Asking people to pay for something you’ve created is a skill that is not taught anywhere in school, and can only be learned by actually doing it. James Clear.

By their nature, introverts tend to get passionate about one, two or three things in their life, … and in the service of their passion for an idea they will go out and build alliances and networks and acquire expertise and do whatever it takes to make it happen. Elizabeth Bernstein.

I think there's different doors and different planes of aloneness. You're only able to get to a certain depth of creativity if you're being constantly distracted. And I think you can cross further if you're alone for, say, eight hours with no distraction. You can cross even deeper if you're alone for a week. I found that it really wasn't until about two days into any given stretch that I was able to get to a place of inspiration—that I had anything valid to say. That's just the way I work. And I've come to recognize that through the years, that I'm really not digging deep enough until I've been alone for a certain amount of time. DJ Shadow.

I cannot lie: as good as it feels to get my deserved props, the best part of reading social media after I meet folks is reading: «Mike was a nice guy.» I believe being honourable lasts longer than rapping good. Killer Mike.

Instead of competing and submitting free work for projects on sites like the ones previously mentioned, focus the time and energy you would spend on those treatments on your own self promotion. Don’t take on free or cheap projects because they seem «cool» — a good creative can turn any project into a «cool» one no matter what the product or who the client is. That is our job afterall. Make your own personal design project for a cause you believe in — or just for the sake of self-expression. Make your portfolio site as attractive and unique as can be, promote your work on social media, submit to design blogs, award shows, and take the time to develop your own style and seek out clients directly. Matt Titone.

Taking a job for cheap using the excuse that it will «be good for your portfolio» has terrible financial repercussions to our industry at large. Trust me, I know from experience. Those clients will tell other people in need of design work their story when asked how much they paid and that’s how we get this negotiable reputation in the first place. Matt Titone.

… good design is more expensive than mediocre design, just as a meal prepared by a top chef is way more expensive than fast food.

You can’t negotiate the price of your meal at McDonald’s or a fancy restaurant for that matter. You certainly can’t go into a Michelin–starred restaurant and expect an entree to cost the same as a Big Mac.

Matt Titone.

Graphic design was respected as a sort of magic that helped people (usually to make money). Now it's a troublesome decoration process that must be applied to stay even. Sad. Art Chantry.

… when we launched Typekit we charged customers from day one even though we didn’t have a search engine. We created some good partnerships with foundries, so that we had about 800 vaults in the library, but no engine to actually search them. You had to page through a file that you couldn’t sort. And we didn’t do alphabetical order because honestly fonts vary in quality and usefulness. If all your pixilated retro grungy fonts start with A, you’re library will look really bad. So we put them in order of how much we liked the font. You couldn’t search or sort it—all you could do was hit the next button. Jeff Veen.

The big wave of objection from people when we announced Typekit was, «I’ll never rent my fonts.» I did not believe that to be true. Because if I could create a service that you wanted to use, you would never think about buying a font again. It’s not about switching to a new thing, it’s about, «I need that service.» Jeff Veen.