Alastair McKimm On Gratitude & an Addictive Personality

• 01:12–01:57 | Leaving i-D After 23 Years and Building Something of His Own
• 01:59–05:04 | Why Print, Curation and Editorial Judgment Still Matter
• 05:28–05:52 | Filtering the Noise in an Overwhelming World
• 05:58–08:17 | Giving Artists Creative Freedom Through Prototype
• 08:21–10:18 | Rethinking the Magazine Format and Business Model
• 10:18–12:03 | Building a Democratic Publication Without Hierarchies
• 18:04–20:39 | Finding Inspiration in the Everyday and Reimagining the Ordinary
• 21:03–22:35 | How We Give Meaning to the Things We Create
• 22:35–25:10 | Why We Still Need Physical Objects in a Digital World
• 25:34–26:51 | Finding His Own Creative Identity After i-D
• 27:50–29:28 | Learning to Embrace Uncertainty Through Marc Jacobs
• 29:29–30:40 | The Expanding Role of Creative Direction With Miley Cyrus
• 34:29–36:55 | Dealing With Criticism, Negativity and the Pressure to Please
• 36:56–38:14 | Staying Open to the World Beyond the Screen
• 38:14–39:48 | Creative Ambition, Insecurity and the Need for Validation
• 39:48–41:13 | Finding the Next Chapter When Your Career Defines You
• 41:18–44:32 | Work-Life Balance, Recovery and the Danger of Abandoning Yourself
• 44:11–44:32 | When Bad Habits Become the Price of Professional Success
• 44:45–45:34 | AI, Print and Why New Technologies Don't Have to Replace the Old
• 45:44–46:22 | What Is Contemporary Now? Curation, Editing and Clarity

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Notable Quotes: 

• On Curation and Clarity “What's contemporary now is curation and editing. Whether it comes to work or your own life or how you make your way through the world.”
• On Being Driven by Insecurity “I think we're all driven by our insecurities.”
• On Ambition as a Drug “I'm really lucky that I'm really ambitious and really competitive because it is like a drug. If that's my drug of choice, it's better than the alternative.”
• On the Instinct to Create “If you're creative, you have to create.”
• On Trusting Your Instincts Over a Plan “I don't have goals. I'm not like a five-year planner. There's no strategy except instinct,”
• On Gratitude and Addiction “Gratitude and addiction. That's where I also live.”
• On When Your Career Defines You “My career has really been my driving force in my life. So without it, you feel lost.”
• On the Cost of Professional Success “Sometimes our bad behavior gets rewarded.”
• On the Danger of Working Around the Clock “If you're working 24/7, of course you're going to have some kind of success, but then it's going to be short-lived if you're not also taking care of all the other components of your life.”
• On Losing Yourself in Your Work “It's almost like I abandon myself.”
• On Prioritizing Your Well-Being “The things that I really need to focus more of my attention on are my physical, mental and spiritual well-being.”
• On the Weight of Negative Opinions “You can get 100 positive comments and one negative comment, and I'll obsess about the one negative comment.”
• On the Power of Creative Chemistry “The people that I work with more often, we get better results because you become closer.”
• On Staying Open-Minded “Open-mindedness and willingness always have to be our driving force. We've got to stay open-minded as creatives.”
• On Giving Creatives Their Freedom “I just don't want to micromanage. [...] I give them total freedom, which is honestly what it should all be about.”
• On Why Magazines Still Matter “I'm kind of bored of the whole rhetoric around magazines not needing to exist because I'm like, that's like saying books don't need to exist.”
• On Embracing New Technology “It's like any tool. We just have to use it to the best of our ability.”
• On Turning the Everyday Into Art “I think the way that we present things is what makes them art.”
• On Finding Meaning Through Curation “I think it's all about clarity, right? So maybe clarity's contemporary, you know, curation, editing, all of those things that kind of mean the same thing to me.”