Lorenzo Diggins Jr
Visual Artist /
Creative Director / Art Book Publisher / Founder of colour bloc creativ
Leimert Park, Los Angeles
Q What do you do?
“In short, I’m a visual artist who creates zines/books, apparel, content, and experiences for a living.”
Aside from pursuing my own creative personal projects and art practice - I take great pride in advocating and strategizing for other artists/creatives/entrepreneurs by helping them bring their ideas/vision to life through my company, color bloc creativ. Also as an art book publisher, I especially enjoy helping artist catalog/archive their work in book form.
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
I built my former men’s lifestyle brand (The Essential Man) from the ground up and during the 7 years of operation, I gained a lot of valuable knowledge; from designing my collections, to learning how to produce all of my goods domestically, to distributing them to different retailers - those experiences have led me directly to where I am now as a creative strategist to others.
Q How do you stand out in your field?
Aside from simultaneously working on a few of my passion projects ("The Simple Things Project," "The 21 Day Project," and “Better with Time”), I’ve really been working on solidifying my art book publishing company, cbc press.; currently I’m working on launching a publication exploring inner-peace.
Q What’s your style/ aesthetic? Do you have a project that shows it?
I have a minimal aesthetic but I really enjoy adding pops of color; I think that juxtaposition is represented in all of my design and illustration work. In regards to my photography, I consider myself more of a photojournalist, so I really make an attempt to connect with my subjects in order to capture its essence for the viewer.
Q What are you working on right now?
Without saying too much, I’m pretty stoked about a few product initiatives we’re working on this year. To be more specific, Adobe has been working on modernizing in-app extensibility over the past few years. In 2018, we launched Adobe XD, Adobe’s UI/UX design tool, powered by Creative Cloud’s new Unified Extensibility Platform (UXP for short). For context, UXP is a shared technology stack that provides a unified, modern JavaScript execution environment. Since the launch of UXP in Adobe XD, we’ve grown into a thriving ecosystem of more than 300+ publicly available plugins. Last year, we introduced UXP-powered Photoshop plugins. That launch was a significant update to the Photoshop ecosystem and unlocked the opportunity for third-party developers to build a more common experience across XD and Photoshop. Looking ahead, we hope to bring UXP to the existing suite of flagship Creative Cloud products. In the immediate short-term, we continue to invest in growing the Photoshop ecosystem and furthering our third-party extensibility journey.
Outside of work, the things that get me excited are: health and wellness, entrepreneurship, building generational wealth, and music. 2020 (as a whole) really pushed me to reevaluate the things that are most important to me and to recognize that as much as I enjoy my work, it isn't the end all be all. I can always get a new job, or move to a new place, but taking care of my mind and soul is the most important thing I can work on.
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
Ha! this is easy - to repeat my last answer, I would hire someone to help me manage some of the many moving parts of my growing business. With all of my projects, I have A LOT of momentum and I could really use help keeping everything in order so nothing slips through the cracks as they have in past when too many things were on my plate. I know an immediate task would be managing the social media accounts.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
I still operate the bulk if not all of my business on my own and if I haven't already, I'm reaching my plateau of what I feel I can continue to do own my (effectively). Currently, I'm working on getting an intern/assistant to help me manage some of the many moving parts of my growing business.
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
In the past I've made a lot of (costly) mistakes due to being too impatient and possibly too eager to "get on". What I would have told my younger self is to simply
“be patient and take your time...
don't focus on what you don't have...just continue to work on your craft and everything will fall into place.”
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
One of my goals is to have my own brick and mortar store - so If I could talk to an expert about anything - it would be about having longevity as a store owner.
Also I would like to talk to one of these big art book publishing houses like Taschen, Phaidon, or Rizzoli to get tips on how they got started and learn how they’ve been able to sustain their business even while the structures have shifted from print to digital.
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
We are looking to work with interesting brands with bold creative visions.
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
My ideal client is with a lifestyle brand like Coca-Cola, Converse, Vans, Levi’s, Sonos, Away (Travel), and Warby Parker (to name a few lol) where I could not only help them curate events/programming but also help them produce cultural content/campaigns around their product(s) through storytelling - a product collaboration wouldn’t hurt too!
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
A simple email always work. Admittedly, sometimes emails slips through the cracks, a simple comment/message prompting me to check my emails always helps too lol. Also if you happen to see me in public - just say hello, don't message me after saying "I saw you but didn't want to bother you" - I promise I won't bite.
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
I stay creative by always having some type of passion project that I’m working on
and currently that’s film photography; in 2019, I explored shooting with 35mm film and it was an amazing experience. This year (2020) I’m continuing my exploration and even leveled up to shooting with 120mm film! Just know that all of my upcoming (speaking into existence) visual content is about to be FIRE!!!!
This member profile was originally published in June 2016, Updated August 2020