Enjoy a moment with Los Angeles based designer and creative Janice Kim.

Photography and Interview by Keitaro Cloward

Keitaro: Hey Janice!

Janice: Hello, hey, how are you?

Keitaro: Good, just calling about the interview you wanna start us oﬀ?

Janice: Ok I’m nervous.. Janice Kim , Designer, Born in LA , Grew up in Nebraska. Moved around a lot growing up, between Nebraska and Colorado, but came back to LA to finish high school. I guess it wasn’t as traditional as I thought, especially in Diamond Bar High, the whole campus was outdoor.and I thought that was really strange. But, it was cool it was really nice and easy going. The school put a lot of emphasize on academics. So everyone really had to study hard. But, I was never really good at school. Yeah.

Keitaro: Rewind what was happening in your life beginning of the year, were there resolution or anything you make at the start of a new one?

Janice: January 1st I definitely had a hangover. I had a pretty good roll prior, in December, getting my act together, making list for myself for the end of the month resolutions .

Keitaro: What does a day in the life of Janice look like nowadays?

Janice: Daily routines, waking up, exercising, reading a book for an hour or two, I love surfing the web, always on Google either looking for gifs that I can download that I can play with later or I’m on Netflix watching movies, jotting things down in my sketchbook.

Keitaro: Where were you when the shutdown began?

Janice: I was here in LA in Koreatown, I honestly didn’t take it seriously at first. And not too much changed for me since, I would still go into work and everything, we have a pretty small company. So not too much changed for me, except that traﬃc got a lot better.

Keitaro: Anything good come out of having to be quarantine so far?

Janice: Well now I have a crazy amount of time, I just finished a book called “Why we sleep” , I’m obsessed with it and I really think everyone should get 8 hours of sleep. But yes,

I’ve been finishing all the books I wanted to read, editing videos, finishing up things I started Years ago and never had the time for, that now I have so much time for, kinda awesome.

“Quarantine learned me the fact that I have more time, and it taught me to manage my time better.”

Keitaro: Tell us more about this book

Janice: Well, basically. I think, the root cause to ADHD, Alzheimer’s and Dementia, stems from the brain not being able to get 8 hours of sleep. The reason why you need 8 is there’s a balance between NREM sleep and REM sleep. NREM sleep is the one where you dream, but REM sleep is super restorative. Your immune system goes down if you don’t get 8 hours of sleep and you’re always really tired. The time you lose when you don’t get 8 hours of sleep you never get back, it ages your body , you’re not fully functioning, there’s so many crazy facts. It just helps regulate everything. It’s really good for creatives because when you’re dreaming, one of the reasons why you dream, is it helps you solve problems unconsciously. So when you wake up it comes to you , it helps you think.

Keitaro: Any goals or to-dos in this time?

Janice: The big goals for me are to get really fit, this is my time, I’m in my prime right now and I wanna look back and think that I tried my hardest to be the best I could be. Second was to get a good start on a personal business. I’m really into skincare so I wanted to make face oils, I had this great idea to make face oils with my friend Eve so I started making the logo etc. But by the end of the year, I definitely want it to be at a place where I have a finished product. To have a little prototype, that I could give to my friends to try out and stuﬀ.

Keitaro: You think any of your goal have changed with everything that has been going on?

Janice: I think it’s basically the same, maybe I got a little less productive during this Covid thing, just being at home all the time. But yeah, I think my goals are pretty set.

Keitaro: How has business been since everything started.

Janice: Weirdly, our online sales went up, a lot. We sold a lot more than we had with two stores open. Which is kinda strange, and didn’t really make sense to me. But, yeah..

Keitaro: Anything you’ve learned?

Janice: Definitely the fact that I have more time, it taught me to manage my time better. You wake up and you have this whole full day ahead of you and you don’t know what to do with yourself. But, I think I kinda learned how to schedule and plan out my days better. I think that time was the golden thing that came out of this whole thing for me.

Keitaro: Personal life wise?

Janice: More quality time, we take longer walks, being at home, learning how to maintain our relationships better. Personal space, haha.

Keitaro: What’s one thing you wanna knock out before summer is over?

Janice: I think, definitely, I bought this old camera. It’s the one from Sting’s “Dessert Rose” music video. It take these mini tapes, I just wanna be able to do a cool shoot with it.