PRESENT Newsletter #1
Hello friend,
this is the first edition of my new regular Newsletter.
I want to be more transparent in my practice and give you short bursts of input and value.
A brief update on work and life, something interesting to watch/listen/read, and a quote to ponder.
Let’s get right to it!
WHAT I'M WORKING ON
For PRESENT there are four main things I’m putting my energy in right now: the concept and page plan for issue 2, the mediakit, writing new posts, and developing product ideas.
Making the page plan is the most fulfilling right now, because I get to visualize my 'ideal' magazine. In parallel I'm in the process of contacting the people I want to have involved, and see how close I can get to my original vision.
Besides I’m working on a handful of client projects for my studio. One thing I really love about my job is that I get to collaborate with people from different fields. At the moment with a techno festival, an art book publisher, a tech start-up, a gallerist, a parisian fashion brand, and a film director.
LIFE UPDATE
Last week I went with Sarah to Paris for a few days. The weather was shitty, but that didn’t stop us from having a great time and to treat ourselves! One highlight was the Charlotte Perriand exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. Still thinking about this one a lot. If you have the chance, go see it.
Apart from that I found the best thing was to just sit in a bistro, have a glass of wine, and just watch life on the street pass by. Some more quick recommendations: Aux Deux Amis (bar), Ten Belles (café), Da Graziella (pizzeria), Déviant (bar), Utopie (bakery).
We went on to visit all the fantastic book stores like 0fr, Les Editions du Kiosque, Yvon Lambert, where they sell PRESENT, and met with a distributor who wants to help getting the magazine into more great stores around Paris, which is pretty exciting. Allez!
TO WATCH
The Netflix documentary about the living legend Quincy Jones. It gives an intimate look at the personal and professional life of this extraordinary man with a mind-blowing musical history. I really dig the kind of documentaries that leave you feeling motivated and wanting to become better at what you love.
‘Good luck usually follows the collision of opportunity and preparation – it’s a result of that collision. So, make your mistakes now and make them quickly. The process is the most beautiful part.’
TO LISTEN
The fantastic podcast How To Fail by Elisabeth May invites every week a new interviewee to explore what failures taught them about how to succeed better. It's such a good format. And so personal and insightful.
Great episodes to start with are Mo Gawdat, Cush Jumbo, Alain de Botton, or the conversations with Elisabeth's best friend Phoebe Waller-Bridge (for all you fellow Fleabag and Killing Eve fans out there.)
TO READ
Oliver Burkeman: The Antidote — Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking
"There is an alternative path to happiness and success that involves embracing failure, pessimism, insecurity, and uncertainty ― the very things we spend our lives trying to avoid."
I found this book to be super refreshing, thought-provoking, counterintuitive, and ultimately uplifting!
‘Schemes and plans for making things better fuel our dissatisfaction with the only place where happiness can ever be found – the present. Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.’
What are you working on? Are you making progress? Or are you feeling stuck? If so, what is holding you back?
What helped me get going and get stuff done this week was a quote by Seth Godin: Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it’s a lot easier to launch work that matters.
Sometimes, we just need to get started. Once we manage that, everything else falls into place. I just published a new PRESENT Tip on that matter, hope that helps some.
As always, thoughts and critisism are welcome. Just hit reply, let's talk!
Stay present
Hugo x