Search

Friday Five with Jessica Walsh

Designer and art director Jessica Walsh is one half of the trailblazing duo behind New York City-based design house Sagmeister & Walsh, who have amassed an enviable portfolio of unforgettable work. She can be found teaching design and typography at The School of Visual Arts in NYC, along with lecturing around the world at creative conferences and universities. Besides winning a copious amount of awards from various design competitions, she rightfully landed her way onto the Forbes “30 Under 30 Top Creatives Designing the Future” list. If that’s not enough, Walsh is also the one behind the 40 Days of Dating experiment that she concocted with her friend, Timothy Goodman. In this week’s Friday Five, she lets us in on five things she loves.

Photo courtesy of Pieces Calligraphy

Photo courtesy of Pieces Calligraphy

1. Tombow Pen
This is my favorite all purpose marker and pen for writing and sketching. It has a fixed size nib on one side for general note taking and a calligraphy brush on the other so it can do a variety of line weights and varying strokes for calligraphy.

Photo by Josh Cogan, courtesy of sweetgreen

Photo by Josh Cogan, courtesy of sweetgreen

2. Sweetgreen Salad
This is by far the best custom salad place I’ve found in New York. I find a positive correlation between my productivity and how good I feel based on how healthy I eat, so this place is a favorite for lunch.

F5-Jessica-Walsh-3-Joey-Speakers

3. Ceramic Speakers by Joey Roth
I got these speakers a few years ago to hook up to my vinyl player. I love them not just for their sound but their beauty. Also, one time my friends dog chewed apart the cord and the designer of the speaker sent me a cord for free, which was so sweet.

Photo courtesy of Creative Live

Photo courtesy of Creative Live

4. Wacom Tablet
I have to work with a Wacom tablet, it increases my productivity significantly. Trackpads or a mouse will never compare. I’ve been also recently testing out the Bamboo Spark which is really fun, it allows you to draw with a pen but automatically scans and uploads your notes as a file to the cloud. Makes it really easy to sketch.

5. Travel
Being on an airplane and not having wifi is one of the only places that I can unplug and disconnect. It allows me the freedom to think, to sketch, and create. I also love traveling to new places, meeting new people, learning about new cultures. It keeps me evolving and learning.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.