Howdy, my name is Josh Farkas. I’m a professional malcontent.
Why should you care what I have to say?
- I illustrated 11 children’s books by the age of 20: Sten Gizzle Time Traveler, Turtle Scott, The Shorteners, Lenny’s Neighborhood, The Shorteners, Traveling with the Wittys, The Adventures of Lana the Ladybug, The Safety Scouts, Clumsy Wally, All About Me. Nurture Bear Presents My First Day At School.
- I wrote, illustrated, and self-published my first novel (Nothing Left to Lose) at 23. Within a year I’d sold the movie rights and worked on a few well known Ignatz and Eisner nominated comics too.
- I bootstrapped and sold my first technology start-up to our largest competitor at the age of 24.
- I acted as a graphic designer and developer for dozens of Fortune 500 brands at a leading Chicago-based technology company/agency by 25.
- I started Welcome to Pixelton, a web comic. The web comic has been enjoyed by over 1 million visitors. I’ve also been working on an interactive graphic novel in the Pixelton universe for the past 7 years. At the moment it is 370 pages long. It is big and crazy and wonderful, and I think you might like, it if it comes out before I die.
- I founded Cubicle Ninjas, a happy little design agency, at 26. Today I act as the CEO of this dojo. Clients include American Express, FOX, GE, The Smithsonian Institution, Universal, and West Point.
After seeing bad information run rampant in blogs, I took a four year writing hiatus. I’m back to inform, delight, and offend.
I never leave comments ever so (because) I don’t really know what people are supposed to say in them. I mostly just wanted to let you know that you have a wandering comma in your third bullet point (“I think you might like, it if it comes out before I die.”) Otherwise, I really liked what you have to say here so far. You are inspiring and your achievements are incredibly intimidating.
I was trying to figure out my entire life just now at COD’s graphic design page (I found it hard to believe youtube’s claim that you attended our good ol’ College of Dreams) and somehow found myself here. I keep running into your name seemingly everywhere (most eerily when I was searching for somewhere to show me what this design stuff is all about in real life and realized your company is a block from where I live and work).
If you have a spare moment, could you give someone considering a career in design some advice please? Education-wise or life-wise or anything-wise would be immensely appreciated. Thanks
Hi Marianne – Thanks so much for the kind words! I’m super humbled. (And thanks for the fix too!)
I’ll reach out by email and see if I can help, but the general message I can share is that the rules in life are perceived. You can do anything you want. Believing this simple fact is the first step, and 90% of the mental battle.