EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW // Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge: Loud & Clear

We’ve been interested in Brooklyn based writer Grace Bonney and her perspective on DIY design since the launch of her blog Design*Sponge in 2004. Through its inspired, empowering, and exhaustive content—including home tours, city guides, small biz advice, recipes, DIY projects, and more—the site has built an audience of 75,000+ daily readers, 280,000+ Twitter followers and 20,000 Facebook followers.

As content creators, we admire the constant evolution and growth of Bonney’s site and voice…so when she speaks up, we listen. Her impassioned and thoughtful 3,300-word response to the recent New York Times story about the new world of online shelter magazines struck a nerve, and we asked her to continue the dialogue here. (Join us after the jump for the Q&A.)

Not only does the drive behind these small, successful online magazines (including Lonny and Rue) taking on the big dogs of traditional media have much in common with the entrepreneurial creativity of folks working in all kinds of mediums at 3rd Ward, but Bonney herself embodies what we’re all about—building community through shared resources, vision, hard work, and play.

Her response to the Times piece—inspired in part by Tina Fey’s take on women and competition in Bossypants and her rereading of the Riot Grrrl literature of her teenage years—addresses several hot-button topics surrounding traditional media vs. online content. It also raises the bar for young women content producers and business owners in terms of the need for increased professionalism and collaboration.

A former contributing editor at Domino (shuttered in 2009, much to the dismay of its devoted following), Bonney founded Design*Sponge as a one-woman show and now runs the site with her husband Aaron Coles (director of advertising), managing editor Amy Azzarito, and a team of 20 freelance contributors. The site has established a breezy yet authoritative voice captured in her soon-to-be-published first book, Design*Sponge at Home, a comprehensive (and gorgeous) guide to home décor and DIY projects (Artisan, September 2011).

We also admire (and learn from) Bonney’s support of the community that supports her. Since 2007, she has offered no-strings-attached scholarships for art and design students, and in 2008, she launched D*S Biz Ladies, a national series of meet-ups offering free legal, business, financial and marketing advice for women running design-based businesses.

Last month, on a break from the DIY Business Association Conference, where she was headlining, we sat down with her over coffee in DUMBO.

3W: What was your initial reaction after reading the Times piece?

Grace Bonney: I couldn’t stop myself from responding. It came from a gut level, and I haven’t been that excited to write something in years. I thought, “There’s no way I’m getting through the day without getting this out.” I have a lot of strong opinions about online magazines in general, but for the most part when you express opinions about the online design community that aren’t positive, people immediately read that as cattiness or jealousy.

3W: So it’s more of a rah-rah cheerleader atmosphere?

GB: It’s not a community that I feel supports constructive criticism, so I usually keep it to myself. The online design community has a hard time accepting criticism, and as someone who absorbs a hell of a lot of it on a regular basis I see that while it’s difficult and sometimes mean-spirited, it can also be incredibly helpful.

3W: How did you become open to criticism?

GB: I was an art major in school, and crits [critiques] were such a big part of that. If you get used to them, you realize they can be incredibly forceful in terms of really pushing yourself to be better. In the [online design] community a lot of people are coming to art for the first time, I think, so it’s so sensitive and personal. They have a hard time realizing that once you get past that initial hump of making something, you have to try to make something even better the next time.

3W: What kind of reaction did expect after you posted in response to the Times article?

GB: I thought I would probably get attacked for saying this. It’s important that the design community supports each other, but the article made a lot of really good points that I wanted to discuss…so I think it was the right time, right place, and I had to say it.

3W: In the evolution of anything, standards must be raised, right? Regarding online magazines, was that the intention or result of the article and your response to it?

GB: You don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade and say, “Okay, you’ve been doing the same thing for a few years. Now you can do something different or better.” The general problem I have with the DIY community right now, even at Renegade…I walk around and see people doing really simple screen-printed cards or tote bags and stuff, and that’s fine, but I want people to take it to the next level and experiment with something in a more difficult way, to push themselves beyond using stock imagery. I want people to try harder. And that’s how I feel about online magazines. I want people to realize that yes, they’re totally in their infancy, and I don’t expect anything to be perfect—I mean, believe me, my blog is not perfect—but I have a readership that constantly tells me what they’d prefer that I do or how they want me to change things. I hated it at first, but now I realize that’s what has really pushed me, and I wanted to offer the same.

3W: Soon after the discussion about The Times article, you worked with a journalist to offer Media Training as part of your Biz Ladies series. Why did you feel the need to do so?

