t tied to my usual niche.

I talk about:

wanting space to be myself, not just “the design guy”
exploring creativity in all directions
wanting to make something raw, fun, and honest
how glue.fm will look moving forward
why trying new things matters, even when you might fail

It’s basically the mission statement and some rambling from your boy lol

Thanks for Being Here

If you’ve followed me for years, been reading this newsletter or even if you just found my stuff recently, thank you.

My design career and videos aren’t going anywhere, this podcast is just another way to share more of myself and hopefully make something that resonates beyond fonts and photoshop lol.

I’m excited about this.
Nervous in a good way.
And looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Episode 1 is live now.
You can find glue.fm on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your stuff.

Also follow the instagram! I’m hoping to post some cool stuff there: clips, bts, etc.

Thanks for rocking with me.
Much Love

- Glue

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

The work can always wait

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 17:01:48 GMT

How’s it going everybody? Hope you’re doing well.

These past few weeks I’ve been scrambling all over the place, trying not to take on too many big design projects, trying to finish all the content I have going on, as well as planning out some new ideas that I want to work on in the future.

I’m doing all that to get ready for a big trip I have coming up to Japan.

I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, so it’s such a surreal experience that I get to go there with my wife now on our honeymoon.

Getting ready for this trip really has me thinking about how weird it’s going to be to take almost a full month off from any type of meaningful work.

I always think of myself as someone who is hyperfixated on my design stuff and kind of a workaholic…

So I’m quite surprised how (Kinda) okay I am with the fact that I am going to be “offline” for a month.

I feel like these days I have a way more healthy relationship between myself, my work, my designs, my content, all that stuff.

Trying to keep a sustainable level of output that doesn’t burn me out, but also makes me feel rewarded.

If you were telling me I was going on a trip like this two years ago and I didn’t have all this stuff planned to post while I was gone or all this stuff just back cataloged,
I would have lowkey been freaking out.

I used to put so much more pressure on myself about that stuff, and then you kind of realize at the end of the day if there aren’t clients or a job or someone making you do something, it really isn’t that serious.

It’s good to be disciplined, but there are more important things than making Instagram posts and album covers lol.

I think having that rigid work ethic can only help so much and it can do more harm than good if it causes you to fall out of love with the stuff in the first place.

I still love graphic design and am so grateful for all the places it has gotten me.

It’s an awesome feeling and it’s genuinely so rewarding.

I even got to finally get my hands on this Bloom album art that I did recently, and I am just so cool seeing stuff that you made in real life in the physical form.

I feel like physical media is so important.

It’s great to be able to be someone who can have a part in contributing to that greater world of real haptic things.

But yeah, I’m really excited for this trip, but I’m also already excited about that feeling I’m going to have when I come back fully refreshed right into the new year, ready to get going with a new endeavor I’m cooking up and some projects that we postponed to January with some other musicians and stuff.

It’s awesome to not only have the safety and luxury to be able to go on a trip like this and take work off, thanks to all the hard work I did the past few years.

That’s cool. But it’s even more awesome to know I have some stuff I get to look forward to when im back in the office.

I wanted to say thank you to all you who have supported all the different types of things that I’ve done that have contributed to me even being able to live any type of life like this now.

It’s pretty fucking cool and I truly appreciate it.

I’m excited to hear what you have going on, what you’re working on the rest of the year.

Do you have any trips planned anywhere?

What do you want to be doing this next year?

Have you started thinking about your goals for 2026 yet?

I know mine have been ruminating in my brain for a while.

Anyway, we’ll talk soon.

Peace.

Cool stuff to check out

Weekly Wrap Up

My latest graphic design work - 2025

Flyer for the homie Suvad H’s art show

see alts here

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Finding Balance in the Creative Seasons

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 16:02:32 GMT

How’s it going everybody? Today I finally found the motivation and a little pocket of time to write the newsletter.

Frankly, I woke up way too late the day I’m writing this, which is Thursday, October 9th because yesterday was my birthday and I was too busy having a little too much fun.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the different seasons of life that I go through as a freelancer, as someone who really values routine and consistency that can be challenging.

I think something with my ADHD or something sparked that.

It can be really hard sometimes for me to grapple different levels of workload or one week having a million things to do and the next week feeling like I have to come up with stuff to do on my own.

And you need many different reasons to find the motivation to do that stuff, whether it be out of passion, necessity, wanting to make money, wanting to express your opinion, whatever it may be.

A couple months ago (or in the earlier half of the year, I guess).

I feel like I was super busy with official client projects, a lot of brand deals for companies, and really just being in a grateful spot of having a lot of work and having a lot of things to do and helping and allowing me to make some money to maybe go into a slower season of my life for the rest of the year.

It’s strange though because even when I go through those busy moments, all I look forward to is a little bit more time to chill and work on my own personal projects.

But when I get into those moments, I end up doing a lot of overthinking and analysis paralysis that results in me feeling kind of just feel guilty for not keeping up a certain weird standard i put on myseld.

I am trying to get a little bit better too at just accepting the fact that different parts of your life are going to have different levels of busyness and I’m going to be working on different things.

I think I’ve done it to myself too because as both a graphic designer and a content creator, I do so many different things and it really makes me feel scattered and unfocused sometimes.

I write this newsletter, I do YouTube, I work on client projects, I work on personal projects, I work on brand deals for companies and make short form content for Instagram.

These days it just does not feel sustainable at times.

I think something that will help me mitigate some of this lack of focus and scatterbrained mentality is consolidating what I do into fewer things, but giving them a lot more intentionality and focus.

And I’ve said a lot of stuff like this before in the past, but I’m getting into a point where I really am starting to feel that way.

I haven’t even been posting on YouTube nearly as much because it just takes so much time to make those long form videos and sometimes feels like it it takes me away from some of the other stuff??

It’s weird. I started my career as a graphic designer and then I started making content and I’ve made a bulk of my money this year off of content stuff, and now that’s allowing me to get to go back to creating more design work and more projects since the money is flowing pretty good from other avenues.

That’s its whole own bag of worms that I don’t really need to get into.

But it’s funny, I was talking to this with my homie Katrina the other day, and they said the graphic designer to content creator to graphic designer pipeline, and I thought that was hilarious.

Anyway, though, I think these days what I really want to start doing is making fewer and more meaningful YouTube videos when i REALLY have soemthing to say.

I’ve made hundreds of videos now and sometimes it feels like I’m just repeating some same stuff that you and I all already know.

