Creative: Be Like Zoë.

Blurb’s first ever ambassador is an Australian designer named Zoë Sadokierski. Anyone who has spent any time around this site knows my appreciation for Zoë, both as a human being and as a badass professional creative. I prefer to surround myself with those who are better and more accomplished than me, and Zoë certainly fits this description. I want to tell you why I think she is the future of creativity. She is not alone in her quest, and she might disagree with my reasoning, but I’ve had thirteen years as a Blurb worker bee to form this opinion. Why is she so good? Why would I say this about her? Here are the reasons. In no particular order.

1. She is educated and trained. In a world of fake it till you make it, she doesn’t need to because she is educated. PHD. University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney, Australia2006 – 2010 I know that some of you never had this kind of opportunity, but I also know that some of you are continually looking for an escape route when it comes to formal training. YouTube AIN’T formal training. You don’t need a PHD but “formal training” comes in many forms, including affordable.
2. She is curious. I only talk to Zoë once or twice a year, mainly via email, but I’ve yet to find a topic that doesn’t interest her. Curious people live, on average, seven years longer than non-curious people.
3. She is well rounded. Her book Father, Son and Other Animals (Cordite Books, 2024) explores climate change and species extinction through the lenses of parenting and creative practice. Her scholarly writing appears in journals including Design Studies, Visual Communication, Tracey, Book 2.0, Logos, and she has chapters in Making Data Materialising Information (Bloomsbury 2022), Practice Based Design Research (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), Routledge Companion to Design Research (2014, 2023) and Publishing and Culture (Cambridge Scholars, 2019). Zoë has been invited to speak about her research and practice at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Parsons School of Design, Vivid, The Wheeler Centre, National Library of Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney). In 2015 she established Page Screen Books to distribute her artist books and editions. She is a founding member and former president of the Australian Book Designers Association, and has won multiple awards for her book designs. Her works on paper and artist books have been exhibited in galleries including Gagosian Gallery (LA), Science Centre (Delft), and national galleries including Brenda May, First Draft, UNSW Galleries, John Curtin Gallery, Bundanon Art and NG Art, and acquired by the National Library of Australia, state libraries of NSW, Victoria and Queensland, and UTS Library, and the Library of Artistic Print on Demand (Munich).
4. She gives back to her industry and community through teaching. University of Technology, Sydney, Visual Communication, Sydney, Australia1 Jan 2010 – present. Australian Book Designers Association, Sydney, Australia15 Jul 2015 – 15 Jul 2017. Allen and Unwin, Publishing, Sydney, Australia20 Jan 2003 – 30 Jun 2006. Visual Communication Design: publication design; information visualisation; science communication; data narratives; data storytelling; visual narrative; artist books; typography; reflective writing; critical practice; research through design; illustration.
5. She collaborates. See attached file.
6. She is prolific. Just take a look at this. Or this. Since I’ve known her, which is going on ten years, I’ve never seen a lull. Ever. Maybe I missed it, but I doubt it.
7. She is fearless. The best creatives don’t draw lines in the sand. They work, tinker, try new things, fail. And when they fail they own it, learn from, and then move on. Her experiments that lead to projects are some of the best I’ve seen. She makes me feel like I haven’t started my career yet, and this is a good thing.
8. She’s nice. So far, my ego detection radar has yet to go off. Never once had any feeling of superiority from Zoë. She makes ME nervous. When Rick and I founded AG23, I was thinking of ways to get Rick to give up so I wouldn’t have to do it. I told him, “We need Zoë for design, if she will do it.” I was nervous reaching out. “What’s it about” she asked. “Promote understanding through art and design,” I said. “That’s what my life is about,” she said. “I’m in.” She was also kind enough to sit with me for an interview.
9. She evolves. There is always something new. Perhaps the best way to look at this is through my preaching that photography is better as a small part of a larger conversation rather than the entire conversation. It might have been effective in this form decades ago, but after the “great deluge,” photography has lost some of its mojo.
10. She writes. For me, writing is the high art. Always has been. Writing is the backbone for everything else. Photography, coding, design, etc. I feel that a professional creative needs a full quiver, and the arrow with the fancy fletching is the writing arrow.

This post was designed to assist you. Not to intimidate. I will never been Zoë. I don’t need to be. She already exists. And you don’t need to be her either, but you can sure as heck learn from her. When I see this resume it makes me pause. Just as I pause when someone asks me if I saw such and such on a YouTube photography channel. Only the pause is very different. One brings creative anxiety. The other, just regular anxiety. The more you learn about people like Zoë the less time you will waste on the empty calories of the online world. Not to say there isn’t great work being done in the online world but you need to wade through the swamp to find it. And the work getting the most hype is often the least effective. Remember, building following has little to nothing to do with good work. Building following is a separate skill. A useful skill, mind you, but different from making unique work.

The next time you find yourself reaching for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or some mindless flick or series on Netflix, instead reach for someone like this. Just turn over one page of their life and see where it leads you.