GB: I thought that the young women who were interviewed should have been more careful with what they said. I’ve had trouble with The Times, too. Not being misquoted—what I said and what those girls said I’m sure is what was actually said—but you have to be careful about how sarcasm comes across. I had a very visceral response to understanding what had probably happened.

3W: What else bothered you about the article?

GB: They didn’t say what these magazines are doing in a good way or discuss what this all means for design publishing in general. I was glad that the article pointed out that the first couple issues of Lonny were heavily Domino material, but overall, the oldest of these magazines is two years old, so there isn’t as much copy-catting as the article made it sound. I also hated that they they shit all over blogs [From the article: “As Crystal Gentilello, the 28-year-old co-founder and editor of Rue, put it, ‘Everyone and their mother has a blog.’”] For me, it’s not about the medium, it’s about the message, and I think that the message [at these online magazines] is getting watered down by a lack of editing. I read The Times article seven or eight times, and the more I read it, the more I realized that they missed a chance to talk about something really important: the fact that these magazines are free means that the competition is very different. You don’t have to subscribe or pay for them, so you can read like a million of them. Bloggers always feel competitive with each other, but they shouldn’t, because all of those readers read all of those sites. It’s not like people say, “I only read Design*Sponge and nothing else.” That’s not how online readers work. They want as much information as they can find.

The article set up those two women [Crystal Gentilello of Rue and Michelle Adams of Lonny] to be really catty. There’s obviously plenty of cattiness in an industry dominated by women, but the focus shouldn’t have been about that.  I don’t care if those two girls hate each other. If they do, fine…duke it out. But for the most part, those two magazines are doing pretty well for being new ventures. They should have been talking about how their businesses were set up, where did they get the money to start, how they got their advertisers. They’re businesess! I don’t think any of them are that profitable (I don’t think they’re paying the people who work for them, and that’s a whole different side-story), but it would have been great for the reporter to pull in Sweet Paul or another online magazine.

3W: What were your art school critiques like? How did they thicken your skin?

GB: They’re brutal! I distinctly remember during my senior crit, a teacher told me I would never be an artist…that I was not in the right field. In a way, he was totally right. I was not meant to be a fine artist. I’ve always had a better eye than a hand for things. Luckily I stumbled into another teacher my senior year who got me and said, “I think you’re going to do well. You’re not going to be an artist, but I understand why you want to be a part of this community.” She pushed me to take criticism classes, actual art history classes, which I found to be way too formal and overly critical. So I found a way to combine my love of writing and feedback with an eye for a very specific style.

3W: So more of a curatorial career in a way?

GB: Yes. I realize I don’t have the background or education to back up a serious criticism career. I don’t see myself as a serious critic or serious writer, but I’m someone who is very sure of my opinions and very enthusiastic about the community. But I realize that that part of a community growing is to push itself harder. I think the DIY community needs that.

3W: Voice is such an important aspect of a blog. How did your voice and strong opinions develop? 

GB: I’ve always been really opinionated. All of the women in my family are. I grew up with a lot of strong female role models who aren’t afraid to say what they think. I lost that in college [at William & Mary in Virginia]—I did a lot of just watching and listening and paying attention, and when I got to New York after school, I felt like I was ready to say something. I wasn’t seeing the things that I was interested in in magazines or on TV or online, so I had plenty to say. The hard part as time goes on is to maintain a voice that’s excited and relevant. All of the things I wasn’t seeing before are now super saturated in the market, so you have to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s part of my responsibility to constantly be learning new things and to grow and change.  

3W: How do you establish the tone and how personal to make your voice?

GB: It changes over time. I was really personal at first. I tried to sound cooler than I was, then realized that didn’t work. I really loved Wonkette, that political blog, and I was trying to be sassy like that. I can be sassy in real life, but in terms of a public voice, that wasn’t right for me. I try to keep it positive as much as possible. For the most part, that means people contribute that energy back. I pulled myself out of the site personally around 2007 and started using other writers. There was too much of me, and I wanted to keep more of that for myself. Then people started to miss that, and I got emails that said, “Where did you go? I miss when you write about what you do.” So I started to put more of myself back into the site, and people responded really positively. It was a good reminder that it started as a personality-based site, and it still is one, but now when I talk about personal things I talk about things that are a little more serious, since that’s where I am.

3W: When it comes to feedback, how do you know what to ignore and what to pay attention to?

