At Creative Parent, we love featuring artists who bring a sense of play and creativity to everything they do, people who understand the joy of making, experimenting, and seeing the world through a colourful lens. Erin Jang is one of those people — a designer, illustrator, and art director with a background in editorial design, Erin has a gift for telling stories through colour, form, and craft.
You might have seen her work in The New York Times or as part of interactive experiences like Color Factory. Her projects range from books and children’s products to public art installations, each filled with thoughtfulness and playfulness in equal measure. Beyond her creative work, Erin is also a mother to two boys, which makes her incredibly passionate about nurturing creativity in everyday life.
We caught up with Erin to talk about her career, the value of play in design, and how she fosters creativity at home and beyond.
How has parenthood shaped the way you approach creativity, both in your work and in everyday life?
Creatively, becoming a parent has meant allowing myself to have more fun making and creating things. I have always been someone who loves to play and make things by hand — but with my children, I craft and experiment with different materials even more. Making things side-by-side with my kids is one of my greatest joys, and that creative impulse influences my work. Practically, becoming a parent has helped me become more efficient in my work process and selective about which projects I take on because I want to make the most of my time when I work and when I’m with my kids.
The biggest influence my children have had on my work is that they’ve helped me take more risks and be less afraid of failure. I tell my kids how important it is to try new things and make mistakes. Kids are experts in keeping grown-ups accountable, to practice what we preach, and mine remind me of the things I tell them to do. In the past, they’ve nudged me to get over my fear of public speaking and accept invitations to design talks (“Growth mindset, mommy…”), and more recently, encouraged me to take on a bigger project despite nagging feelings of impostor syndrome.
New York is such a vibrant and creative city. How has living there inspired the way you’re raising your two boys?
Raising kids in New York City can be challenging, but rewarding. For every stressful limitation we feel living here, it’s offset by all the wonderful things my kids get to experience. They won’t ever have their own bedroom, a backyard or a family car — but the public library, shared playgrounds, city parks and museums become like an extension of our home. I’m grateful for the education they get just walking around the city and riding the subway everyday, for the conversations we get to have about the things we observe, for the diversity in their classrooms at school, and for the access to so much creativity and inspiration around them. What I appreciate most about living in New York City is all the time I get to walk and talk with my kids (so much walking, so much time on the subway together!), to point out all the beautiful and difficult things and try to make sense of them together.
Do your children play a role in your creative projects, or have they inspired specific design ideas?
Yes! My kids have always shown a curiosity about the work I do. Because we live in a small apartment, everyone tends to congregate in the living room to work, play and make things. We are all up in each other’s business and see what everyone else is working on. Since they were little, my boys have enjoyed peeking at my screen, offering their unsolicited (and very honest) feedback on cover designs, colour palettes and craft projects. I love hearing their suggestions and often seek out their opinion if I feel stuck on choosing a final illustration or have been staring at a design too long. My kids have even collaborated on projects with me in the past. My son and I created a print during the pandemic (and raised over $3,500 dollars for the Food Bank of NYC), and he co-authored a creative journal for parents and kids with me (he played such a big role in developing the activities and prompts for the book!). My younger son inspired many of the feelings I included in this children’s book, as well as the words in these board books (many of the objects and animals were his favourite things as a toddler).
Do you incorporate design principles, like colour, structure, or organisation, into your children’s learning or playtime?
No – I think kids should have fun and take the lead exploring on their own when it comes to playtime and learning.
That said, we really enjoy making things together, and what the kids create turns out so unexpectedly beautiful – better than anything intentionally “designed.” For example, during the pandemic, when we were cooped up in our apartment, we got through those difficult days by making one special project every day. One day, we had the idea to bake crackers as tangram shapes, another day the kids drew all their favorite buildings in NYC; we went on a scavenger hunt in our neighborhood and took photos of every cool-looking letter of the alphabet we found, and another day they made time-lapse videos of domino letters. These were all just made for fun and play and led by my kids — but inherently had those “principles of design” embedded within. I think kids naturally think and make with their own ideas of color, organization and form in mind, and those design elements are already built into their way of playing.
When you’re creative with your kids, do any of their ideas or techniques influence your own design work?
One of my design heroes, Corita Kent, said that if you have a child, you should let them give you lessons in looking because a child treats every situation “with the open curiosity and the attention that it deserves.” The way my kids look at things has a big influence on me. When we are out walking around our neighbourhood, on a trip, or making things at home, we have so much fun looking at things together in unusual ways, noticing what’s silly about a scene or situation, or how something seemingly mundane is quite clever and special. I have an album of photos of things my youngest has pointed out while walking around the city: a leaf on the sidewalk that looks like a face, or a row of people sitting on the 6 train who all happen to be wearing green.
We’ve made faces out of our food, or at the beach with pebbles and seaweed. And my oldest cracks me up the way his mind works: he’ll rip his name tag sticker to rearrange the letters into new anagrams (Hi, my name is MILES → SLIME, LIMES, SMILE). My kids’ humor and creativity and the way they see the world helps me approach projects with playfulness and inspires me to look at things with a unique perspective.