In addition to that, put a little bit more effort into the short form content on Instagram.

If I’m being completely candid, the short form brand deals make way more money than any type of YouTube or other content avenues. (at least for my business).

And then also continuing to grow freelance practice with Cuesta Studio.

working on album art, branding, whatever.

That way I still have this official design business to lean on and to grow when maybe in the future I’m not creating any type of content anymore.

And then lastly, which is kind of meta, I guess I still want to continue doing this newsletter.

This is something I’ve grown to really love and enjoy. It feels like something completely disconnected from the algorithm and I can just do whatever I want really.

I mean… you can do whatever you want on anything, but substack feels like a lot less pressure because it doesn’t put metrics to the forefront.

I don’t know if this is just a me problem, though.

I know I’m in a hyper-specific scenario with the different things that I do in my business, but I’m sure there’s a bunch of other readers out there in the creative world who wear many different hats and focus on a lot of different avenues in their career.

So I’m curious if you want to let me know in the comments below, what kind of stuff do you do to balance the different levels of workloads you may have on a weekly, monthly, or even seasonal basis.

how do you maintain this kind of consistency in routine in your life when the demand and what you need to be doing can be entirely different at any given time?

Super excited though too with some of the stuff I’ve been getting to work on.

So this isn’t just me complaining.

I don’t know if it came off that way, but I’m really excited to share some new album art I worked on that should be coming out soon.

And I also have a few videos in the pipeline that I think y’all will really enjoy.

So stay tuned and I hope you guys are working on stuff that is bringing you fulfillment and helping expand your own creative world.

Much love and talk soon.

Peace.

Cool stuff to check out

Weekly Wrap Up

The one piece of advice I’d give any graphic designer

YOU CAN ACTUALLY WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Siamese Dream Cassette Concept

FULL POST HERE

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Design Motivation

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 16:02:47 GMT

How's it going, y'all, I just got my blood work done, so I’m writing this newsletter slightly lightheaded lol.

I never realized how much fuckin blood they take from you with these damn tests!

Anyway, today I wanted to talk a bit about getting inspired in this sea of garbage design content.

Most of the “design content” online is pretty meh. I have even contributed to that slop at times myself. But every once and a while I see a dope format or something that gives me hope that actual good designers can make dope videos.

The homie Cole has been doing this super sick series where he redesigns an entire merch collection for famous brands like Cheez-its, Hot Wheels, Oreo, etc

Not only are the concepts super creative, but his Photoshop mockup abilities are straight up NEXT LEVEL.

Look how good this stuff for Hot Wheels looks!

These dope videos came at the perfect time, because lately I have been feeling pretty bored with content, both long form and short.

I decided to take some inspo from this project and design a mini merch capsule for a local restaurant chain in Southern California called “The Hat”.

The Hat is a classic dinner/lunch place that serves some of the best pastrami in the world!

I wanted to design some merch for them and create my own version of what a concept merch line IG reel type of thing would look like.

I had a lot of fun making these designs and the video. This little project re-sparked that energy and love I have for design and just creating stuff on the fly.

The Hat Merch Capsule Concept

The “World Famous” Tee

A more modern take on the brand with this typographic-driven tee

Tstrami Diplo Record

A collection of house tracks by legendary artist Diplo to listen to while on your lunch break.

The Carhartt style double knee workwear pants

for the actual workers, designers and performative males

The Classic Menu Tee

Inspired by the amazing menu that is displayed at all Hat locations and in the drive-thrus

The World Famous Trucker hat

Pastrami Puffer

Bumper stickers

Hope y’all dig that stuff. I had a ton of fun putting it together.

Hopefully, we can keep this inspiration train going and this can motivate you to make some dope stuff of your own!

I love the hat and love all of you!

Talk soon!

Cool stuff to check out

Weekly Wrap Up

How Album Artwork Is Designed (Step by Step)

Watch Video Here

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Why I Still Love Making Physical Album Art

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 16:01:29 GMT

How's it going, y'all
Hope life has been treating you well

Been a little MIA on the newsletter
Big client projects and, honestly just life in general.
Trying to give myself a little more grace with the content rat race.

I love making things and putting them out into the world, and it's cool that y'all fuck with anything I do truly. But sometimes you gotta step back for a second.

Just know I'm still cooking on stuff, I just don’t always need to talk about it.
Like that meme lol “I’m just letting y’all know that im bout to be making moves in silence, silently”.

Today I want to share the Bloom album art I worked on.
If you’ve followed me for a while you know I love music design.
Album art and vinyl packaging, both as a designer and a fan.

It’s kind of a shame it feels less important now, with visualizers and vertical formats taking over and the rise of streaming services being the dominant music listening platforms.
But I still believe physical music formats will always matter!

Until it’s gone completely, I’m going to keep having fun designing them, and I recently got the chance to do a full vinyl package for Bloom. ( A super dope Sydney-based metalcore band).

This has been a goal of mine since college
Back when I was doing music concept work and even up to my somewhat recent hardcore alphabet series.
Cool to see those early proof of concepts lead to real projects now!

I had so much fun making this one and I’ll be making a full YouTube video breaking it down, But wanted to share a little here first.

Jarod from the band came to me with a vision
Something photographic and nostalgic
I thought an analog printed look would capture that perfectly.

I also wanted to push it further, design-wise
So for the back I pitched a rectangle container style layout
Something I had done in concept work before and wanted to bring to life.

The typography mix was super fun to work with
Distressed sans serifs, a bold hero serif, and the little leaf motifs. That visual identity carried throughout the full rollout

Working in InDesign on big spreads and laying out all the lyrics was a fun challenge as well. Keeping styles consistent and building the system out was super rewarding.

The colors, the print treatments, the textures (All right up my alley).
Felt good applying years of practice to an official release like this.

I’m grateful to Jarod, Bloom, and Pure Noise for trusting me on this. It is only the beginning too. I have so many other sick projects in the pipeline that I am really excited to share with you all!

I’m actually already wrapping another album art for this dope UK punk band.

It’s nice getting to share this Bloom one now though, it takes so long to get things across the finish line at times due to millions of reasons but when it finanly works out it’s all wworth it.

That’s the tricky part of design. You work and refine and push it through approvals
Then wait months before the world ever sees it.