GB: You get used to it over the years. It’s hard not to take it personally, but you also learn to put it in perspective. The teacher who told me I would never do anything— he’s now a regular reader of the site, and we talk. I remember thinking then, “He doesn’t get me.” Sometimes you’ll get criticism from people who don’t understand what you’re doing or who aren’t interested in it. It’s not that it’s not valid, but you don’t have to absorb and change based upon everyone’s criticism. I got a lot of valuable input from people like Andrew Wagner at ReadyMade and Allan Chochinov at Core77.com, one of the original industrial design blogs. He’s someone I really respect. I was the keynote speaker at a conference of industrial designers in Portland, and I felt very out place. So I worked really hard on the speech and called him and said, “This is what I’m thinking of saying.” Then he said, “I want to hear what YOU have to say, not what you think you should say.” He was totally right. He gets me and the community, and it was totally valuable feedback.

I’m a very type-A person, and I’m my own worst critic. There’s really nothing anyone can tell me that I haven’t already felt self-conscious about, whether it’s about how I write or if I feel like I’m having an off week on the site. It comes back quickly in comment form because I’m really open and honest with my readers.

3W: What can you tell us about your book and the writing of it?

GB: It comes out early September. The process was really organic. I’d been blogging for seven years by the time I wrote it, but I began hearing from publishers in '06 or '07 about wanting to turn the blog into a book, or they wanted to hand me a topic they already had in mind. Nothing felt right. They wanted to do something really nichey, and I wanted a book to reflect the breadth of information that we deliver every day on the site. So I waited. I thought, “There’s really no reason to put so much time into something unless I really love it.” You don’t necessarily make money off a book, so I knew it had to be something I’d love regardless of whether I lost a bunch of money on it. So I waited until I found the right house. Artisan was awesome. They let me bring in the design team. That never happens for a first time author. A lot of people want to take the first thing that comes along because it’s exciting, and you’re so flattered, you just want to say yes. But most business owners who do really well are really selective about what they do, and that might mean waiting three or four years. I firmly believe that things happen when they’re supposed to, so I never feel rushed.

3W: You’ve used the term “DIY” a few times. Can you give us your take on it?

GB: I was very into Riot Grrrl stuff when I was younger, and I’ve been rereading a lot of it lately. It’s inspiring since they’ve been doing their own thing for a long time. It seems to me that the DIY community is starting to splinter into a lot of factions, and I’d like to see it come together more often. Support for one another is usually in hugging form, and it also needs to be in real valuable feedback form. What’s happening reminds me of what happened with feminism; there’s a lot of infighting. I want people to not kill each other from the inside, but to find a way to take those divisions and disagreements and learn from them. There are a lot of bloggers in my own niche, and I might totally disagree with how they run things, but I find it really fascinating to have good conversations with them about why they do things the way they do, and I almost always learn from it even if I don’t agree with it. It’s valuable to get someone else’s perspective on something that you’re passionate about.

3W: What excites you these days in the design world?

GB: In terms of publishing, we’re in a weird space right now. People are testing out things. Some of it’s going well, some of it’s not. I don’t feel entirely inspired by the design blog community right now, and I include myself in that. I’m in a weird shift space where I’m trying to figure out what that next big thing is, what I really want to do with the site, where to push it next. I need to take risks really often, or I get bored. I can’t figure out what that next thing is. Everyone’s trying to figure out what to do next. In the next year there will be a lot of rebirth and excitement happening, but right now people are trying to get their footing and stay afloat, so there’s not a lot of risk-taking. People who are developing iPad apps are exciting to watch…iPads are beautiful & perfect for magazines.

3W: How have you managed during the economic downturn?

GB: I keep things as low overhead as possible. I don’t want to have a studio or an office. We have 20 freelancers, and three of us are full-time—me, my husband, who runs the ad team, and Amy, the first full-time editorial person I’ve ever had. I brought her on this year. We’re a very small run-by-the-seat-of-our-pants company right now, and I prefer it that way. If we had VC money right now, there would be someone else to answer to, and it wouldn’t feel fun anymore. Design*Sponge is a DIY project. I did it entirely on my own. I would never sell the site or take a chunk of investment money. My plan is just that someday I’ll write a I’ve-decided-to-do-something-different post. Although it’s a business, it’s a creative art project more than anything else. It’s run by a single person who has changing interests, so the site is going to grow and change. If I’m not inspired, then my writing’s not inspired, and there’s no point in doing it if I don’t love it. 

-- Cara Cannella