Welcome!

There's 83 of us now. We're a full TEDx talk audience! It certainly feels that way from my seat. Every eyeball reading this email connects to a brain with a TEDx-worthy presentation stored inside it. 👀 🧠 ✨

A delightful part of growing the weekly email to this size has been people leaning into the patterns of my format (ie. the intro analogy for our group size). I love when friends message me with their own spin on things I've shared.

This week's opener & closer give a taste of what I mean :)

Thanks for being an early subscriber to my digital postcard. I prefer the description postcard (rather than newsletter) cuz it feels more casual, personal and specific to a moment in time. Each week I share updates, anecdotes and links to things I enjoyed recently.

TIP: First-time recipient? A reply will help prevent these emails being marked spam. Don't feel obligated to say something kind or clever. In fact, I encourage the opposite. Make your reply as conveniently incoherent as possible. A quick: "sDGHsdasd" is splendid :)

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Sketch 5

Last Monday I posted my 5th drawing on Twitter:

Tommy Lee @thomaselliotlee When viewed from a wider perspective, most problems cease to exist. pic.twitter.com/b9sZ1RMmLu February 14th 2022 50 Retweets 253 Likes

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This image had the widest reach yet, 30K+ views. It's also the first thing I've posted to reach the '200s' of likes. Exciting stuff!

I have no control of the metrics once I press "Tweet". But I do control the process beforehand. Here's how this image took shape:

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Behind the Sketch

A few weeks ago I sketched out a bunch of ideas on paper. This earth zoom idea was one that felt clear to execute. I'm still getting a feel for the tools of digital illustration. So I pick ideas I can communicate with simple, familiar shapes:

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I'm geographically illiterate, so step #2 was creating a Google Earth trace reference. You could probably tell the pencil sketch above was Earth. But I wanted the final image to have accurate continents, rather than vague blobs:

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The paper sketch helped me see the image would work best if my location pin was on the planet's edge (right beside the caption).

So I spun the globe to align my pin for Toronto on the far right

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Simplicity = Clarity

The key design learning of this drawing came from a simple arrow.

Below on the left you can see an early arrow attempt.

I'd initially thought to guide our eyes the line would need get close to the location pin. Practically touch it. But a white line was hard to see against the yellow continent. So at the tip I switched the colour to dark blue...

If you got a bit lost in that description, me too. It was visually confusing.

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I realized if I made the arrowhead way bigger, it wouldn't need to overlap on the continent. The eye would follow the arrowhead's direction.

This let me keep the contrast of white against black. That contrast was much more important than proximity.

I also opted for the pin shape we associate with Google maps, rather than a generic circle. Much more clear; icons have power!

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Standing on the Feedback of Giants

My goal with each image is to be processed instantly.

I want the text to be seen as a whole, rather than a series of sentences.

The version below on the left is wordy. You have to actively read it.

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I asked for feedback from my friend Simone, Queen of Brevity. She suggested the clarity on the right.

Cutting away the excess words makes the final version read instant. Your eyes don't need to scan to take it in. The font even feels bigger (it's the same size) just from the added airspace that lets each word breathe

She also pointed out that the arrowhead was big enough I could get away with shrinking the location pin. If it's meant to represent a 'small problem' it makes sense you'd have to squint a bit to see it.

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Size Systems

Here are two final systems that help me focus on creativity, rather than plumbing:

1. I use a typeface designed by my drawing coach, Aaron Alto. On my last image, the font sizing felt juuust a bit too small. So I determined the font size that's legible at literal thumbnail scale. Now I have a note saved with the exact numbers to use:

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2. I try to keep the 'on-image' caption (the "Zoom out" part) as simple possible. The text of the tweet itself can elaborate with further detail (ie. "When viewed from a wider perspective, most problems cease to exist.").

Overall I keep all text (on image caption + tweet) distilled and universal. This makes it more 're-tweetable'. It encourages people to add their own personal spin when they share it with their audience, like this:

Briandito Priambodo 🇵🇸 @briandito Happens often :) After a long day at work, I sat down, sighed, and thought to myself "...man, it's just work. No need to stress over it." Sometimes it is easy to forget that life is not just about work. twitter.com/thomaselliotle… Tommy Lee @thomaselliotlee When viewed from a wider perspective, most problems cease to exist. pic.twitter.com/b9sZ1RMmLu February 15th 2022 48 Retweets 133 Likes

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WOP Mentor

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Last September I joined a writing program called Write of Passage (WOP). It's what prompted me to start this weekly email.

WOP is a cohort based course. Twice a year, 300+ students across the planet gather to level up as writers and citizens of the internet.

It's like Coachella for writing. There's an electric energy of curiosity. Individuals who've each been pushing the frontier of the creator economy converge for 5 weeks to share discoveries.

The spring cohort begins next week, and runs March 2-April 6. I'm thrilled to be back as one of 13 alumni mentors. I'll lead a weekly Zoom session, focused on visual writing.

If you're intrigued to know more, here's an article I wrote for the Write of Passage website about my experience.

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Willow

Hearing when people enjoyed the song in a week's email are my favourite replies.

In an alternate dimension, I followed the praise of my high school party playlists and became a DJ...

... Instead I leaned into my eyeballs and kept my ears as a hobby.

This tweet last week from my friend Megan was a fun surprise:

Megan Goering @goeringm Music is poetry in motion!🎵 Inspired by @thomaselliotlee’s newsletter, I’ve gotten into beautiful new music hunting, mostly using Spotify radio to jump from new discovery to new discovery. Today’s latest: Willow -Joan Armatrading What’s your fav song for Spotify radio? February 14th 2022 0 Retweets 2 Likes

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So without further preamble, here's this week's song from GuestDJGoering:

  Willow Joan Armatrading

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That's all till next week!

Thanks for reading,

Tommy

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PS. Replies Encouraged :)

• If you have 27 seconds to jot an impression of this postcard, please do!
• I know each of your lives bustle with activity. If it helps, think of the reply as a text (rather than an email).
• A quick jotted: “I like when you bring in screenshots and embeds like this - gives a dynamic energy!” or "Here's an opener idea for when you hit 94+ subscribers..." is valuable signal of where to re-invest :)

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