Grace Bonney has been at the helm of Design*Sponge, the wildly popular design site, since 2004. Reaching over a million readers a day on its combined platforms, Grace Bonney proves that if you have a dream and the passion behind it, the work will speak for itself.
Outside of her own space on the web, Grace shares her knowledge and collaborates with other women who run creative businesses with events and a weekly column called “Life and Business” and hosts a weekly radio show, After the Jump, dedicated to discussing issues that arise within the creative community.
Grace, who gathered much of her early inspiration from the burgeoning Brooklyn design scene, has traded the brownstones and traffic of the borough for the wide open Hudson Valley region of New York state, where she lives with her wife, Chef Julia Turshen, two rambunctious pups and cat. The rustic farmhouse perfectly suits Grace’s calm and warm demeanor.
We asked Grace about her path to success, including the bumps along the way, and her advice to other women who want to make their own dreams happen.
How she turned Design*Sponge into a reality: “I don’t really consider myself an artist, but I was a fine art major in college. Design*Sponge was really an answer to what I wasn’t seeing in the market. I moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn in 2003, right after college and that was kind of when the Brooklyn design scene was starting to explode, and no one was writing about it in papers or on TV or magazines. I was just carrying my camera around and taking pictures of it, and I couldn’t believe that nobody was talking about all the incredible work that was coming out of Brooklyn…yet. So I started to write about it on a blog, thinking maybe one day I can use this as a portfolio, and I can apply for a job at a magazine, and that will be my dream job. So I started writing about it and I think it really kind of hit at the right place, right time. People were excited to hear about younger people doing things. So it really struck a chord. I eventually ended up working in magazines, and the magazines all kind of folded around 2008, and it became clear that the site was the thing that was actually the most stable, which was a huge surprise to me.
I hunkered down and invested in the site in 2008, and hired writers and other editors and have slowly and very organically grown it from there. As it’s grown, the focus became less about just providing a platform for independent designers, and more about trying to booster the people behind those products. Whether that’s telling their story, providing scholarships for up and coming designers, or really trying to educate the next generation of up and coming business owners. That’s become a huge focus of the site.”
Her advice to women who want to become involved in design: “As a blogger, I think the most important thing right now is to have a point of view. I think that’s it’s going to be very difficult to stand out in the market that we have right now, which is just hundreds and hundreds of stylish people with blogs, who all know how to take a great photograph. I would say, figure out why you are blogging, because if you are blogging for personal use, there’s not need to put rules and parameters on what you do and don’t post. It should just be about what makes you happy. But if you are trying to turn your creative blog into a business, the biggest thing you can do is figure out what your message and your mission is. It’s fine if that evolves over time.
“As a maker, I would say the biggest tool right now is social media and finding a way to harness that to suit your style and your voice. Everybody uses Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, in their own way and their own voice, and there’s no need to do it exactly like everybody else. The artists that I’ve seen use that to really launch a career successfully, have used it to make it their own. For example, there’s an artist named Ariele Alasko who makes really gorgeous woodwork and headboards and tables and things that are all constructed of lath, and put into patterns. She’s completely built her career on Instagram and she’s used it to have limited edition pop up sales, she’s built collaborations that way, she’s using hashtags really effectively. I think to use those tools to not only get visibility but to collaborate is really powerful right now.”
On being out in the design world: “It’s interesting because I’ve been on both sides of the equation, because before I was out, I’d been running the site for years and was in a heterosexual relationship and got to see how people treated me in that life vs my out life now. To be quite honest, there wasn’t a huge difference, which was a big surprise. I expected there to be quite a big one. I would say the differences are more subtle, and they happen in a more personal face to face way, than online. I think most people are aware of the consequences of being homophobic or saying offensive things online, especially when their names are attached to them. But when it comes to embracing all of the complicated conversations that might come with a blog that has an LGBT person attached to it, or sort of more progressive thought conversations happening, that’s when people start to get uncomfortable.
“A big issue for us is the idea of trying to de-gender design. We no longer use the words feminine or masculine. We really try to push people away from leaning on those binary terms. It’s lazy writing to me. That’s been a difficult thing to convey to the audience because those are terms and concepts that are so built into the way we talk about objects now, and we are trying to educate people that way.
“I think in general, people in the design community are so open minded and creative in terms of accepting my own relationship, or anyone else’s in our community. That’s been kind of a no brainer.”
