and life you love. You know, one of my favorite parts of this job is the fact that I get to

talk to incredible people who are doing the work that they were born to do. And today

I’m gonna introduce you to a woman who is doing exactly that in this digital era and

she has one of the most beautiful and popular design blogs on the web.

Grace Bonney is the founder of Design Sponge and the author of the best selling book Design

Sponge at Home. Grace is passionate about supporting all aspects of the design community

from up and coming designers to seasoned business owners. In 2007 she founded a scholarship

for young designers and in 2008 she started the Biz Ladies series to help support and

grow creative businesses. Grace also hosts a weekly radio show, After the Jump, where

she interviews artists and designers and discusses larger business issues within the creative

community.

Grace, thank you so much for being here today.

Thanks so much for having me.

So you fascinate me. I love your blog, I love your business, and I know that you started

Design Sponge over 10 years ago now. Right? What was the original inspiration when you

first started?

Honestly it was not seeing the things I wanted to see represented in magazines or on TV.

I had just moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2003 after college and was so in love with

all of the incredible independent design happening, people making things by hand. All the things

that are sort of passe and normal now, like yarn bombing, all that stuff was… felt very

new then. And I was taking photographs and I kept expecting to see it in magazines and

it wasn’t showing up. So I decided that it seemed to make sense, just write about

it myself if no one else was writing about it. And this was sort of pre Domino magazine,

pre Lani, and like that whole community, so I think it was a good time to be doing that

because no one else was really sort of championing the handmade community.

So it was a passion project.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. It was something that you just loved and you were like, “I wanna see this online.

Let’s make it happen.”

Yeah. I think that’s how all great things start. I think if you start with like a business

in mind at first it makes things operate from a very different place instead of just saying,

“I love this. I can’t wait to talk to other people who love this. This is the only

reason I’m getting up every morning.”

I mean, that’s how I started life coaching, for sure. Before I could figure out how to

build it into a business, I was doing it when I was like 17 so I totally relate. So you

ran it yourself, Design Sponge totally by yourself for 3 years before you decided to

bring on others. What was that decision process like and is that when it started to feel like

a business?

Weirdly, no. It didn't feel like a business until pretty much every other magazine closed.

Basically in 2008, 2009 all of the sort of home and design magazines like threw up against

a wall and everyone freaked out. Domino closed, House and Garden closed, Blueprint closed,

all of these like sort of bastions of cool, independent design just fell apart. And I

realized then that magazines, which I always thought was my end goal, because here’s

this traditional, sort of sustainable, safe job that I can hopefully work up to, that

became clear that wasn’t going to be the safe place anymore. And at that point the

site was running really well, it was supporting me half time, and I thought, “Ok, well,

this is the place to invest, to hunker down, and to make this really, really work.” So

I would say probably in 2009 it felt like a real business, but back in 2007 when I hired

everybody it was really sort of a… what I always think of is like an anti Martha move

where I… Martha Stewart is always my idol of everything but I didn't love the way that

I felt like the editors there didn't get the sort of credit and attention that they deserved.

Because no one person is an expert in every topic, and I’m certainly not, so I hired

people in the interest of having people who were experts in topics that I didn't know

about, whether it was gardening or DIY or food. So the first people I brought on were

all people who knew about things I didn't know about.

And were they friends of yours from the magazine world or were they just friends that you met

out and about or did you actually, like, put out classified ads or do something to go find

them?

No, they were internet friends. They were the first sort of OG generation of internet

friends and people I just found who were also blogging, who I sort of heard of through friends

of friends. Lorik and Derek Fakersom who were my DIY editors used to work for Todd Oldham

and they opened a store in San Francisco and I just knew of their store and they lived

and breathed DIY, so they were the natural fit to hire somebody like that. And then Christina,

who’s been my food editor since 2007 who lives in Rome was running an incredible Italian

design blog and was writing about food and architecture and we just clicked and we’ve

been working together ever since.

