Virgil's Advice Changed Everything
How designer Patso Dimitrov went from viral mashups to major album covers.
Spark Nation,
Just put it out there.
Whatever it is you’re working on, don’t be afraid to share it with your friends, family, or complete strangers on the internet. You’ll never know unless you try.
We talked about doing The Spark for months, trying to figure out the formula for The Perfect Newsletter. But that quest for perfection often resulted in us pushing back launch dates while we searched for the missing piece that would make everything click.
But feedback from an audience is that missing piece. At end of the day, your audience determines everything, and you need to know how your community receives something to know how to make it better. And the only way to get that feedback is to share it in the first place. Just put it out there. Do it now!
On that note, if you have any feedback on The Spark please email us at thespark@ideageneration.com. What do you like? What don’t you like? What did you have for breakfast? We’d love to hear it all from you.
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This week we’ve got an interview with the incredibly talented designer Patso Dimitrov, we look at a young creator highlighting talent coming out of Africa, and share a remote social media graphic design opportunity.
Let’s go.
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HOW'D YOU THINK OF THAT?!
Patso Dimitrov on going from viral art to album covers.
Patso Dimitrov is a “creative, visual connoisseur” from Bulgaria who has designed album covers for artists like Rapsody and Brent Faiyez.
Growing up Patso’s first passion was playing basketball. But after an injury sidelined him, Patso decided to download Photoshop on a whim. He leaned into his passions of sports and music, and began creating designs mashing up sneakers and jerseys with classic album covers. His designs went viral, Patso landed work with the NBA, Complex, and Puma, and soon artists were reaching out for him to design their actual album covers.
We caught up with Patso to hear how he got his start, what it’s like designing album covers for artists, and the life-changing advice Virgil Abloh gave him.
How did you first get into design?
I was living in Copenhagen, and my whole life had been about basketball. I wanted to do that for a living. Then I got injured and I couldn't play for a little while. I had so much free time on my end, I didn't really know what to do with it.
I downloaded Photoshop on a whim because I wanted to have a cool wallpaper on my computer. That was the first thing I designed. If you remember Internet forums back then you could have like a little signature banner graphic. I wanted to have a cool signature, so the first design I ever did was a Kobe Bryant banner.
I was also so into music and movies, and just trying to bridge that gap between basketball and the pop culture things that I like. That was the spark, no pun intended, to really fall in love with design and the visual world.
“I downloaded Photoshop on a whim because I wanted to have a cool wallpaper on my computer.”
When did you start sharing your work?
I used to post stuff on Behance, a portfolio type of thing for creatives. I was getting a little bit of traction, but I'm talking 30 or 40 likes, something like that.
The turning point for me was meeting Virgil Abloh. He was doing Been Trill at the time, so he was relatively early in his career. He had done the A$AP Rocky album cover and had been working with Kanye for so long, but he was starting to come out of the behind the scenes role that he was in.
He had a pop up in Copenhagen. My roommate and I went, and in the most random way, Virgil was coming down from the warehouse at the pop up store, and I just so happened to be there and we struck up a conversation before the event started. He was super down to earth. He asked me to show him some of my work.
I asked him, “How did you get noticed? And get A$AP Rocky, Kanye, and all these other people to want to work with you?”
He said that the Internet is the future. It's not flying cars. It's not all the things that we used to see, like in “Space Odyssey” or “The Jetsons.” He said the Internet is the future and just put it out because you never know who's going to see it. You never know who is going to connect with it and what it may lead to. The worst that can happen is you get a bad comment, but so what?
And from that day on I started putting myself on Instagram and on Facebook and on Twitter and tagging people.
There was a project that I did mashing up sneakers and album covers that got picked up by Bleacher Report and a bunch of other publications. From there I started to see some action and get exposed to more people. But if it wasn't for that advice to use the Internet outside of what a designer would normally use it for at time—just Behance or a portfolio website—that really was the moment that it all flipped for me.
“[Virgil] said, ‘The Internet is the future. Just put it out because you never know who's going to see it.’”
How did the relationship with Rapsody start?
Again, social media. I was putting stuff daily on the Internet, shamelessly. I don't want to sound like an old man, but you know Instagram used to be chronological order. It didn’t weed out what you see. And I kept getting followers, because a blog would repost this, a blog would repost that. So as the followers and people who are interested goes up, I just had to keep posting stuff. Like, lock myself in a room, you know, five beats a day.
I did a rendition of To Pimp a Butterfly in golden vinyl. I love that album very, very much. Rapsody’s song is one of my favorites and I tagged her in the caption. She liked it, but I didn't think anything was going to come out of it.
