Sam Vaughan (she/her) specializes in design, UX, and photography. Geeks out over word origins, future-forecasting, urban (and non-urban) wildlife, and Rebecca Solnit. Projects she's helped bring to life include creating Birthland's visual identity and creating stunning designs for Caliber's Annual Report.
Top: Birthland's visual identity seen live in Oakland, CA
Bottom: Caliber's 2018-2019 Annual Report
Tell us about your creative career path.
My career path has been by no means linear. Filled with many twists and turns, I feel grateful for the generosity of friends and strangers alike who have opened doors for me. I have a vague memory of an actor (maybe Bryan Cranston or Tom Hanks?) describing how you never really know when a door is going to open, you just have to be ready to step through and make the most of it when it does.
In high school, my journalism teacher opened a door to do photo assignments, when we didn’t have many options for art classes, and certainly not a photography class. In college, my art professors opened doors for me to get access to materials and space, so that I could make A LOT of work. As a new grad, my dentist opened a door for me to get my first job marketing for his dental office. During the course of which, a recruiter on Linkedin opened a door for me to join my first startup in the stock photography space. And just last year, a stranger on Linkedin (now my boss Ivi 😊) opened a door by graciously accepting coffee with me, a photo-editor/swiss army knife creative who was just transitioning into graphic design and hungry to work in the non-profit & social impact field.
... you never really know when a door is going to open, you just have to be ready to step through and make the most of it when it does.
I read a quote recently in Rebecca Solnit’s “A Field Guide to Getting Lost” where she quotes a man telling a story at the San Francisco Zen Center: “Calling out for help is a very generous act because it allows others to help us and it allows us to be helped.” More recently, I’ve come to believe that we can manifest some version of our dreams for the future by sharing our vision and goals with as many people in our lives as possible. The more people in my life knew the paths I truly wanted to explore, the more they were able to help me by pointing me in the right direction, clearing a barrier, connecting me with a guide, or showing me a path I hadn’t even considered.
Where do you get inspiration from? Describe your creative process.
My inspiration sources are one part mind-mapping, one part intense visual inspiration searches, and one part random encounters.
At the start of branding projects, I like to take note of some of the keywords that resonate with the client for their brand. I use these words as the anchoring points in my mind-maps, where I map out all the words and visual vocabulary that relate back to their core identity. Sometimes logo or tagline ideas emerge right out of the mind-mapping process. From there, I use this widened lens of ideas to generate visual searches online (Google, Pinterest, social media, etc.), browse through print materials, or explore spaces outside of my home. Throughout this process, I create a moodboard of all the visual vocabulary that resonates for this particular project.
My inspiration sources are one part mind-mapping, one part intense visual inspiration searches, and one part random encounters.
When I start working on a project, I’m thinking about it pretty much night and day. That doesn’t mean I’m working night and day, but when I’m walking down the street and thinking about what fonts evoke a certain quality or feeling I’m looking for, then when I encounter one that checks those boxes, I take a picture. And it doesn’t have to be something I see in person. I could be watching a movie, reading a book, doom-scrolling on Instagram, etc. The point is that when it’s top of mind, then my mind is automatically looking for those visual cues and inspiration.
What makes bombilla stand out from other creative workplaces?
The community. It feels like every colleague and client I work with truly want to be there working together. When clients hit milestones, we feel the excitement for them. When one of us is having a rough day, team members and clients alike are encouraging time for self-care. I feel very grateful that both our team and our clients not only care for the people they’re serving, but also for the people behind the scenes doing the work.
When clients hit milestones, we feel the excitement for them. When one of us is having a rough day, team members and clients alike are encouraging time for self-care.
How do you deal with the criticism from a boss or client?