That is so cool. And did you find it… because I know for me when I hired my first person

and then more people, I sucked at it. I was not good at all and I felt really insecure.

I’m like, “I don't know how to be a boss.” Did you have any of that when you started

to grow?

I still do. I think that’s the hardest part of my job. I think I’m naturally like a

solo act. I think I tend… I’m an only child, I prefer to sort of work by myself.

Although I love working with people that I admire and who I think make me work better,

and so I’ve always wanted to work with other people. But it’s really difficult to tell

to somebody who’s also writing from a place of passion and excitement that they need to

do it better or that they need to do it differently. That’s a really difficult thing to do, especially

when it’s someone that you’re friends with. So that’s an ongoing struggle and

something that I think I sort of work on on a weekly basis.

Yeah, it’s… for me, I find that my business has changed so much when I found people that

so complement my strengths because there are so many things that I am not good at.

Yeah, and those things will always continue to grow and change.

Yeah.

There will be years where I’m really on it and really great at sort of being, like,

the person who says no and knows when to sort of hire the right person or let the person

go. And then there’s a year where I get overwhelmed with all the things that we’re

doing that are new and different and I kind of fall back on that. So it’s always a sort

of checks and balances thing that I have to constantly be aware of and work harder on.

So overwhelm is an amazing topic I think for all of us, especially in a digital space.

And a while back there was that New York Times piece about blogger burnout and I know you

have a great perspective on it. We can sometimes in our company, we don't do anywhere near

the volume of posting that you guys do. What’s your perspective on blogger burnout? How have

you been able to over the years manage the high quality that you guys produce all the

time?

I think that the first step is just to accept that it’s inevitable that everyone will

be burnt out at some point. It might happen every year, it might happen every other month,

whatever that cycle is, it will happen. It doesn't mean that you’re not doing the right

thing anymore, it doesn't mean that you should change jobs, it just means you need to figure

out what’s not working and accept that that’s… that had its moment but now you need a new

system to deal with things. And so for me that’s meant either hiring a bigger team,

sometimes totally downsizing and having a really small team to sort of focus on writing

more and less on team management. And so it’s just always about changing and right now I

think it’s very much a less is more game for me and so I’m investing platforms that

I really enjoy personally. Like  I’m obsessed with Instagram and so I’m putting a lot

of time into that because…

You guys do great, by the way.

Oh, thanks.

It’s genius.

I enjoy it and it’s meant spending less time on Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook

and other things that are important to be a part of but I’m not enjoying in the same

way. And I think when you don't enjoy something, your readers know. They can absolutely tell

it in the tone of your voice, when they see you. Everybody can tell when you’re kind

of phoning it in. So at a certain point I realized the voice in my head that was saying,

“People will be upset if you don't post 10 times a day,” that’s just my voice.

No one else is telling that to me. So I just started dialing things back saying, “Ok,

I’m gonna post 4 times a day and if anybody gets mad at me then I’ll explain why.”

But for the most part we’ve been scaling back and noticing that people are talking

more and they’re happier to have fewer posts that are a bit longer and more personal and

are more focused and engaged. And I mean, I would want to read that from all the sites

that I follow. So it sort of was a hard place to get to, but I think now that I understand

it. I hope I can sort of tell other people how to get through that same space because

all the bloggers I’m friends with that have been in the design community for the last

10 years, I think everyone’s hitting a wall right now where you have to be on 10 different

platforms at the same time and it’s… it’s exhausting.

It is. We’ve made some really conscious decisions in our business, you know, different

friends are like, “Oh, man. You’ve gotta be on this, that, and the other thing,”

and when I really take a look at who I am as a human being outside of business and how

I want my life to be long term, we’ve actually made some super conscious choices to not be

in places we’re “supposed” to be and it’s been so liberating.