But the delayed gratification makes it worth it And I’m glad to be back in a rhythm after a heavy workload.
Hopefully now I can enjoy the fruits of my labor a little

Maybe even just play some video games on a Sunday. (Shoutout Deadlock)

Anyway I hope you’re doing well
Much love and talk soon

Cool stuff to check out

Weekly Wrap Up

How to Design a Brand from Scratch (Step-by-Step)

Watch Video

fun poster xperiment

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Cuesta Studio WFH Uniform

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 16:02:37 GMT

Hey friends,

Hope you’re doing well.
I’ve been deep in a mix of personal projects, client work, and some fun sponsored video stuff lately.

The other day, I was able to kill 2 birds with 1 stone tho!
I designed a new t-shirt and filmed a collab video around it.

It made me realize, even with all the client grind, I still want to create for fun, for myself, and for Cuesta Studio.

Cuesta isn’t just a design studio.
It’s also my place to drop cool, small-batch products for designers, creatives, and anyone who loves supporting small businesses.

So… here’s the SEMI BIG NEWS lol
I’m releasing the first official solo Cuesta Studio T-shirt.
It’s called Work From Home
printed right here in Covina on 100% USA-made Shaka garment-dyed tees.

Shop Here

High quality.
Loose fit.
Custom tags.
And most importantly NO shrinking cheap ass blanks.

It felt good to get back to my roots
I was hanging in my friend’s screen printing garage, surrounded by that DIY energy.

He prints for some of the best brands in LA and SGV, and we had a blast putting this together.

The design is everything I love
Bright, warm colors.
Creative layout.
Purely typographic-driven.

Pre-orders are open for the next week or two.
Orders will ship a couple of weeks after that.

Grab one here if you’re into it.
And even if you’re not buying right now, thank you for supporting my creative work in any way.
Much love, and good luck with whatever you’re building out there.

Talk soon!

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Working (Not) From Hone

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 16:03:13 GMT

How's it going?
Hope you're doing well.

I have been feeling a bit stale the past few weeks in my daily work life.

I’m so grateful that summer has been GOOD to me in terms of client work and getting to work on meaningful creative projects.

Unfortunately the only major downside to that (besides maybe my overloaded stress lol) is that I am WORKING IN MY HOME OFFICE TOO MUCH.

Working on a few major projects day to day, all starts to feel like a blur.

I wake up in the moring on a weekday, do the 15 seconds walk to my home office (my daily commute lol) and start working.

I usually just work all the way until I get super hungry and snap out of my adhd hyper fixated state.

At this point, I eat lunch and finsh all the work I have for the day, head to the climbing gym, eat dinner, watch some show and go to bed.

Besides the weekends, that is kinda the same at least 4 days out of the week.

Today, as im writing this on friday I decided to switch up the funk a little bit and have quite honestly the most “LA day” ever lol.

I started by driving in the semi morning traffic over to silverlake to meet one of my new homies Kat at this dope little coffee shop called Dayglow.

So meeting for a potential job in a boutique coffee shop on the east side of LA while rushing through traffic already felt hella “LA”.

Kat is a dope photogrpaher who shoots some of my fav bands in the HxC scene and we chopped it up about some exciting future projects.

From there I rushed over to a diner in LA to meet with some new online friends.

Crocodile Jackson and WizardofBarge (those obvi are not thier real names but most recognized by those sick monikers on Instagram

I had a great time and ate some pretty good food alongside some niche convos.

We hit it off right away and already feel like homies who have hunout multiple times, which is always a good thing and reliving tbh. I get hella nervous meeting new people at times.

I have been trying to do better at utilizing this INSANE network i’ve built over the years and meet up with my fellow creatives.

I have the luxury and privilege of knowing SO MANY DOPE PEOPLE on the internet and every time i meet up with some of them it’s a good time so i def need to more often.

In between these little meetings too, that little devil inside me that forces me to do graphic design and work on stuff had me busting outsome revisiosn off no lunch and 2 coffees lol.

I am so swamped with work to be fully honest, but this is the life i always dreamed off. Living in SoCal, working for myself and being around dope people.

Don't complain about having a lot on your plate when your goal was to eat

To top off this whole “most LA type shit ever” in the evening i went over to my long time friend Sean Martens movie premiere in the valley.

He made a short form recently called “Rental” and I had to show out for the boy and check it out.

It’s kind of wild to think about how much easy access i have to so many cool locations and dope people. I am fully trying to take advantage of this more while I can.

I know this newsletter might have just felt like me giving you a recap on my day (umm cuz it was lol)

However, that is lowkey the point. I want this to be a place where we can talk about design but also just what’s happening.

I don’t have a lot of outlets these days to be more introsepctive and personal. I will not let the newsletter become dictated by algorithms or graphic design buzzwords.

I hope y’all are having a great day and maybe if ya can, do something yourself to swich up the routine this week.

Much love and Talk Soon!

Cool stuff to check out

Weekly Wrap Up

cover art for In The Break

Sound and Fury Photos

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Being a Designer Online

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 16:02:29 GMT

How's it going?
Hope you're doing well.

I haven't been making much content lately because I've been so busy with “actual work”.

I put that in quotation marks because I feel like even though I've established myself (to some extent) as a content creator online, the real work still always feels like the design work or doing something of the actual craft.

What’s even strange about that is sometimes the video stuff sometimes takes longer than the proper design work.

The main reason I have been thinking about the split of content/design is due to this amazing article I read by Elizabeth Goodspeed

READ IT HERE

If you arent familar with Elizabeth, she writes amazing articles for It’s Nice That, and I’m also so excited when a new one pops up in my feed.

She has a lot to say about the creative industry, and it is always
super niche
super nuanced
and always super thoughtful.

Basically the whole article is about the history of designers also being performers(or in the public spotlight) and how that's evolved over the years

All the way from Stefan Sagmeister doing a poster carved into his body up to someone pretending to design a logo and record it with quick jump cuts on their phone as a TikTok.

I really resonated with this because I sometimes feel very strange about this whole thing of designers becoming more public-facing.

Being hired not just for their work
But for the person behind the work, or even the “performance” of the work that is being done.

It's kind of like those people on TikTok who mow really overgrown lawns
The content is more valuable and pays more than the cutting of the grass

I don't think it's quite that proper of a comparison because I still think design is an important craft and occupation for people to have in our world.
Messages will always need to be communicated and look good.

But these days there are so many people who can make a living by
- just talking about design
- Performing design
- Or just being in the design community
And the work doesn't even have to be stellar.

I say this not as a piece of criticism, but as a reflection of myself too.

