Think about not what you can do, but what can be done.
Mac Premo
One of the biggest challenges of being a commercial creative is exactly that, balancing the commercial aspects of you job with the creative parts. Seemingly the two always sit at odds with each other. In his talk at CreativeMornings New York Mac Premo debunks the idea that you keep them separate and just let your commercial practice feed your art practice. By using the profits from the commercial work to fund the creative work. Instead he proposes an eco system where the commercial practice feeds the art practice by exposing it to a larger audience and allowing access to bigger resources. While the art practice feeds the commercial business with inspiration, visual metaphors and the freedom of play.
I love the idea that you can both have a commercial output where you create solutions for customers problems and that you can have an art space where you create things that are only for your personal ends. I think the true power here is when you start to let the two worlds collide. The way they mix together and influence each other will allow both to flourish. The freedom you have to explore in your personal work is very liberating and allows for growth and discovery. The discipline of commercial work forces you to work to deadlines and deliver under constraints. I believe if you truly want to be prolific in your out puts and make some sort of an impact. You cannot just build your creative self but need to build the discipline to execute and cultivate ways to reach people.
One of the most prolific designers of our generation Stephan Sagmeister has another take on this approach where he takes 1 year off for every 7 he works. In that 1 year sabbatical he focuses purely on the projects the he personally wants to do. He unequivocally says that the learning and discovery he does in that year’s sabbatical heavily influences the work he creates for the next 7 years of his practice.
Seven years of work (with plenty of living) vs. one year of living (with plenty of work). I might change that into the future though to 9 months of work (with plenty of living) vs. three months of living (with plenty of work)
Stephan Sagmesiter
I think the biggest challenge as a working creative is to keep the creativity and inspiration going. I think that is just as challenging if your are commercially focused like a graphic designer or personally focused like and artist. We can’t separate our Art and our Work, we need to make them feed and grow each other.
When you watch Ordinary Love by U2 you can feel Mac’s personal aesthetic all over the video but you can still see the influence of u2.
Similarly the video he made for CreativeMornings with Bas Berkhout for CreativeMornings has a similar aesthetic yet is somehow looks more personal.
I say we as creatives should just let it all out. Put all our creativity and problem solving out into the world. Ask yourself every day “How can I make this great?” and what can I learn from the process of doing it. This reciprocal process will only serve to strengthen you and your outputs.