On bouncing back and forging ahead: “Between 2005 and 2008, I was running Design*Sponge, writing for House and Garden, a weekly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, writing for HGTV Magazine , I couldn’t take enough jobs because I was really terrified that I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent. When House and Garden folded, I just immediately moved to Domino, and then Domino folded, so then I went to Craft Magazine, then Craft Magazine folded. I think after the third magazine closed, it became very clear that this wasn’t just isolated to Conde Nast. This was happening everywhere. I figured out I needed to take my blog more seriously.
“I think the first thing to do is always talk to a professional. I think I was scared to invest money in speaking with someone who would help me plan and set up my business, but looking back, it was the best investment I made. I think if you are considering taking whatever freelance work you are doing, whether it’s art or writing or photography, if you are trying to make that your full time job, the best thing you can do is give your business the right backbone to survive. I met with an accountant, a financial planner, and I talked to a small business group for women in New York City to ask, ‘What do I do? I want to make sure I’m doing everything properly so I give my business the best chance it has to survive.’ I find that I go back to those conversations I had with those women, over and over again when I get in a tough spot. Like, my gut response is to do XYZ, but they always told me to be sure you always have six months operating capital in your business at all times. Keeping those things in mind have helped keep us stay afloat.”
On women who inspire her: “I’m primarily inspired by women who aren’t in my community, not that there aren’t amazing women. I think Paola Antonelli who is the curator at the MOMA is amazing. Patricia Urquiola who is a designer and just does really incredible, cutting edge things. You don’t see a lot of women who do tech based design celebrated enough, and those women fascinate me. I find that I get most of my inspiration from women in music, primarily because they are so bold and unafraid to be loud and be themselves. I feel if I had one of those WWJD type bracelets, it would be a What Would Kathleen Hanna Do. I think that women who are not afraid to fully take up their space is what keeps me running. The design community in particular for the most part, I find, wants women to be small and pretty and cute. I held that space for a lot of years, and then realized that this is such a tiny box to be in, and it’s much more comfortable and sometimes messier to be louder and speak from your gut, and not from a place you know is radio and interview clip friendly. So there aren’t a lot of people in my community that I look to for that boldness, so I go back to Kathleen Hanna, Carrie Brownstein, people like that where I want someone to be loud and like, kick something. I’d say, professionally, Rachel Maddow is my complete and total idol. I really love any woman who is not afraid to stand up and be who they are and say what they think.”
On making success happen: “I think the best thing you can do to make something happen is to be 100% transparent with where you are at the moment. I’ve given up this idea of having to be perfect on the site, and have X amount of posts a day to cover X amount of topics. No one is coming to any blog or magazine or podcast to hear the same ten things over and over. They want to hear something different and real. Honestly, the only thing that really separates every design blog in my category is the people behind them. If I tell my story, even if that’s the story of being frustrated and uninspired, I find that clicks and resonates with readers so much more strongly, rather than me just producing another pretty house tour. I take the moment and just say, you know, I didn’t have anything to write today. That tends to go over so much more strongly with reader.
“I think that everyone feels that challenge in their job: How do you stay new, how do you stay relevant, how do you stay fresh? Being honest about the struggles of that part of the job, I think is really powerful and allows me to connect with people who are feeling the same way, but didn’t really want to say it yet. So I found that by writing less, but writing more honestly I’ve connected better with not only my fellow bloggers and creative, but the community as well.”
Achieving work/life balance: “The hard thing is, there’s no one piece of advice that works for everyone. I think every single person, woman or not, has to really decide what’s the hierarchy of happiness in life. I think the very difficult and privileged conversation to have is where does money fit on that spectrum? Does it need to be number one? I think for a lot of people who have this conversation, myself included, money is not number one but that’s because I live in a two income household where I’m able to de-prioritize it enough and pare down so I can live in a way that’s comfortable but doesn’t require me to work 20 hours a day.
“But I did live in that place for a very long time and I realized, I was miserable. I was working so much that I didn’t have a personal life and completely suppressed my happiness and my needs for a solid decade, and got to the point where I was like, I kind of just want to start over. I want to hit the reset button. I don’t think it needs to be that dramatic for everybody but I find with a lot of women, this happens at 30. There’s something about that decade shift that you are like, ‘OK, I’m an adult now. What have I done with my 20s? What do I want to do with my 30s? Who am I right now?’ For me, 30 was a big trigger. I feel like for everyone though, there’s that internal point that just says, this isn’t working anymore. It takes a lot of guts to just stop and steer yourself in the other direction. But having done that, and very messily I might add, it was the most important shift I made. I decided that I’m not going to compete to be number one, because that’s just about competition and I’m not actually enjoying any of that process. I’m not enjoying the journey of trying to stay at the top because I can run a totally fine, profitable, business without having to be number one, and why isn’t that enough?”
