Christoph Niemann has illustrated over 20 New Yorker covers. 

And his (wildly creative) Instagram account, abstractsunday, has over a million followers. 

I just rewatched his episode of Abstract, a documentary series about design on Netflix. I’ve seen it, maybe, 5 times. And every time I watch it, I catch something new and valuable, like this exchange: 

The director asked a question: 

“It almost seems like the creator of your pieces and you as editor of your pieces are two different people?” he said. 

“Yes,” said Niemann. “I need to be in control and I need to have a very clear sense of why something’s working and not working. On the other hand I’ve realized that being more free spirited is necessary. I’ve found that I need to develop these two personas separately: be a much more ruthless editor and be a much more careless artist.”

When you’re doing creative work — whether it’s copywriting or design or anything else — quality will come from quantity. 

That is, you must make a lot of shit to produce something remarkable.

But achieving quantity is impossible if you constantly edit yourself as you create. 

So strive to create NOW, recklessly. 

And edit LATER, ruthlessly.

And never let the two overlap.

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Eddie Shleyner 
VeryGoodCopy, founder

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