I don't think I'm the best designer in the world, and I know I owe a lot of my success to showing up online, creating content and recording myself doing design or design adjacent stuff.

So I have huge admiration for the people who have built greatdesign careers without having to do that. But I also admire the people who do.

At the end of the day, it's just about expressing yourself.
Trying to make something work in a way that works for you, and using your unfair advantages to help propel yourself in the world in whatever creative thing you're doing.

It is crazy though…
How graphic design or just being a creative person online is almost a job in itself now.

Honestly, I could probably get by in life by just creating content the entire year and not doing any actual projects.
But I can't see myself ever wanting to do that.

Not only do I feel like I owe it to myself to keep being a practitioner of the thing I first fell in love with, But it feels weird cosplaying as something that I don't actually want to do or be a part of.

I always joke around with my friends sometimes when I take on a lower budget project, after I just did some big sponsored post because It feels like I'm doing it for “the love of the game”.

But the fact that I still feel that way gives me hope that I'll keep feeling that way as my career goes on.

Creative jobs are becoming more than just what you create, but showing the process of how you create things, Or even documenting your life as a member of that profession.

I didn't sum this up as beautifully as Elizabeth Goodspeed did, so definitely check out her article.

I even messaged her about it after she posted it because it felt so on the nose for the type of stuff that I'm doing. It was cool to see such a hyper-specific conversation about something I think about often.

I've just been thinking about that a little too much because my workload fluctuates so much.
Sometimes I have a heavier content creation week.
Sometimes it's big client work.

This past month, I've been locked down working on album art projects and a couple of other big client things behind the scenes.
It reminded me why I do this thing in the first place and what I truly love to do.

I even allowed myself a little bit of time to play recently. I used this cool old kids’ camera that I got online to take pictures of some of my favorite past typographic poster designs.

And scanned them in to see how they would look.

Sometimes you just have to mess around a little bit.
Even if the outcome isn't the best
or nothing important comes from it
It’s important just to experiment and scratch that itch of curiosity when you start to think “I wonder what would happen if I did this?”

Anyway that's all I have for you this time.

Curious what you think about this whole content creation and design overlap these days?
Also what kind of cool stuff are you doing to “play” and scratch that creative itch in your brain.

Much love and talk soon

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

cool graphics for Clairo by James Ronko

Weekly Wrap Up

Is AI Taking Over Graphic Design?

My fav designs over the years - SEE THEM HERE

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

The Long Game of Concept Work

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 16:00:19 GMT

Hey y’all,
I hope everyone is doing good.

I’ve been knee-deep this week in some client album artwork for some really exciting bands.

I’m so grateful, honestly, these days to be this busy working on official music projects, because it took a long time to even get recognized or get the opportunities to do stuff like this.

However, I can trace back some of that trajectory to doing concept work.

And that’s a little bit of what I want to talk about today.

It is almost indescribable how important it is to do concept work and create personal projects that reflect the type of stuff you truly want to be doing.

If you don’t show the world what you’re capable of — the things you want to do, just for fun, with real passion — how can we expect people to hire us for those exact things?

Sure, we’d love to be trusted inherently by clients, especially when we know in our hearts we can create cool stuff.

But that’s not really how the world works.

We have to show up, create stuff, and put that proof of concept out into the world.

Last year, I completed my Hardcore Alphabet series — one of my biggest personal projects to date — where I redesigned a hardcore band’s album cover for each letter of the alphabet.

It was a big task and took me a little over 26 weeks to complete.

And yes, it brought me connections.
I got to meet a lot my favorite bands members.

However, after I finished the project… nothing really came of it for a while.

Yeah, my skills improved. I showed the world what kind of work I can create in the music space — art direction, packaging, cover art, and so on.

But for at least six months, no actual new work came from it.

I kind of started to write it off — like, maybe someone would remember it later and reach out.

So I kept going.
Kept designing, kept learning, kept growing my network.

Now fast forward to mid-2025…

I’ve gotten contacted for five to ten album art projects just in the last couple of months.

Granted, I couldn’t take them all at once (it’s a bigger task than I’m ready for), but I’m working on two or three right now at the same time.

And honestly? I’m busier than ever, but I’m also more excited than ever to work on design stuff.

It was always a dream of mine to make stuff I could see in the real world.

It’s just a win-win when that stuff is for cool ass people like hardcore punk bands or anything in that alternative music genre.

I’m really excited for these projects to come out.

The way it works, though, is that I’ll finish the design this month… but I probably won’t see it in record stores or online until late this year — or maybe even early next year.

But the more of this I get to work on, the more chances I have to put cool shit into the world.

Music and design are two of my favorite things in the world.
And it’s surreal that most days I get to work on something related to both.

This newsletter isn’t just me bragging about the kinds of projects I want to work on.

Truthfully, I didn’t start getting projects like this until this past year, and I’ve been doing design for over a decade now (if you let me count high school lol)

I’m sharing this to stress the importance of continuing to make things when no one is asking you to.

I probably sound like a broken record (pun intended) talking about personal work and concept work all the time…

But it’s so valuable.

You get to make cool shit.
You become a better designer.
And you show the world that cool shit.

So they hire you to make more of it.

It’s a self-sustaining creative cycle.

All powered by putting stuff into the world — and attracting the type of people who vibe with it.

And this can be anything, right?

It doesn’t just have to be music-related.

You can make concept logos, posters, full brand identities, photography, illustration — whatever it is.

Show the world what they’re missing out on by not hiring you.

I think as designers, we owe it to the world to do our best and make cool stuff, so that people can enjoy the things they already love in a new, better way.

So yeah — this isn’t me telling you anything you don’t already know.

It’s just a reminder.
For myself, and maybe for you too.

When client work is dry, just make shit for fun anyway.
That fun work might end up leading to the most exciting projects of your career.

That’s all I got for you this week.

But I’d love to know what you’re working on.

I’m always sitting here talking about my own stuff, but I’d love to hear what you awesome readers are up to.

So drop a comment and let me know:
A personal project, a fun client (if you can share), or just whatever hobby’s been filling your time lately.

Much love,
Talk soon.

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

super cool 3D work by Archfiend

Weekly Wrap Up

How I improved my design work over the last 10 years

watch video

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Fuck Ice

Jesse Nyberg — Sat, 14 Jun 2025 19:41:41 GMT

Hey y’all

A little bit different one this week. If it’s not your speed, it is what it is.

