A juicy peach.
It’s almost been a month since I attended Creative South, but I’m still riding high. It was my first time attending this conference and my first time in the state of Georgia. After navigating canceled flights, epic thunderstorms, and rental car fiascos, I finally had my feet on the ground and was ready to get my brain melted. Since I’m late to the party and several others have already shared detailed insights, I’ll share two key nuggets from this juicy peach.
Small conferences are king.
I met Creative South’s Mike Jones at Lincoln Design’s Into the Woods conference two years ago, and since then, I’ve had plans of visiting the Peach State. I met so many people at Into the Woods, which is pretty damn Impressive, especially for a group of creative introverts like myself. I’ve been to some of the bigger design conferences in the past, and though they have value in their own right, I always walked away with few meaningful connections. This was not the case at Creative South. I shook hands with nearly all of the speakers there—something unthinkable at some larger conferences. Don’t get me wrong, learning software tips or watching titans of design walk through famous projects you’ve already seen can be cool, but the real reason I go to conferences is to hear the stories you don’t get online. The stuff you can’t get from an interview or in a book. The good shit. Because of this, several of the smaller conferences have caught my eye moving forward.
Personal projects have value.
I’m always interested in the themes that naturally emerge during a creative conference. Without planning, a common theme tends to surface, almost as if we were all thinking it, but nobody said it aloud. At Creative South ’25, one of the standout themes was the importance of personal projects. How they sharpen skills, keep you creatively fulfilled, and open doors to paid work. These efforts are often rewarded down the line. Even if these projects take years to bear fruit, they usually do. As someone who left a stable creative job to pursue an alternate path built on a foundation of personal lettering projects, this was a validating sentiment and one I can now confirm to be true. I had already been thinking I needed to set aside more time for personal projects, and hearing this from several speakers lit a fire under my ass to get back in the saddle and ride.
Thanks to my buddies Danny Rosas and Erik Olson for taking some snaps of the crew.
When I leaped into independent studio life two years ago, I made a promise to myself to attend a creative conference or workshop at least every two years. The goal was to surround myself with those who inspire me, break my routine, and build a network with other creative contractors. If Into the Woods and Creative South taught me anything, it’s that being a part of a creative community also creates a strong sense of self. I left feeling inspired and confident in my place in this field. I plan to share more on hitting the two-year milestone in an upcoming post.
