Creative Counseling, How to Shop at Estate Sales, and Unexpected Visitors

There’s this clickbait-ish type of post that I’ve seen circling the internet for years where a graphic designer will boldly state that “graphic designers are not artists but instead are problem solvers.” I can’t express how hard that makes me roll my eyes, but I do understand the wobbly self-esteem behind the statement because up until 5 years ago, I used to believe this about myself as well.

I’ve spoken here before about burnout as a graphic designer over the past 20 years, but I’m not sure I’ve shared my experience working with a Creative Counselor named Betsy Cordes, who helped guide me out of that burned-out hole. We all know what the state of the world was like 5 years ago, and if we weren’t questioning our whole lives and future, what else were we doing besides baking sourdough and disinfecting our chip bags? The news of Betsy and her magic couldn’t have come at a better time.

I met with Betsy over Zoom after sending her my design work and answering her lengthy questionnaire, which helped her understand some of my thoughts, fears, and dreams before we met. One very early morning before my day job started, we had our creative counseling session. We walked through the questionnaire, chatted about various creative endeavors, and then we got to the moment when she asked if I had any creative dreams I’d like to pursue. I nervously opened a document outlining an art show idea I had, but I couldn’t even look her in the eyes while talking about it because I felt so foolish for being a graphic designer who wanted to have an art show. Her response to the art show concept was, “Beth. You have to do this.” And I, of course, immediately started to cry because somewhere down the very niche graphic designer society line, we’ve been told that “designers aren’t artists,” and so many of us believe this about ourselves. Betsy helped me see myself in a new light and taught me that graphic designers absorb inspiration and output that inspiration in the form of design, and that is the act of being an artist! She truly changed my life because it felt like being given permission to act on and share all the things in life that make me want to design.

So now, in this life as both a graphic designer and an artist, I want to share one of the best ways I’ve found to inject a lightning bolt of inspiration into our graphic designer souls: Estate Sales

Estate Sales 101

My Substack’s theme says “Beth Mathews: A Graphic Designer’s Archive,” and besides eBay.com, estate sales are the number one way I gather design references and have built my own archive. So let’s dive into it!

How to Find an Estate Sale

• estatesales.net: This website lists estate sales nationwide throughout the US.
• estatesales.org: Similar thing!

Before You Go

• Make sure to check the listing details. Some estate sales only accept cash! Or, sometimes they don’t allow purses. Check before you have to go back to your car and put your bag/purse away.
• Check the start time. Arrive early if you can! Or, if a sale runs for 3 days, the prices are usually lower on Sundays.

Sales to Look Out For

• If you’re a graphic designer in the business of finding paper design references (ephemera), then look for the estate sale with a garage packed to the brim and looks like a total mess. An organized estate sale is expensive! A chaotic one wants to sell you what’s in the house and be done with it.

Sales to Avoid

• In my personal opinion, avoid the estate sales that say they have security and timed entries. This means there will be a lot of people, and it’s going to be expensive. If they can afford to hire security for the sale, they’re not in the business of giving you a bargain.

What to Bring

• You’ll need both hands to dig, so wear a fanny pack if you can.
• Water. I treat this like an Olympic sport, looking for the best piece of design inspiration, so bring water and leave it in your car for after the sale.
• Your phone. Take pictures of the things you wish you could buy and store that information in your own archive for later.

Design Inspiration: The Good Stuff!

When I teach my vintage-inspired design workshops, I talk a lot about “layering” in design to help build a world. This collection of automobile registration papers and stickers I found at an estate sale is a perfect example. On just one piece of paper, like the 1942 registration card, there’s a typewriter font, an ink signature, and the Art Deco typeface “Kabel” (as seen in Automobile), created in 1927. Whether the 1942 Department of Motor Vehicles knew that they were creating typographic gold, who knows. But I sure do appreciate it now! And just look at the color palette of the 1965 registration. Cream, red, black, and light pink with a cobalt blue stamp? Truly beautiful.

Gifts from an Estate Sale

My friend Lauren is someone who really gets it. She’s an actor and a vintage clothing dealer and for my 39th birthday, she arrived with a fabric flour bag full of vintage matches that she found an estate sale. Insane design inspiration here. Look at the yellow matches. The text alignment and that phrase “let us make a reservation for your next night’s stop at another good best western” adds a vintage quirk that I’ll be storing away for future projects.

Design Education Found at an Estate Sale

Here’s a whopper of a statement: there’s truly no better design education than what’s found in vintage type specimen books. Affectionally known as “Big Red” in the typography world, I found this book by Linotype for $40 at a surplus sale. Are you curious how to design an authentic looking newspaper? This book will tell you the typeface to use and the point size. Curious how to design a form or official documents? Big Red has the answers you seek.

Finding Joy at the Estate Sale

I found these vintage Disneyland tickets from 1966 and 1975 at an estate sale in Temple City, California just outside of LA this past weekend. They were sitting on an old nightstand tucked into this white envelope with “Disneyland Tickets” written on the outside.

So there we have it… a glimpse into some of the items that could have easily been trashed but have and will greatly inspire my design work and spirit.

I’ll leave you with this last little story. For my 40th birthday last year, we drove up the coast to Mendocino which is about a 9 hour drive. In Mendocino, there’s this incredible river called “Big River” that leads to the Pacific Ocean. The first morning there, we grabbed a coffee and went for a walk by Big River. There wasn’t a soul around. All of a sudden, I heard someone say “Beth?” I looked over and was Betsy! My creative counselor whom I had never gotten to meet in person. And there on my 40th birthday I was able to say “thank you” to her in person for changing the course of my life. Can you believe it?!

I hope if you’ve ever doubted your creative magic or have been worried to call yourself an artist, that you’ll find ways to help shed that narrative and allow yourself to be lit up by whatever sets your soul on fire. And may the gods be in your estate sale favor… there’s gold to be found!

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