I've been traveling all week and had this amazing opportunity to visit the Adobe office in SF.

That was all fun and all + it was nice kicking it with some familiar homies like Ethan.

However, leaving LA in such a strange time definitely made me feel conflicted.

Los Angeles has been my home for many years and I’ve lived 80% of my life in the greater Southern California area.

In addition to that, growing up as a mainly white passing person who is 50% Mexican, I have gotten to enjoy all the amazing cultural benefits of being part of the Mexican people, without many of the downsides.

So in times like this, I feel so much guilt for getting to live basically a normal life, while my people are being so wronged.

If you live in LA, you know the CITY RUNS ON THE BACKS OF MEXICANS.

We would not have amazing food, the most fun cultural events, and all the hard labor jobs that these people sacrifice so much to do for a country that is currently giving them so little.

To put it simply this whole situation is just so wack.

The idea of imaginary lines on the planet dictating where and how humans can live is quite silly when you think about it.

I look around and see so much chaos and it’s sad seeing bad things happen to the city, but at some point it feels like the only way to get a point across.

Seeing fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers being stripped away from their families just because of what is written on a piece of paper or the color of their skin is disgusting.

I know most people probably don’t see me as Mexican based on my late mother’s last name (Nyberg) or the way I look.

But I am proud to be Mexican, proud of my Mexican heritage, my Cuesta family, and right now I am ashamed of the way this country is treating good humans.

I know I don’t talk about this kinda shit too much but i feel at least some small responsibility use my platform when i can.

That being said i am not the most up to date on all the what resources with my traveling so please if you have any good places to donate, ways to help and things to share link them in the comments below.

Sick Katamari design by Yabra

As of now, one direct way I know you can support and kill 2 birds with one stone

Support hardcore music and support people affected by ice, checkout this merch from Barrio Slam

For my people in LA, be careful out there and watch out for photos and things you post online that could do more harm than good.

Fuck ICE.

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Making time for art

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 16:01:18 GMT

Hey friends,
How’s everyone doing? Hopefully, everything is all right in each of your little worlds.

Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about balancing personal work, content, and client stuff.

I’ve always been a big advocate for doing personal work (concept work, art, whatever you want to call it.)

I built a lot of my career opportunities, audience following, and skills as a designer by doing tons of personal work when there weren’t opportunities for me to work on actual stuff.

As I get busier and busier working on YouTube videos, brand deals, and official client design work, there’s less room time wise and space in my head wise to work on fun personal design projects.

It’s weird because I think I got so used to doing those personal projects all the time that even when I’m busy with actual work, I still feel drawn to them.

I want to do them, and I want to express myself through graphic design without a brief or a client telling me what to do.

The funny thing is, most graphic designers I know start doing concept work or personal work as a way to showcase their skills, share things they’re passionate about, and gain more clients.

Ideally, you’re so busy with official projects that you don’t even have time to do personal work.

Right now, I’ve kind of been at that point in my career, which is something I should be grateful for.

But it’s one of those classic dilemmas where the grass is always greener.

Sometimes I get so wrapped up with real projects that I feel like I need to aggressively take back some of my time and set aside a whole day just to work on personal work.

The other day, I was just sitting in my office and was like, fuck it. I want to design something just for me.

So I whipped up this little poster design for Cuesta Studio, and threw it back a little bit to one of my old techniques — where I used different colored paper, printed on it, and cut out the shapes for the containers.

I also thought, you know what? Let’s try it as a little merch mockup — that might look pretty cool too.

And I was pretty happy with the results!

This may not even become anything that actually matters or gets printed or whatever, but just the act of creating from start to finish and making something in one day feels good every once in a while.

And I’ve truly been slacking.

I used to be proud of the level of work and amount of work I would produce each year.

I think in 2023, I created an insane amount of personal pieces — somewhere between 80 and 100.

Even in 2024, I’ve created over 50 so far.
A majority of those were from my hardcore alphabet series, but still.

This year, we’re already in June, and I think I’ve made 12 or 15 things.

So if we’re lucky, I’m on par to make maybe 30 max.

I’m trying to turn that around a little bit and make some more stuff.

It’s all just a balance, though.

I’m also trying to do more leisurely stuff, do more things outside of design, and balance making videos and client work.

It’s always just a weird situation in general when you work for yourself and have to balance all the different things you want to do each day.

The latest installment of personal work I was doing was this fun little concept for the Title Fight album Shed

Shed is ne of the best albums of all time, in my opinion.

I realized it came out during one of those periods when we weren’t doing the retro love for vinyls, and cassettes were kind of dead.

So I noticed there was no cassette version for this.

And lately, I’ve been really getting into collecting cassette tapes.

So I thought, you know what? Let’s make my own little concept.

I’ll probably throw that up on IG sometime in the next week or two, but I wanted to share it with you all first.

I appreciate all y’all who read the newsletter.

You’re the core real ones.

And it feels nice to have an outlet to share stuff with you all that isn’t dictated by algorithms or what tech billionaires think you should be seeing,

but rather, what I want to show you.

Anyway, before I go too far off on a tangent about that, we’ll end it there.

Hopefully y’all have a great week ahead of yourselves and get the opportunity to make something for fun.

Much love,
Talk soon ❤️

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

Starlife by Mira Joyce

Weekly Wrap Up

How To present your design work to clients

Watch Video Here

New personal piece

post here

K.I.M Still has some units available

Shop Here

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

I Got Married

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 25 May 2025 16:02:15 GMT

Hey friends,
Hope you are doing well and living life in the best way possible — whether that's with work, fun stuff, or even non-work serious stuff, whatever it may be.

The last three weeks or so have been some of the busiest I’ve ever been in my entire life, and this time it actually wasn't with work.

I’m the type of person who loves my routine, loves my career, and quite frankly, loves working on the stuff that I'm building.

Whether it be proper design work, content about design, or anything in between.

With that mentality, though, I sometimes have a hard time fully disconnecting from the work.

And I think the main driving factor of that is when your passions and main hobby become your actual career — and becoming the MAIN thing that makes you money.

The more work you put in, the harder it feels to justify stepping away. It feels like you're doing a disservice to yourself to not always be on the grind, so to speak.

However, the last couple of weeks I had been preparing for one of the biggest moments of my entire life — and it was not related to graphic design.

Sometimes I can feel like my life is dictated by what I do as a professional rather than just the things I do as a human.

But this past week...
I got fucking married!

