Obsessed with Aaron Draplin

I’m not sure when I first stumbled upon Aaron Draplin, but how can you not love someone that is so dang genuine. He is always shooting it straight and you can tell that he loves what he does. We were all created with a special set of skills, find out what those skills are and maximize them. I’m not sure where I heard this but I believe it to be true: You can only be really excellent at something if you love it. 

The first video I watched with Aaron Draplin he told a story about how he had a friend who had a hot dog stand called “Cobra Dogs”. Apparently this friend was using a logo that was partially created from the Cobra logo that is part of G.I. Joe and owned by Mattel. So Mattel contacted the owner of Cobra Dogs and asked him to cease and desist with using their logo. So this guy reached out to Aaron for a new logo and the logo that Aaron created was so popular that the hot dog stand started selling more branded merchandise than hot dogs. How cool is that?! Clearly this is a great example of the power of design. It can be easy to think that your logo is just an afterthought, but a good logo, well, people will wear it, they will stick it on their cars and their laptops, they will want to be identified with it – and that is cool.

Pretty Much Everything

Right now Aaron is on tour promoting his book entitled “Pretty Much Everything” which has all of his logos and various projects in one book. It really is an amazing body of work. Some people geek out over celebrities that are in movies or television, but the people I want to meet and have a beer with are Aaron Draplin, Jeff Sheldon, Dana Tanamachi, and the guys over at Nutmegger Workshop. These are the people who inspire me to push beyond “good enough” and on toward excellence.

Hard Work Always Pays Off

Work hard doing something that you love. Take pride in what you do, but don’t be afraid to course correct and improve along the way. People never become a great success overnight.