How do you navigate the balance between your professional creative work and the demands of parenting?
Imperfectly! Every season of parenting has looked slightly different for us. My husband and I are continually reassessing and adapting our schedules as the kids change and go through different stages. When they were young, we relied more heavily on daycare and a rotation of babysitters and I used to work significantly more in the evenings (a “second shift” after the kids went to bed). I naively thought parenting would be less demanding as the kids got older and more independent. But I’m finding that they need us more, in different and deeper ways as they navigate adolescence, and I’d like to be there for them.
How do you encourage your children to explore and develop their own creativity and interests?
I think every kid has an incredible amount of innate creativity. And as a parent I see my role as just helping to encourage them in what they love and making sure their creativity doesn’t get stifled.
Since our boys were very little, we brought them everywhere, to everything we were interested in — mainly out of necessity, but also because we enjoyed sharing with them the things we love, even if they weren’t technically “kid-friendly” — art museums, galleries, concerts, trips. We nurture a love of reading and the value of making things by hand. We have a family tradition of making cards and birthday presents for each other, and they end up being the most meaningful, creative gifts. We try to pay attention to what excites our kids and look for materials and books that might help them explore on their own.
“As my boys have gotten older, we’ve found that it’s become even more important to protect and treasure the time and space for our kids to be curious and creative offline.”
We love using screens to learn and create, but we noticed that when they’ve had prolonged time passively consuming, it takes away something precious; their excitement and curiosity for the real world dims a little. Holding off on full-access smartphones and setting limits on screen time has been hugely helpful for our family, for our closeness, for our kids’ creative spirit, but I know it will only get more challenging to navigate as they get older.
But right now, it’s exciting and fascinating to watch them find the passions and interests that are completely their own and outside of my scope of knowledge. My youngest has gotten into drawing and coming up with his own stories and comics in a style uniquely his. And my oldest loves learning about birds and has become passionate about teaching himself advanced origami. It’s so exciting and humbling (in the best way!) to learn from them.
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a creative parent, and how did you overcome it?
I think the biggest challenge, which I imagine is universal to all parents, is limited time. What’s challenging is the tension between wanting to be fully present with my kids and be a great parent and having the space and time to do my best work. Over the years, I’ve learned to be kinder to myself and let go of unreasonable expectations (guilt about time with kids or regret over work opportunities) or comparing myself to others. What helps me the most is being grateful, when I remember how lucky I am to be a mom to my awesome kids, and that I get to do the creative work I care about.
Are there any places, books, films, or games that have been especially impactful or inspiring for your kids?
Cooper Hewitt – The Senses: Design Beyond Vision (an exhibit of sensory artwork to interact with, so memorable that my oldest still remembers several of the installations from seven years ago!), Es Devlin (even the exhibit design for her work was inspiring in itself)
Mass MOCA – Spencer Finch, Sol Lewitt, and the Plastic Bag Store
MIT Museum – Arthur Ganson (mesmerising kinetic sculptures that my kids couldn’t stop staring at)
Storm King Centre (my son tried to recreate some of the sculptures in Minecraft LOL), Dia: Beacon, and Chelsea galleries (Yayoi Kusama Obliteration Room and Ruth Asawa)
And they have especially loved kids’ tours and art-making studio spaces at any of the art museums we visit (lots of great memories of Saturdays at MoMA and the Whitney.
Movies and shows
Pixar shorts, Fantasia, Wallace & Gromit, Bluey, Shape Island, Paddington movies, and most of all we love the curated short films shown at the New York International Children’s Film Festival (we make it a point to go every year because the films are so unique, hilarious and moving). My older son who loves origami and birds inspired us to watch these documentaries: Between the Folds and Origami Revolution on PBS, and Birders: The Central Park Effect (and all three opened my eyes to whole other worlds!).
Places
We try to plan hiking trips as a family every couple years, to be outdoors and have extended offline time together. We really cherish these memorable trips. The boys’ favorite hikes have been in Peru and Switzerland. This recent winter break, we hiked and camped at the Grand Canyon (they talked about Pokemon for five hours straight the first day, but hey, we made it down to the campsite with zero complaints about their heavy packs!).
Reading
So many great books my kids have loved over the years. Some picture books they really loved when they were younger, that made them see and think about things differently: Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson, CDB! by William Steig, Round Trip by Ann Jonas, The Invisible Alphabet by Joshua David Stein & Ron Barrett, I LEGO N.Y. by Christoph Niemann, The Orange Book by Richard McGuire, The Real Dada Mother Goose by Jon Scieszka & Julia Rothman, and If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackall. My oldest has been reading Sherlock Holmes, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin and What If? by Randall Munroe, and is recently obsessed with all of Ed Yong’s writing (he’s a science and nature writer).
My youngest has started getting into Kate DiCamillo’s books (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane gets me every time) and loves poring over my vintage craft books on constructing toys, and the latest issue of The Week, Jr., a news magazine for kids. We also recently introduced the kids to some podcast episodes on The Moth and Song Exploder, which they loved. It’s so fun to be able to share more of the things we love to read and listen to as they get older.
