We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Arynlei. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Arynlei below.

Arynlei, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

It’s always a surprise when folks learn that I, a vector illustration and graphic design expert, don’t have any formal education in the medium. The focus of my MFA was digital and experimental media – think coding, video editing, data-driven art, cartography, performance, social media, etc. It was meant as an umbrella program to exist at the intersection of science and art, catching special interests that didn’t fit into the traditional sculpture, drawing, or painting curriculum. The discipline was new and often misunderstood at the time, so when I received my teaching assignments in conjunction with my studies, I was given the introductory section of 2D Design to instruct. I suppose the faculty thought it would be in my wheelhouse – it was a digital medium and I was the digital and experimental media grad student. However, I had zero design experience behind me, I had never taken a graphic design course and didn’t know the first thing about the industry-standard design programs Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. The one saving grace was that I was given the curriculum for the semester ahead of time. That first year teaching, I quietly learned the material the same week I was to instruct it, consulting many youtube tutorials along the way. I was lucky to have taken to it relatively naturally. I grew to love the medium, specifically its foundation in mathematics, its infinite scalability, and its applications in commerce and industry.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an artist from the Chicago suburbs, proudly carrying the nostalgic badge of a 90s kid. I grew up playing cards with my family, riding my bike to the movie theater, and playing flashlight tag around the neighborhood long into the warm summer nights. In those days, the internet was a destination— a desk, a screen, a separate realm from real life. We used to announce “brb” when we had to step away, but with the internet now in our pockets, on our wrists, and integrated into our environments, are we ever really offline? The gradual disappearance of this divide sparked my exploration of the enmeshment between digital and real, and a desire to recapture moments of that nearly forgotten separation.

My current project, At the Table, involves designing playing cards that honor my own memories as well as those sent in by worldwide participants. These stories transcend borders yet share a setting: the Table. Through social media, I document the creation of each card and share the tales that inspired them, creating a global network and community. This undertaking occupies both digital and physical spaces, and ultimately results in a tangible product—a deck of playing cards—that fosters new pockets of offline interaction. It’s a journey that combines my artistic interests with a commitment to bridging the gap between digital and real-world experiences.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I spent nearly 2 years illustrating the At the Table playing cards, and in that time I had to completely reevaluate my relationship with perfectionism. I used to wear the badge of “perfectionist” with honor – hoping that a devotion to flawless craftsmanship would protect me from critique. The consequence of that mode of thinking was time, and lots of it. Simply put, perfectionism is a form of procrastination. It’s easy to keep toiling and tinkering and tweaking, delaying the release of the work to public inspection in favor of the pursuit of “perfect”. Cutting corners for the sake of forward momentum is hard, but absolutely necessary.

Whenever I struggled to fill a composition, I’d hit command + ‘A’ – select all – and enlarge what I already had in order to call the card “done”. I sacrificed perfect scale across all 52 of my playing cards in favor of actually finishing the project. The funny thing is that not a single person has ever said to me “I wish all of your cards were drawn at the same scale”. Turns out, that unattainable goal was moot at the end of the day.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Short answer, I get to make and do things that actually matter to me and the world around me. I don’t answer to the needs of shareholders or push wasteful products to consumers. I get to tell stories, make things that people cherish, I get to teach and entertain and connect.

I treasure the life I live now because I’ve seen and lived on the other side. Fresh out of grad school, I spent a year in the corporate world of supplement brands – a horrible industry full of false claims, messy science, body shaming and deceptive marketing. I was burnt out, constantly questioning the value of what I spent 8 hours every day doing, and hating my life. Stepping away from an extremely secure (and robust) paycheck and moving home so I could build something for myself was terrifying, but I’d do it again a million times over.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.arynlei.com
• Instagram: @arynlei
• Other: TikTok: @arynlei