By far one of the biggest milestones I’ve ever hit in my life — and just an overall amazing experience.

Not only did I get to celebrate with all my closest friends and family and marry my best friend Erika,
I also kind of trained myself to actually celebrate — to fully disconnect from the rat race for more than just a week at a time, and really put effort into a personal experience.

So sorry I’ve been a little bit MIA, but hopefully this explains why.

The wedding was so sick.

I’ve got a few snapshots I can share with you now, but I’m still waiting for the amazing photographer to send over the rest.

And we even had one of the homies shooting on Super 8, so I’m super excited to see that as well.

Overall though — it was kind of perfect.

All my best homies were there.
My family was there.
We had a freaking photo booth and someone giving Tatoos at the wedding lol.

It was just great to celebrate love with my now wife Erika and have such a dope celebration in our own home.

We had the wedding at the very house we first met at and now live in. That full-circle moment hit hard.

It's still taking me some time to fully process it all, but I’m just really grateful that I’m in a place now where I can disconnect from work and enjoy these big life moments.

Because it’s so easy — for myself, and I’m sure for many of you too — to get wrapped up in work or art or projects that feed the creative side of us… or, let’s be honest, even the ego side of us sometimes.

So this was a cool experience to have — to just fully soak it up and live it up.

Thank you all for being here with me along the ride.

It’s wild to think I started sharing online during Covid, at one of the lowest points in my life… and now we’re here.

So much dope shit has happened between then and now.

And now I get the honor of sharing this milestone with all of you — me getting married!

I honestly couldn’t do any of this without the support of everyone who digs what I put out into the world.

So shout out to y’all.

Anyway — that’s what I’ve been up to.

Excited to get back into some cool projects coming up soon.

Hope y’all are enjoying stuff outside of the career rat race every now and then too.

Much love,
Talk soon ❤️

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

by March Busch

Weekly Wrap Up

a crucial message for my fellow graphic designers

Watch the video here

New personal piece

post here

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Make sure to kick it with other creative people

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 04 May 2025 16:01:26 GMT

Hey friends,

Hope you’re all doing well!

In last weeks issue i talked a bit about how meeting other creatives leads to cool projects and a fun poster project i got to work on with my homie Baron.

Well, conveniently enough, this past weekend (and a few extra days in the week) I flew down to Austin to hang with some homies and watch some amazing films be premiered at the Camp Film Fest.

all the films played at the legendary Paramount Theatre

and HOLYYYY

What an inspiring and fun weekend.

Everyone in that community from the fillmakers, artists, designers and any creator in that crew is just so damn talented.

Not only that, but they are a fun hang too.

Not many people can inspire me the way these people do, but it’s also nice that the same homies are down to crush a few modelos at the bar lol.

It’s so valuable to have a community of people who share similar goals and visions that you do. The artistic medium that you create in is kind of irrelevant to this connection, its more about having that similar thought process and vibe.

It’s hard to relate to people at times with the niche struggles I go through being a designer and content creator online. It feels validating to talk through things as superficial as Instagram analytics or YouTube thumbnails and get real-time opinions from people you respect and trust.

Outside of any career advancement, though, or trading of inside tips and tricks lol. It is just nice to have like-minded people to hangout with.

This trip to Austin was so much fun, and it reminded me how much I enjoy hanging out with this unique group of internet friends I had the pleasure of meeting in February 2024.

That whole lore can be found here

Im writing this now, feeling kinda sick and very tire,d which is a mark of knowing I truly lived it up.

Hard not to stay up until 4 am each night and wake up at 8am when your rooming with Paolo, who is notorious for pushing through without any sleep lol.

prob didn’t help that this was my breakfast one of the days…

At the film fest too it was so cool seeing people wear the merch I designed and being stoked to hear that I was the one who made the Two Sleepy People poster.

I think designers at times go overlooked and in turn we have become a very self-deprecating group of creative professionals. So it was nice to get a win for all the insecure graphic designers out there lol.

I feel so grateful to even be able to do stuff like this. Growing up in a way different world I get to live in now and generally being pretty pessimistic about society. I feel I have truly turned over a new leaf.

I am spoiled with amazing friendships back home, get to travel around and hang with all my awesome creative friends I’ve met around the world, have a great partner who I am getting married to in a couple ofweeks, and get to work on stuff I am truly passionate about every day.

Nice to stop and smell the roses every once in a while.

Not sure where I entirely wanted to go with this newsletter write up, all I know is I wanted to give y’all a little update and remind you to find a creative community that energizes you to make cool shit.

Thank you to all of you who support my career in any capacity, I most def wouldn’t be able to do any of this without y’all!

Much love and talk soon!

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

Weekly Wrap Up

Making a website for the GOAT of graphic design

Watch Video

New personal piece

see more HERE

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Movie Magic

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 16:01:27 GMT

Hey friends,

Hope you’re all doing well!

Over the past few weeks (actually the past month or so) I’ve been working on a super exciting project with someone who’s become a good friend of mine. Today, I just wanted to give you a little behind-the-scenes look into how it all came together.

I used to think stuff like the butterfly effect, how everything’s connected, and the whole “one thing leads to another” idea was kind of… BS. But the more things in my life that seem to connect in that exact way, the more I start to believe there might be something to it.

Back in February 2024, I went to this creator camp—shout out to Katie Mai for putting me onto it. I had no idea what I was walking into, just that I’d be meeting a bunch of internet creatives—from influencers to filmmakers, to artists, to a few other designers.

It turned out to be one of the most pivotal moments of my career in terms of building a real community of like-minded people.

Everyone there had a similar vision or goal, but they were chasing it through totally different mediums. We bonded hard—like hyper-speed bonding. Honestly, it felt like we were all close friends after just a week. Might’ve been more trauma bonding since we didn’t have power for most of the trip and had to improvise everything, but still.

That’s where I met Baron—aka American Baron. You’ve probably seen him online. He was arguably the most popular person there, and he makes these really funny and creative skit-type videos.

Since then, we’ve hung out a few times—some trips, some dinners in LA—and recently, the folks from creator camp asked me to collaborate on a film festival they’re launching.

Baron and I in France. Plus a few other homies Ethan and Bart.

I had to be paired with a filmmaker… and guess what i got paired up with Baron lol. Baron is actually premiering a feature film there. This became the perfect chance to work on something dope with a good friend.

*I’ll be heading to Austin for the premiere too, so if you go come say wassup.

