176 - Jason Yim

Jason Yim is a Senior Brand Designer at Oyster. He was previously a designer at Intercom and an apparel/accessory designer at Benny Gold.

He lives in Oakland, CA and his office is actually his living room closet that's just big enough for everything he needs measuring about 4.5' x 7.5'.

Items:

• 13" Macbook Pro (bigger ones were out of stock due to supply chain issues)
• iPad
• LG 4k Monitor
• Excel exacto blade
• Generic self healing cutting mat
• Epson V600 scanner
• Brother HL-L23700 printer
• Rhodia notebook
• Softbound notebooks
• Arteza fabric markers
• Butcher block countertop with hairpin legs
• Laura Davidson chair

Tools:

• Figma
• Lightroom
• Illustrator
• Photoshop
• Slack
• Zoom
• Spotify
• Image capture

What is your favorite item in your workspace?

My favorite item in my workspace is probably my scanner. A lot of the stuff I work on always includes a physical piece that has been cut, created by hand, or modified, and then scanned to be used as a texture or focal point of a project. I think it's kinda fun to keep creative practices kind of old school and show the dichotomy of using tactile objects to create/show something in a digital format.

How do you spark creativity?

Mostly activities outdoors. I feel like currently anyone can go on instagram or pinterest and find inspiration there but it's just so much content overload it can feel super overwhelming. But going outside and stumbling upon things that spark new ideas is how I like to do it. It feels less intentional and more organic. Wandering around Chinatown in SF is always fun because there's always these really interesting juxtapositions of signage and some of the activity that's around it. But sometimes it takes me 3 hours of skateboarding to come up with an idea or design that takes me an hour to create. Going thrifting, bookstore and record shopping definitely helps spark creativity too. There's too much good artwork out there on old items you might find.

How do you keep the work-life balance with so many projects going on at once?

I think having a door to my "office" helps. My old place had an open layout and my work space was just out in the open. Having my work space in my closet allows me to just shut the door and keep all that business in there.