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

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an independent graphic designer from and in Los Angeles, and I work primarily with commercial and cultural clients who lead with openness, caring, and removing the “im” from “impossible.” Curiosity and a penchant for fun are at the base of my work, and it spans branding and art direction, digital and print, type and illustration, video and motion.
I got started in the creative space at the tail-end of 2020, when, out of lockdown languishing, I created an Instagram account to share some thoughts on mental health. Initially, it wasn’t about design or posters or anything about sharing my “creativity” as it were (at this point, I hadn’t yet even taken any kind of design class); it was just that I had been hunkered down at home—a period of introspection—reading books on anxiety and doom and social theory, and I had been writing things down on a threadbare, tattered notebook, and I felt compelled to make these words live beyond paper, to release them in the digital ether.
But I wanted to make it pretty—so I did. I opened up Adobe Illustrator, which was at no cost to me via my school, and designed a type-based poster, my very first, employing colorful, circular gradients (who remembers the 2021 gradient era?) In the middle, I wrote: “Nobody knows what they’re doing and that’s okay.” The caption read: “It’s okay not to know what to do next.” This sentiment, a steadfast belief, continues to be a personal touchstone, especially on days marred by self-imposed pressures. This was posted on December 22, 2020 (it’s still there, if you’re patient enough to scroll through 300-something posts), and what was an itty bitty one-person mental health committee has turned into a community of over twelve thousand like-minded people who value the same things as me: mental health, social impact, and creativity.
When I first started, I was home from school and taking remote classes I resented. Now, I’m out of college and am a graphic designer full-time, and my journey has been transformative. And while I don’t lead my creative practice with any excessive, exhaustive maxims, I do like to keep 5 principles in mind: ① Brands let their fear of failure stop them from experimenting ② Design isn’t as inclusive and playful as it could be ③ There are an infinite good, fun ideas that deserve consummation ④ We should all be and get creative ⑤ We need to design a world that reflects the world we want to live in.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being a creative is astronomically fulfilling—especially when you know how to cultivate that validation internally and not rely on others’ testimony to affirm yourself and your craft. To me, the truest reward of being a creative is in the word itself—creation. And doubling that with the fact that I get to create with and for others, the rewarded feeling is all the more concentrated. I am a very collaborative personality, and I thrive in the brainstorming, the iterating, the fluid exchange of ideas—and to do all that in tandem with a client with whom I share a common objective—that is to land at a design solution that meets and exceeds their desires and needs—that’s one of my favourite feelings.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

A pivotal moment in my creative journey occurred when I realized I had niched down too early, too fast. Niching down, if you’re unfamiliar with creator economy-speak, is to focus your content on a specific, well-defined topic, as in perhaps “recipes for families of 10” instead of simply “family recipes.”
In my content, I had niched down to mental health and social impact. It was not the niching down that posed a problem, but rather my design niche. Because my growth happened quite fast, and I took it upon myself to create and post a new poster every day as a sort of innocuous challenge to myself, I inadvertently focused too much on the same poster design style. And while yes, it’s benefitial to hone in on a specific style and truly get to know it, it also robbed me of the opportunity to explore other design styles and disciplines, ergo shrinking my perspective of what design is.
I didn’t come to this epiphany until months into 2021, when I noticed myself only designing and creating in one style but found myself being inspired by and bookmarking posts designed in another. That day I realized I had pigeonholed myself into a design niche and was in turn doing a disservice to myself as a creative. And I knew that if I wanted to set myself, my craft, and my practice up for longevity and prosperity, I had to make a change.
Since then, my creations have evolved from simple, type-based, gradient-centric posters to illustration, animation, 3d, video, typography, motion, and more. From a business standpoint, it’s wonderful to have a catalog of services I can confidently provide my clients. And from a personal perspective, breaking free from a one-track mindset and embracing diverse creative pursuits has been immensely gratifying. Every day, I feel grateful to put all my proverbial eggs into all the baskets that may.

Contact Info:

• Website: jamesjunk.co
• Instagram: instagram.com/jamesjunk.co
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreidominiq/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jamesjunkco
• Other: my every-month design + life newsletter, chaos theory [https://jamesjunk.substack.com/]

Image Credits
James Junk 2023