I could talk about creativity all day. It’s kind of my life blood but I’ll try to keep this brief. Creativity is a fickle thing, and making it your life’s work is a bit like herding cats. My creative process starts manual and analog when it comes to sketching and wireframing, not letting the design tools of today take me down the wrong path too quickly. You’ll often see me translating written briefs into a visual mood board of sketches and mock ups in order to synthesize the projects’ goal. The process is simply a means to an end though, the end is the user. An obvious rule of the UX/UI world but an underrated one when it comes to everything else. Focusing on the human interaction part of any brand, campaign, or design process is for me the ultimate challenge and ultimate goal.
A fruitful creative process to me is impossible without adventure and life experience. It’s a concept I stole from one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman who calls it “composting”. It’s the idea of growing my life experiences and throwing all sorts of textures, feelings, landscapes, smells and sunsets onto a compost pile in my brain. Leaving them there to bring fresh and fertile ideas to the surface right when they are needed most. For example I often take time away from the marketing world to photograph hikes, live in a van in New England, write about imaginary things, creating scavenger hunt games for my family, learning to knit, sailing the east coast, engineering random gadgets, or just painting. All of which deeply impacts who I am as a person and by extension, a designer.
