It’s summer and I’ve been writing very little. (Lately the beach has taken priority.) A couple of weeks ago, Mark Dudlik asked me a few questions for a magazine he’s involved with called Fill/Stroke. Mark’s been kind enough to allow me to repurpose this piece on ideasonideas. Here goes… (and now I’m off to sit in the sun).

A while back I posted Random observations - Part 1. This is a follow-up. As noted earlier, these are personal ruminations on patterns I’ve uncovered through my professional practice. Some are topical, while others may feel rather disconnected. That being said, they all circle around the same things in my mind.

I’ve now been involved in some kind of creative activity for the bulk of my life. From design to running a business, I’ve found that certain patterns have emerged. Clearly there are parallels, and I’m slowly learning a few lessons. About a year ago I started to document these thoughts, with little notion as to what to do with them.

A year ago I started to write a book on creativity. In it I discuss how we’ve made this notion so mythic that it has become ridiculously exclusive. This seems rather silly, given that it’s learnable, just like any other discipline. The point, however, is that all this time has passed, and I only have half a book ready (I’m a walking cliché—sorry folks!)

Text cut into the designer’s torso with a razor; a whoopee cushion featuring the inscription “style = fart”; a German Shepherd that lunges in to attack; and a studio introduction featuring the principal’s enlarged member. Stefan Sagmeister’s plays on surprise and sensationalism have resulted in a string of iconic images in the world of design.

 As a studio matures, one of the nicest benefits is in the luxury of actively “choosing” which projects to engage in and which ones to pass on. In our first years of business, I would have scoffed at such a notion, but after some experience, we’ve learned that some business isn’t worth having.

Javier (a designer at smashLAB) noted that when he goes home for the day, he’s quite exhausted. This sort of surprised me at first. Generally our designer’s days are a standard length, and really, it’s not like we are mining coal or plowing the fields. The truth is though, that at our studio, there’s always pressure in the air.

In the first years of our studio, I was happy all of the time. No amount of work was too much. I had been unhappy for so long in the role I had previously held that the business was inspiration in itself. We were broke, and I mean really, really broke. We were also invigorated though. We were thrilled by the possibility we saw in our studio, and as a result, I was in love with every moment I could put in to the work.

Two or three years ago, one of our clients came to us for some interior design assistance. We explained to them that we really didn’t do that, but they were on a limited budget and really needed a hand. We noted that the whole thing was outside of our skill set; however, we could likely pick a selection of colours for the walls, which would inexpensively allow them to bring some life to a rather generic space.

Ads are good. Design is good. Typography is good. Films are good. Music is good. Everything is really, really good. Image quality and sound fidelity is awe inspiring. Technology is amazingly efficient and exciting. And still, everything is good. Little is great, some is awful, but most is good. Good. Yay. Yee-haw. Good.