{"id":1458,"date":"2016-08-30T19:36:09","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T01:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twprod.wpengine.com\/the-curators-instinct-for-pinterest-and-instagram-eric-kass-profile\/"},"modified":"2024-01-15T14:19:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T20:19:30","slug":"the-curators-instinct-for-pinterest-and-instagram-eric-kass-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tailwindapp.com\/blog\/the-curators-instinct-for-pinterest-and-instagram-eric-kass-profile","title":{"rendered":"The Curator\u2019s Instinct for Pinterest: How Eric Kass Blew Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

\u201cThe space you work in is important. Everything in here is something that means something to me. It\u2019s all intentional.\u201d \u2013 Eric Kass, Funnel<\/p><\/div>\n

Do you remember the cover art of the records that your father owned?  How about the pattern on your grandmother\u2019s linoleum floor?  If you do, how useful are these things to your work today? To designing a social media graphic say, or growing your Pinterest following? Most likely you think they’re irrelevant.<\/p>\n

But these things are important to Eric Kass, a designer whose work has appeared in more than 55 design books and 30 gallery shows<\/a> throughout his twenty year career. For Eric Kass the evocative is valuable, it is to be captured, pinned down and kept for future use. It is inspiration for his design work, grist for the creative mill.<\/p>\n

If you’ve ever wondered where design inspiration comes from, Eric’s answer is – everywhere.<\/p>\n

He crams his office with the art, typefaces, photos, products and designs that he finds evocative; collects more-or-less everything including stamps<\/a> and records<\/a> and books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the sense of being around all of this stuff.  To know it\u2019s seeping into my work.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Eric, curating is an instinct that spills over to Pinterest, where he\u2019s pinned nearly 4,000 carefully selected images into glorious, sometimes inspired, boards.<\/p>\n

And Pinterest adores him for it.  To date he has amassed over 170,000 followers.<\/p>\n

Steeped in inspiration<\/h2>\n
\"The

The Bulging Book of Ephemera by Eric Kass<\/p><\/div>\n

Eric claims to have a hoarder\u2019s mentality, but if he does it\u2019s paired with exceptional taste and the intentionality of a master curator. Nothing is extraneous, everything is there for a reason. Eric doesn\u2019t really hoard, he collects; and since Pinterest has made his collections public, he curates.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways first it\u2019s curation,\u201d he says. ‘Knowing what\u2019s good and what isn\u2019t. That\u2019s design. That\u2019s editing.  I take the internet and I edit it down. I take this big mess and make it meaningful to me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eric is not your typical Pinterest influencer. Eric Pins because that\u2019s what Eric loves to do. He\u2019s been approached by brands to push their products to his 172,000 followers, but he\u2019s never taken the money.<\/p>\n

Before Pinterest he collected things in the real world. \u201cThings piled up,\u201d he says. It was almost impossible to keep it all straight and still have the best of it on hand when he needed it – to pull inspiration from the chaos.<\/p>\n

One day, on a whim, he started tearing out pieces from some of his old magazines and books and gluing them beside each other into a great big book which he started calling his Bulging Book of Ephemera<\/a>. Whilst The Bulging Book was essentially unpublishable, it struck a chord with other designers and featured in a number of design books.<\/p>\n

Creativity is often found in the unexpected connection of two seemingly unrelated ideas. The Bulging Book of Ephemera inspired Eric in that way, and today some of his Pinterest boards do the same.<\/p>\n

Black + White<\/h2>\n

\"Black<\/a>His board \/\/ black + white \/\/<\/a> is a masterclass in creative Pinterest curation. It\u2019s description simply reads \u201c* monochrome mania *\u201d.<\/p>\n

Eric is also a talented copywriter.  As much care goes into his board titles as the most ardent Pinner, but far fewer characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use the board \/\/ black + white \/\/ to explore the connections between unrelated items. I look through it and ask myself what do these things have in common besides being mono-chromatic?\u201d<\/p>\n

His boards and his Pins flout the usual rules of Pinterest marketing. I suspect he knows that using keywords in his board names and descriptions would make him more discoverable, but he doesn\u2019t seem to care. For Eric the joy of writing is coming up with great copy to complement his design and curation, and keywords don\u2019t come into it.<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/h2>\n

Not a keyword in sight<\/h2>\n

In an Internet where you can\u2019t spit without hitting a blog about social media marketing, Eric has somehow risen to the top, like the proverbial cream, without following the usual playbook. It\u2019s refreshing, and it sets him apart.<\/p>\n

Even his more populist boards, like this beauty board<\/a> is titled simply \u201c\/\/ W \/\/\u201d. His men\u2019s fashion board<\/a> is called \u201c\/\/ M \/\/\u201d. Neither have a description at all. There\u2019s not a keyword in sight.<\/p>\n

Finding Eric Kass on Pinterest is like stumbling by chance off the street into an unmarked back alley bar that just happens to be the hippest spot in town. You got lucky.<\/p>\n

And he admits that so did he.<\/p>\n

The big break<\/h2>\n

He\u2019d been Pinning for a while, just for himself, an online expression of a lifetime habit, when Enid Hwang<\/a> (Pinterest\u2019s 4th employee and Community Marketing Manager) discovered him. She recommended him to Pinterest’s audience and suddenly his following on the network exploded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted an audience for what I put my heart and soul into. I want to be part of the conversation. That\u2019s the last part of the process – having someone interact [with your work].\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s just as deliberate with his beautiful Instagram presence<\/a>, but he hasn\u2019t been nearly as successful there.<\/p>\n

\"Eric<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody cares,\u201d he says, \u201cSome of it is just luck. This one person just got me in front of a lot of people and it blew up from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Words that many of us should take to heart. Luck is a factor. Lightning can strike at any time. Or not.<\/p>\n

Being a master curator can\u2019t hurt though.<\/p>\n

Training the eye<\/h2>\n

When it comes to training your artistic eye Eric says, \u201cAt the start you either have it or you don\u2019t. Listen to your gut and believe in what you see and like. Everybody has preferences, but that\u2019s subjective. My talk at the recent EtsyUp conference<\/a> was about the difference between the subjective and the objective and how to move from a subjective viewpoint to an objective one. \u201d<\/p>\n

Eric is often pushed to provide an easy formula for people wanting to improve as artists and designers (by me for example ? ).<\/p>\n

After his EtsyUp talk one lady approached him to talk about the design she\u2019d recently done for her business cards. She wanted to know how to make it better.<\/p>\n

His advice boiled down to – go onto Pinterest and find other designs that you like and incorporate your favorite aspects of those designs. Beyond that his advice tends to either get mystical, or at the other extreme, very practical.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo to school for design, get a degree and then practice design for twenty years. It\u2019s experience, it\u2019s practice. It\u2019s still a craft for me, I\u2019m still learning\u2026 I have an innate drive to organize, and that\u2019s design.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t\n\t\tHow to become a good designer: 'Go to school for design and then practice design for 20 years.'\t<\/span>\n\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tClick to Tweet<\/span>\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/path><\/svg>\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/i>\n\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/span>\n\n<\/a>\n\n

Words that put me in mind of Ira Glass\u2019s inspiring advice for artists to capitalize on their great taste and overcome their creative limitations by producing a lot of work.  There’s no getting around it, experience counts.<\/p>\n