Why I don’t draw other people’s ideas.

It's not you, it's me.

This is a Reflection letter of The (Im)posture — the newsletter from Julien Posture. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing.

You’re at your desk and you hear the “ting!” notifying you from an incoming email. It’s the designer of a publishing house and they’d “love to work with you” or with a cheaper option they emailed at the same time on a book cover. Great ! After a few back and forth, negotiating schedule and budget, you got yourself a deal. Then the designer sends you the complete brief along with some “ideas”, things they think could work well conceptually, even “a little sketch” they did on lunch time to visualize their idea. They assure you though they’d “love to see what you come up with”. You spend a few days working on sketches and out of politeness you include one of their ideas in the batch. Quickly after, they come back and let you know everyone “loved your ideas” but they’re “ gonna go with [insert their idea]”. You are now contractually …