It’s both liberating and terrifying because, to be brutally honest, I made a huge mistake

with Pinterest. I had a real issue with some of the stuff that was popping up, people were

taking photographs that weren’t theirs, they weren’t crediting them, and photographers

were getting upset, the stylists were getting upset, and I just decided I don't support

this, I don't like this idea so we’re not going to do it. Cut to two years later and

now there’s a billion people on Pinterest and that was a terrible business decision

to make. But it’s a good example of like there are gonna be some times where you don't

join something and it doesn't matter at all.

Yeah.

Then there will be times where you do join it and you have to play catch up to get back

there. But it doesn't mean that your business ends. It just means that you might have to

play catch up every now and then and if that’s the worst thing that happens then, by all

means, you should be following your gut. And then also just accepting that there will be

bloggers and podcasters and whoever that are younger and have more energy and more time

and it doesn't mean that your voice is no longer relevant, it just means that there

are new voices that are part of the community and we were all those new voices at some point.

So I’ve sort of gotten to the place where I’m very excited that there’s a newer,

younger generation of people online that can sort of take over that space that I used to

love and now I can operate in a different space where I talk less but sort of talk about

a different type of thing.

Yeah, let’s go there next too because there’s so many lessons you must have learned over

these 10 years of doing what you do and all of the evolutions. And one thing that I read

that you said was about, you know, just because you’re doing what you love doesn't mean

that sometimes it doesn't feel like a job.

It does. Every day.

Yeah.

It’s a job. But it’s the greatest job ever and I think that’s… there’s a weird

thing where people don't wanna say, especially if they’re doing something like we do. We

get to talk about what you love every day. You don't wanna sound like that you don't

appreciate it or that you’re not grateful for it. Because I think all of us are incredibly

grateful not only just to have a job right now, but to have a job that we really love.

But there are still parts that are difficult, that aren’t fun, and that you have to struggle

to make an easy part of your day to day schedule. So that’s something I always go back to

is that it’s ok to be honest about the things that are difficult. Sometimes I think just

saying things out loud and admitting what you’re struggling with, that’s half the

battle. You feel so much better when you just get it off your chest and say, “I’m having

a really hard time dealing with this type of ad right now and dealing with sponsored

posts is really stressful and doesn't feel natural to me. How are you guys dealing with

it?” Having that conversation is both vulnerable, but also incredibly liberating.

Do you do that both within your team and some of your, like, treasured friends that are

in the same space?

Absolutely. I mean, I think everyone has a core group of sort of colleagues and even

competitors, in a sense, where you feel comfortable to have these conversations sort of within

reason and I think the more people that you have that you trust to talk about those things

with, the better. And for me if I have 4 or 5 people I can talk to about that, that’s

kind of all I need to just stay calm and grounded and not go completely crazy when things feel

overwhelming. But I think we all… we all need that core group of support.

I definitely do because, you know, it can get so insular and even in my own head I’m

like, “Wait, I am so close to this I can’t see anything clearly.”

And there are moments when it’s good to be detached a bit because I think if you’re

watching what everybody else is doing all the time it’s such a comparison game and

it’s, “Oh, this person just did X, Y, Z. They opened a store. They are teaching

classes,” whatever it is. And we think, “I should do that same thing now.” That’s

not always the right thing for you, so it’s good to kind of go back and forth between

being incredibly engaged and sort of plugged in and then pulling back and listening to

what the voice inside of you says you should be doing right now.

As someone who loves design, I love design. You know, the websites that we have that are

kind of like our digital homes. You know, over 10 years you’ve had a few evolutions

not only in how the actual website looks but also your own personal taste, what you want

things to feel like. Walk us through a little bit of that process. I know any time we change

something like if we change something on the set, which we’ve changed MarieTV sets several

times, but it’s like people are like, “Oh, no. I miss the brick wall. I miss…” and

it’s just like oh goodness. But I keep having to come back for me going like, “Ok, well

what do I wanna see? What’s gonna please me?” And knowing we’re gonna get the comments,