What We Think Success Looks Like
· Being
I started a personal project to reconnect with something I have loved since childhood. I did not expect it to open a door to something that had been right in front of me all along: the people, stories, and connections that make life more meaningful.
I started a personal project to reconnect with something I have loved since childhood. I did not expect it to open a door to something that had been right in front of me all along: the people, stories, and connections that make life more meaningful.
The Picture We Carry
Most of us carry a picture of what success is supposed to look like. The right house. The right title. A company of our own. A beautiful office. Recognition for our work. Enough evidence surrounding us to finally feel that we have made it.
For me, that picture included a great creative firm with a cool office, Eames chairs, Herman Miller desks, shelves filled with beautiful books and interesting objects, and walls covered with incredible posters.
Apparently, my definition of success also required exceptionally expensive places to sit.
And the truth is, a lot of those things came true. We built the firm I had imagined. I loved that office, and I am still proud of what we created there. But when I think about that chapter now, I do not miss the furniture nearly as much as I miss the people who sat in it.
I miss the conversations around those desks. The ideas we chased. The risks we took. The laughter, the wins and losses, late nights, and moments when someone saw possibility in another person before they could see it in themselves.
The things helped create the setting. The people made it matter.
[quote:We think we are collecting things. More often, we are collecting reminders of the people, places, and moments that made us who we are.]
When the Walls Went Away
I have loved posters for as long as I can remember. As a kid, my bedroom walls were covered with musicians, athletes, and stories. I started drawing my own before I knew graphic design was something a person could do for a living.
That love followed me into my career. Over the years, I collected posters from designers and artists I admired. Many came from people I met through conferences, AIGA events, speaking engagements, projects, and friendships.
They were beautiful pieces of design, but they were never simply decoration. Each one reminded me of a person, place, conversation, or moment in my life.
As the collection grew, it eventually outgrew our walls. We began rotating 29 posters through the Rule29 studio at a time. The wall was always changing, allowing different pieces and stories to have their moment.
Then Rule29 went virtual, and the walls disappeared. The collection did not. Most of the posters were carefully wrapped, rolled, stacked, or stored away. I still owned them, but I could no longer experience them.
A poster hidden in a tube is not quite the same as one hanging where you can see it every day. That is where this project began.
The 29 Collection
The Ahrens Poster Archive is called The 29 Collection, inspired by the 29 posters we would rotate through the Rule29 studio. I wanted to see my posters again. I wanted to photograph and catalog them, research why they were created, and learn more about the creatives behind them.
There was no big business plan attached to it. It was simply a personal project built around something I have always loved. But as I started researching the posters, something unexpected happened. The more I learned about a piece, the more curious I became about the person who made it.
A poster led to an email. An email became a Zoom call. Whenever possible, a call became a meal, a trip, or an afternoon spent listening to someone talk about the life surrounding the work. We might begin with the poster, but the conversation rarely stays there.
We talk about where the idea came from, what was happening in their life, who helped make the work possible, and what the piece means to them now. Then we talk about family, disappointment, success, doubt, aging, inspiration, and what they still hope to create.
I began collecting posters because I loved the work. I am discovering that their greatest value is the people and stories they invite me to know.
What the Posters Help Me See
A few pieces capture what I love about the collection. Seymour Chwast's End Bad Breath is one of the most striking. Created in 1967 to protest the bombing of Hanoi during the Vietnam War, it depicts a green-faced Uncle Sam opening his mouth as fighter jets fly out beneath the simple headline, "End Bad Breath."
I love how Chwast uses wit and one provocative image to confront something so serious. The poster reminds me that design can do more than make something beautiful. It can challenge power, expose uncomfortable truths, and ask us to consider the human consequences of our actions.
Charley Harper's work speaks to me for a different reason. He used the language of graphic design as an art form, reducing animals and nature to essential shapes, colors, and patterns.
His work reminds me that paying closer attention can help us see more with less. Michael Schwab's Muir Woods poster has that same power. Through bold shapes and a limited palette, Schwab captures the scale of the redwoods, the quiet of the forest, and the smallness of a deer within it.
His simplification does not diminish the natural world. It helps reveal the wonder that was already there. These are three very different pieces, but each asks me to pay closer attention: to the human cost of our choices, to the beauty revealed through careful observation, and to the wonder surrounding us.
Maybe that is what the best objects in our lives do. They help us pause, look again, and notice what matters.
Your Object May Not Be a Poster
You do not have to care about graphic design or collect posters to understand this. We all have objects that carry more than their physical value. A recipe written in someone's handwriting. A beat-up baseball glove. A concert ticket. A watch. A photograph. A book filled with notes. Something made by a child who is no longer a child.
We say we keep these things because they matter to us. But perhaps we keep them because the people attached to them matter most. The object gives us something tangible to hold when time, distance, and life make everything else harder to hold onto.
Your object may not be a poster. The important question is not simply why you kept it. It is who lives inside its story. Who gave it to you? Who made it? What season of your life does it represent? Who were you when it entered your life? Who helped you become the person you are now? And have you ever told them what they mean to you?
Access Is Not Connection
We live at a time when we can see more work, learn about more people, and communicate more quickly than ever before. We scroll past an image. We like it. We save it. We follow the creator. We may even buy what they made.
But access is not the same as connection. Connection requires curiosity. It requires stopping long enough to ask a better question and caring enough to listen to the answer. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed people across their lives since 1938. One of its clearest conclusions is surprisingly simple:
[quote:Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period. — Robert Waldinger]
The quality of our relationships is one of the strongest predictors of our long-term health and happiness. You can read more about the study in the Harvard Gazette. That feels especially relevant to me now.
I spent years building the visible evidence of a successful creative firm. Yet what I remember most clearly is not the furniture, the office, or what hung on the walls. I remember the people. I remember the conversations, the ideas, the laughter, the challenges, and the relationships that changed me. Those are the things that made the firm great. Those are the things that made the work matter.
What Are We Really Collecting?