But then a few days later, her team reached out to me and were like, “Hey, she really likes your work. She's working on an album and she would love if you would put some ideas together.” I was obviously super ecstatic because I was finally getting a moment to tap into the music side and the art form that I love the most.
I sent back some stuff to them a week or so later, and they gave very elaborate feedback. I saw how much she cares about her art and I was like, “I'm going to be as annoying as I'm allowed to be. I'm going to send her as many drafts, mock-ups, and options as possible.” I would rather it be that than just send her one thing a week at a time. And we match in that way. She's very motivated and relentless. And we just started talking every day.
“I'm going to be as annoying as I'm allowed to be. I'm going to send her as many drafts, mock-ups, and options as possible.”
When working with a musician, how do you balance bringing their vision to life while also injecting your own style?
It's tough. Musicians are very peculiar people. They have a certain vision of how they want to be portraying themselves, whether it's their brand or their own image or a specific project. They have the idea of what they want to do. I think gaining trust is the biggest thing.
If I had to break it down into a number, I guess it's good to stick to 70 percent of their idea, and then bring like 30 percent of yourself. And my approach is to come with options. I never have sent one option to whoever it is that I've worked with. I would rather them look at 15 things and like two of them than send one thing and have a bazillion notes on it.
And for me, that has worked all the way. It shows willingness to go the extra mile. It shows the artist you appreciate them and you appreciate the opportunity to work together and you're putting more than the bare minimum into their idea.
What’s your advice for aspiring designers?
Follow Virgil's advice. Don't be ashamed to tag people or hashtag a million things. Everybody's got to start somewhere. Just put it out there. Don't second guess whether it's good, bad, whatever it is. You never know. There's someone who's going to like it. As long as you like it, someone else is going to like it.
“As long as you like it, someone else is going to like it.”
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CHEAT CODES
The search you didn’t know you needed.
If you want to get into design like Patso, but Adobe Photoshop is out of your price range, check out Affinity.
Affinity offers three programs: Designer, Photo, and Publisher.
With these programs you get “award-winning photo editing, graphic design and page layout software.”
You can try a free trial right away, or the entire suite of programs is available for a one-time fee of $164.99.
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SUBSCRIBER SPOTLIGHT
Projects The Spark readers are working on.
THE INSIDƎ SHOW is a podcast hosted by George Avakian that highlights “all the great creatives across many disciplines coming out of Africa.” Through the interviews George hopes to “unlock creativity, explore innovation, and discover extraordinary.”
Check out THE INSIDƎ SHOW on YouTube here.
We asked George what advice he would give to anyone thinking of starting their own podcast:
“Just start! Jumping into your project is like entering a maze; you’ll quickly find dead ends and learn where you need to backtrack to find the right path. I handle everything from shooting, editing, VO, grading, etc. for my podcast. While there's room for improvement, I'm pleased with its progression. Preparation is key too. I read that most podcasts don't make it past the 7th episode. So, to ensure I wasn't caught off guard, I prepared seven episodes in advance. This not only gave me a content buffer but also ample time to plan and produce future episodes. Stay consistent!”
“I read that most podcasts don't make it past the 7th episode. So I prepared seven episodes in advance.”
Want to see your work featured in Subscriber Spotlight? Email us at thespark@ideageneration.com 📬
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TAKE THIS JOB!
Cool job listings for creatives.
Slique Media is a social media creative agency for experts in restaurants and hospitality.
They’re looking for a Graphic Designer who can:
Translate marketing and branding strategies into innovative and impressive campaigns.
Produce compelling designs based on the creative vision and ideas.
Understand marketing initiatives, strategic positioning, and target audience.
Ideally this person:
Has worked for an advertising or marketing agency for at least 2 or more years.
Proven working experience as a Graphic Designer.
Hands-on experience with brand design, logo design, typography, color, print production, social media design, image selection, and package design.
Sound like you? Apply here.
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KEEP SHOOTING
Your weekly reminder to keep going.
In 2009, just as Rapsody was embarking on her solo career, she was diagnosed with Graves Disease, an autoimmune disease that was extremely painful and affected her weight and looks.
In our interview with her last year, she described this period in her life:
“I took time off work, but I did not take time off music. I was staying with my sister at the time and she was like, ‘If you go to the studio you could go to work.’ And she kicked me out. I was just so broke. I would pawn my sneakers. I had a class ring, I'd go pawn that just to get gas money to go to the studio.”
Despite the pain and feeling self-conscious about her looks, Rapsody kept going to the studio for “Rap Camp” with 9th Wonder every day. Literally every day.
And it was from hanging around the studio so much that she first met Kendrick Lamar, who eventually tapped her for the guest verse that would change her life.
Just keep showing up.