The film’s a rom-com kinda thing and working on the merch and poster has been a fun little journey.

We went through a ton of poster iterations. The goal was to keep it rooted in that older Hollywood style—something that wasn’t so in-your-face, like floating Avengers heads everywhere.

I started with the merch designs. We had a couple of different directions, but we eventually landed on this dreamy, half-toned version featuring the two main characters. It had this floaty, nostalgic feel with some fun typography wrapped around it.

FINAL MERCH DESIGN

I think I submitted 3-4 final designs to baron and here were those as well.

I tried to have some variety but you could tell they kinda follow the same style with that one photo.
Here was the thing lol… At the time I designed this stuff, the movie hadn’t even been shot yet.

I only had one photo to work with: a casual iPhone pic of Baron and Caroline sitting on a couch. That was it. But honestly, considering that, I’m really stoked with how it all turned out. Just goes to show what good typography can do.

the original photo

Once the merch was locked in, I knew I wanted the poster to follow the same visual system—same type, same colors, same vibe.

We explored a few poster versions. That all followed a similar type style from the merch as well as being rooted in that old Hollywood style we kinda set as an anchor.

Below are some alts to the final poster.

But the final one was super minimal, with tons of negative space. It used that same half-tone effect from the merch, but I wanted to push it a little more visually.

So—I printed it on transparent vellum paper using an inkjet printer, then scanned it back in. That gave the type this soft, bleedy texture and made the whole thing feel more tactile and visually interesting.

We were also hyped about how the pink color was printed. The characters looked great, and we went with a staggered type treatment for the billing block to give it that avant-garde flavor instead of the standard tall-condensed block of credits.

Here is the final poster:

Anyway—just wanted to share what I’ve been up to.

If you’re down to come to the film festival (not an ad, I promise), tickets are linked right here—and I’ll be there too, hanging with the homies.

It’s been refreshing to dive into some longer-form design work again instead of just cranking out one-off Instagram posts or content on the fly.

I tend to move between seasons—sometimes I’m deep in design, other times I’m more focused on content.

Right now, it’s all about client work… and surprisingly, I’m kind of enjoying it. A little stressed, sure. But getting by.

That’s it for now. Much love—and I hope you’re working on something exciting too.

Peace. ✌️

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

office design by YOFF

Weekly Wrap Up

Reviewing your dope graphic design portfolios

Watch Here!

BITS AND BOBS ZINE - About 10 copies left

Shop Here

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

The Morning Routine

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 16:02:02 GMT

How's it going, everybody? As I'm writing this, it's about 12:00 PM. I woke up pretty late today.

Nothing scrambles my creative focus, discipline, and overall productivity for the day like waking up later than I wanted to. Especially when I know I have way too much shit to do.

It's just really overwhelming sometimes when you sabotage yourself by staying up till 3:00 or 4:00 AM and then know you have a lot of bullshit to do in the morning.

So with that being said, my morning routine got a little busted today. For me, my morning routine is really grounding.

THE ROUTINE

My half ass start to the day

As a freelancer, you can do whatever you want whenever you want,
but it's all still up to you to ultimately produce the things that fulfill you. You also have to satisfy the clients with whatever they have in mind for their goals and create content for yourself and your audience.

So my morning routine in this scenario is super important to me and allows me to become ready for the day. Essentially, this is what I would normally do if I didn't sleep in.

I usually wake up around 9 or 10. The time change honestly fucked me up, so lately I've been waking up around 10.

The good thing is I don't have to commute or do any super long preparation in the morning. I pretty much just walk down the stairs and then back up into the office. That's the morning commute.

These days, I have been doing a super easy breakfast. Something that will keep me full until lunchtime, give me energy, but also not overly bog me down and make me crash around the afternoon.

Lately, I've been doing a protein shake and then either overnight oats, normal oatmeal, avocados, bananas — whatever I have laying around, something like that.

Then of course the cliche most important part is going to be the morning coffee.

I've been doing pour overs for the last few years. I think I said five years in my recent vlog, but it's probably more like 10.
(Wait no, I would've only been 17, probably eight years.)

I do really enjoy the pour over method though.

It brings out the best flavors and the process is very pleasent.
I am a very anxious person who is always thinking about a million things, so having a routine that allows me to focus, be meditative, and just be mindful about what I'm doing is important.

Doing the whole little process of the pour over is nice. I love finding the types of coffee beans that I like, heating up the water, grinding the beans, and preparing the cup.

Wetting the water on the filter, doing that initial bloom of the coffee, and then the you know the deal. You do two more cycles of water and whatnot to get your perfect cup of however you like it.

I definitely know I'm at least kind of addicted to caffeine because I'm addicted to the energy, the taste, and the process that all of it entails.
But what are you going to do? You need something.

Can't just be out here raw dogging life. Those who can, props to you.

My favorite coffee beans these days are from Dayglow and Slowbloom

LMK if you have any recommendations though!

From there, when I get into the office, I usually get all the bullshit out of the way. That way, I can focus on the true creative work that I want to be doing.

I'll pay bills, budget money, respond to emails, and get all the admin stuff banged out. *As long as its not some super time-intensive thing

If it's less than 30 minutes or an hour, I'll do it right away.
Don't get me wrong, more stuff like that will come piling in throughout the day, but I'll save it for the end of my work or the next morning.

Once you metaphorically clear your desk or whatever, by getting rid of all the digital clutter, this is when the true creative work comes in. I guess this either starts the day or ends my morning routine at this point.

I do my most important work these days from around 10/11 to 2/ 3. Sometimes I work a lot longer than that, later into the night.

Other times, I feel satisfied that I finish what I need to do by 3-4 PM. As long as it's work I'm proud of and I know what I have to do for the rest of the week, I've grown to give myself that grace of finishing at a healthy point and not burning myself out as much.

I still do burn out quite a bit sometimes, but it is what it is.
That’s pretty much it though.

Mine ain't nothing special, but it works for me. And I'm really curious to hear from other designers, artists, photographers — any type of freelancer who works from home or in a studio. What is your morning routine looking like these days?

Much love and talk soon. Peace.

Cool stuff to check out

Fav Design of the week below

Album art by Kevin Hackett

Weekly Wrap Up

Creating a merch campaign for my graphic design studio

Watch New Video

KEEP IT MOVING Merch is NOW LIVE

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

KEEP IT MOVING

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 16:00:57 GMT

Hey friends, hope everyone is doing well. I have been absolutely locked in the past few weeks working on some client projects and an exciting campaign.