I love this question! As much as I like to think that I am tough and resilient when it comes to handling criticism, I have to admit that sometimes it can be anxiety-inducing. But ultimately, your boss or clients will only share criticism with you when they respect your work, their work, and what you’re creating together. In that sense, criticism is one of the most generous gifts a person can share with you, especially when it comes from a place of love, respect, and the desire to achieve a common goal. When I receive criticism, I try to dig a little deeper on what can be learned from the feedback. What has this taught me? Is there something we’d do differently next time? Oftentimes these moments become doors to new pathways for discussion, and ultimately make your projects and work WAYYY more thoughtful and impactful.
...ultimately, your boss or clients will only share criticism with you when they respect your work, their work, and what you’re creating together.
How do you cope with what’s happening all around the country and/or World? (War, discrimination, injustice, exploitation, ecoanxiety, systemic racism, etc.) Any tips?
One principle that’s moved me forward in recent years is the reminder that change (of mind, of systems, of laws…) is incremental. It starts from the fringe and works its way inwards into the popular narrative and eventually to the people in power. Knowing that we all have a role to play in that, no matter how seemingly small, keeps me going and helps me feel like the challenges before us are less and less insurmountable.
I often find that a small shift in my perspective can move me from paralysis to action. Sometimes it’s finding inspiring stories I’ve never heard before, of victories that have been left out of the history books we’re taught or of people whose ideas and actions have had ripple effects into the present day. Sometimes it’s looking back at my own experiences to remember that many of the good (and bad) things that have happened in my life, arrived without any prior planning or knowledge. Knowing that there are many possibilities that cannot be known, gives me back agency and reminds me that the future is not fixed.
Uncertainty can be both a playground for fear and a playground for hope, imagination, love, and action.
Uncertainty can be both a playground for fear and a playground for hope, imagination, love, and action. This is one quote I always come back to from Rebecca Solnit (who is often my source of inspiration and perspective-shifts):
“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes–you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and knowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
How has the pandemic affected/changed you/your life?
I wrote this on Instagram the first week of shelter-in-place in the Bay Area, and the sentiment still resonates with me today...
“In photography, the presence of light is what makes a picture. But it is also the absence of light that makes it, and helps focus our attention. It’s for this reason I’ve always enjoyed sunny cloudy days. Or cloudy sunny days. When there is only sun, we feel drunk on warmth. When there is only clouds, we feel numbingly cold. On sunny days when puffy storm clouds come in and out, our attention is always being pulled in different directions. A shadow casts on a plant we’ve never noticed before, a new pathway is illuminated, light hits a stranger’s face in a way that feels familiar but strange. And it’s the same old things that suddenly become strange.
I know it is a scary time to be alive. And it feels weird and strange and alarmingly uncertain. We’re being forced to hold a mirror up not only to how we’ve been operating on a national and global level, but also to ourselves. It’s uncomfortable. Speaking for myself at least. To have to find happiness in who we are by ourselves.
That is why I feel grateful for family, friends (old and new), colleagues, old lovers, therapy, wildlife that returns, and all sorts of people working tirelessly and selflessly to keep things moving.. who make me feel like I am worth holding up the mirror. Who without question always show up. Like those swans that returned to the Venice canals. Or the coyotes returning to San Francisco.”
What advice would you give to someone that’s starting a career in the creative field?
Let yourself get bored! Sometimes I think we get into such a routine as creatives that we don’t slow down to really let our minds wander down new paths. I often find that some of my best work (personally and professionally) has come from moments when I stopped being so focused on the task in front of me, and just followed threads of curiosity and instinct.
I often find that some of my best work (personally and professionally) has come from moments when I stopped being so focused on the task in front of me, and just followed threads of curiosity and instinct.
Pay attention to what activities you can get so absorbed in that time passes quickly. I’ve noticed in my own career, that asking for more projects that use those same skill sets, were the ones I had the most fun working on. It’s easy to get burnt out in a creative field, but less so when the activity or subject matter captivates you. When you care about what you’re working on, it shows in your work.
Shoutout to our 2020 fall intern Yandia Miñana Pérez for conducting this interview!
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