I'm so stoked to announce the first official collaboration and merch for Cuesta Studio in collaboration with the homies over at Powder Blue

SHOP HERE

Let me tell you a little bit more about how this all came about.

Every once in a while you find some people who have that same love and dedication to creativity as you. A true passion for wanting to create fun and meaningful work.

That combined with this mantra i’ve always loved “Keep it Moving” spawned this mini merch capsule collection.

K.I.M. A nice thing to live To push on when things are bad,
to keep the momentum when things are good,
and to overall just always be in motion.
*Even if it's just a little bit.

An absolute shout-out to A Tribe Called Quest for their original track that inspired not only that way of thinking but also served as a small nugget of inspiration for this campaign.

It is crazy how things all come to be. I met this dude Shua at a creator event in France of all places, and I met Nate at some random little networking dinner over in Santa Monica.

Who knew those two different moments would transpire into getting to create something that has been super rewarding and a great experience overall. The team over at Powder Blue and I have cooked something up that I'm super proud of.

Also, a big shout-out to their designer Moy, who helped come up with the idea to use my Keep It Moving graphic and gave me the inspiration to modify it further and elaborate on it.

The original graphic that I printed on a sticky note

For this merch, I've always wanted to create some cool new shirts. Ever since I dropped my clothing brand Depravity back in high school, I have been itching to get back into making something that I love.

This was such a great opportunity to do that. And we did not skimp on the details.

These are some super high-quality screen-printed tees on the absolute best

LA Based garment dyed heavyweight tees from Shaka.

It had to be done this way, I HATE CHEAP T SHIRTS.

Nothing will deter me more from buying an awesome design graphic on a T-shirt than when I see it printed on a Gildan or Comfort Colors. It completely kills the mood.

So I had to make sure we created something that not only you would be stoked to wear but I would also be proud of.
We are dropping the two colorways, both Blue/Yellow & the Black/Red.

It's just super dope, and I'm really happy with how this collaboration came about. It's a cool way to connect Los Angeles and Chicago together, as well as connect my love for design and creation with Nate's and the Powder Blue team.

They also cooked up an insane campaign, and I'm so stoked that some of you all have been able to see that so far. I also just wanted to share with you some of the designs, the photo shoot, and the final product.

We even did a playlist to match the drop, you can listen to it HERE

Even if you don't end up buying one of these, I want to thank all the people who read this newsletter for being a constant source of inspiration and all the amazing support you all have had for my various creations over the years.

And if you do end up copping one, I'm so stoked to see y'all start wearing them.

If you want to grab one, go ahead and get it here. Much love and keep it moving.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Shout out to the homie Taiga for coming on, helping with the shoot, and supplying the best prop I've ever been able to use in a production — his dope vintage BMW.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm super excited. It's been really fun to work on some stuff behind the scenes, stuff that takes a little bit longer and just bigger projects in general.

I was getting so used to this quick-to-consume and quick-to-forget world of Instagram graphics and posters, it’s been dope switching it up.

So yeah, talk soon. Much love.

KEEP IT MOVING Merch is NOW LIVE

Thanks for reading!
I plan on keeping this newsletter free, but if you want to support, the best way is to share it with a friend :)

Creative identity Crisis

Jesse Nyberg — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 16:01:25 GMT

How's it going, everybody? Hope you are doing well.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about all these nuances and grey areas I live in.

Specifically this balance between being an artist graphic designer and content creator.

It was running around my brain so much that I even made an entire video about it.

But for now, I wanted to chat a little about it here in the newsletter.

The problem with creative labels

First things first, I love being someone who gets to “make stuff” for a living.

An Artist.

Creator.

Designer.

Whatever you wanna call it.]

That is where the tricky part comes in though, I think these days creatives are so preoccupied with labeling who they are and the identity that follows that.

I’m afraid that the trap of identity as an artist can take away from the beauty of actually creating…

In my own personal experience, I juggle many different creative pursuits but the big 3 are being a graphic designer, an artist, and a content creator.

If you put those 3 titles in some kind of tri-circular Venn diagram thing., the sweet spot that i like to live in this days is somewhere in the middle.

If you want to get super heady with it too, you can zoom out even more and have a big circle around that that is labeled “creative” and fill in all the other stuff you may pursue that is more “right-brained”

Having these creative labels or artist identities can be a blessing and a curse.

When I look at it from a negative perspective, it makes sense to think that since im juggling between those 3 pursuits, they are only all getting a divided portion of my time and energy.

It’s impossible for me to put 100% of my attention into 3 different crafts.

So with that math I am only a ⅓ as good of a designer, content creator and an artist that i could ever be.

Looking at it from this perspective can really cause the imposter syndrome to set in.

But like anything, you can almost always choose to frame through a positive lens.

For example, Instead of being 1/3 as good at these things, I can say, “I am a multidisciplinary creative, and all three of those things inform each other and allow me to be multifaceted, improving on all of my creative pursuits in some kind of symbiotic relationship.”

It’s strange too cuz i’ve tried going all in on any one of these pursuits but I my mind always strays to wanting to try new things.

I think I will always do design in some way or another, but i’ve learned to allow myself to try new creative pursuits and sometimes they actually make me better at design as a byproduct.

So at the end of the day i guess that is just how my brain works and I have to be content with being just okay at all 3 of these pursuits that way i can afford myself the privilege of doing all 3 of them at all.

This exact reason of just being okay at all 3 of my passions is why i never feel like i fully fit into the communities of each of these.

I don’t feel artistic enough to be with the fine art people

I don’t feel accomplished enough in my client work to be seen as a true professional designer

And I don’t only focus on content so it can be hard to resonate with creators sometimes.

This grey area is i think a microcosm of something i have honestly felt my entire life.

Being half white and half Mexican I always felt to white for the Mexicans and too Mexican for the whites.

Being into hardcore, punk and the DIY scene but also being kind of a nerd who is into computers, video games, business and tech I have often felt too corporate for the punks and too punk for the corporate people.

And maybe these are just some corny analogies that my current situation has given me way to much freedom to sit around and think about but I just wanted to give you a little but of context of the headspace im in when i talk through these types of things.

I have obviously not come up with any kind of cure or remedy to this existential creative crisis,s but I would love to know what you think.

How do you feel about the Artist identity crisis and what different hats are you wearing in the world you created?

Oh yeah, check out the full video on YT if ya wanna see a deeper dive on thi