AI is Changing Design—But That’s Not the Real Problem [with Chris Do ]

What if everything you thought you knew about creativity was wrong?

In this episode, I sit down with Chris Do to tackle some hard truths about design, inspiration, and why so many creatives stay stuck. From AI’s role in our industry to the dangers of relying on Pinterest for ideas, we’re digging into what it really takes to stand out and stay relevant in today’s creative world.

We talk about:
• Why being talented isn’t enough anymore
• The biggest mistake keeping designers from growing
• AI vs. designers—who’s actually winning?
• Where real inspiration comes from (hint: it’s not your screen)
• Why most designers resist structure—and why that’s a problem
• Chris and I don’t hold back in this one. If you’ve ever felt stuck, uninspired, or unsure how to evolve as a creative, this episode is your wake-up call.

Transcript

00:00:23:21 - 00:01:00:08
Brandi Sea
Hello, everybody. I am back with Creative legend. Although I learned from the last podcast, he does not like being called a legend or a celebrity. But the facts of the facts. Chris Doe is here for another conversation that I have no doubt will be full of surprises and genius advice. So if you recall, for our our audience, the last episode we were on, which was like for us a year ago, we explored some personal branding chat and the cult of personality, how brand is at its core preference.

00:01:00:09 - 00:01:26:17
Brandi Sea
Talks about Fiji water and all sorts of fun things. Mm hmm. But today, I wanted to dove into maybe some fresh territory, at least fresh for us. The evolution of creative leadership, the role of process in creativity, offline inspiration, and the balance of art and science in design. They are all kind of deep, and we may not get to all of them, but that is the goal.

00:01:26:17 - 00:01:28:10
Brandi Sea
So how are you doing? What have you been up to?

00:01:29:10 - 00:01:47:09
Chris Do
I'm doing good. This topic seem really deep. I'm a little worried about where we're going to go, so I'm excited for that and worried a little bit. I just got back from traveling all over the place. I was in Vietnam, I was in Japan, Dubai, in Singapore recently, and I love it. I'm exhausted, but I love it.

00:01:47:22 - 00:02:07:08
Brandi Sea
The best kind of exhaustion is travel exhaustion. I am a travel addict, so, you know, it's a good thing. But I'm glad you're here. Hopefully the words come easily and this isn't too deep. If not, we can just keep it. Keep it chill. So we'll see how this. Good. Okay, so let's start by zooming out and looking at the big picture.

00:02:07:18 - 00:02:29:19
Brandi Sea
Creative leadership has gone through a lot of really big changes, especially in the last decade. But you've been in this probably ten years longer than me, and I've been in this about 24 years this year. So with the rise of personal brands sort of like meandering over from our last podcast, the gig economy and even like new tools.

00:02:30:07 - 00:02:40:20
Brandi Sea
I'm curious about your take on how leadership has evolved. How do you think the role of creative leaders has evolved over the past decade, especially with the rise of personal brands?

00:02:41:22 - 00:02:50:12
Chris Do
Well, first of all, congratulations to both of us. Young Spring Chickens for being in business for so long and maintaining our youthful appearance. Let's just take a moment. All right?

00:02:50:12 - 00:02:53:07
Brandi Sea
Still loving it. I think.

00:02:53:13 - 00:02:54:10
Chris Do
Yeah, I am.

00:02:55:01 - 00:02:56:10
Brandi Sea
Yes, absolutely.

00:02:56:21 - 00:03:06:01
Chris Do
So when it comes to creative leadership, I don't know the lens in which you're looking at this, are you? You have to give me some context and then I know personal brand.

00:03:06:01 - 00:03:35:06
Brandi Sea
But for me, creative leadership is everything from what we're doing now. Right. We are on podcast. We are creating content for all intents and purposes. We are leading creatives in things that they do in some way, shape or form, but also creative leadership maybe in, you know, more formal ways, like a creative director in an agency or a senior designer, you know, lead in an in-house sort of position.

00:03:35:06 - 00:03:56:23
Brandi Sea
So just in general, I've been thinking a lot about what it means. I found this old thing that I wrote when I first started that was like, well, as a creative leader, although I don't know if I'm ready to call myself that. This is like a long, long time ago. And I was thinking that kind of term of being a creative leader feels different today to me than it did ten, 15 years ago.

00:03:57:03 - 00:04:13:01
Chris Do
It sounds to me like when you say creative leadership, it sounds like leadership. But for creative folk like, what are we doing to stand out? How are we doing? How are we managing ourselves? How are we casting a vision for the future that can lift up not only the people who work directly but indirectly with us? Right. Yeah.

00:04:13:02 - 00:04:35:21
Chris Do
So let's let's just pick up from where we left off last year. I remember a little bit of it. Let's just say now more than ever that your public persona, your private persona have merged more and it's not going the other direction. And so for the people who I would say like more old school or traditional designers, they've been bristling against this and they're not ready to accept this reality.

00:04:36:09 - 00:04:58:22
Chris Do
But I'm starting to see some of the, quote unquote, more seasoned folk start to understand the game that's being played right now. And it's just an evolved game. It's not a different game. The old game was you would do incredible work, be published in Annuals, speak on a small design circuit, maybe get some press in the trades. And that's how you gained notoriety and established leadership.

00:04:58:23 - 00:05:24:10
Chris Do
You might write a book, an article, things like that, and that essential effort and energy hasn't changed, but the platforms in which it appears on has changed. It's given rise to, for lack of a better term, the neophyte, creative, who's very good on camera or knows how to make content rising pass. What I think are the more the more seasoned, experienced folks that we should be paying attention to.

00:05:24:10 - 00:05:47:18
Chris Do
So there's a mismatch here. They're getting a disproportionate amount of attention because they're good on camera or they've embraced media and they make it part of their daily habit. So instead of writing a long form or short form, blog post or an article, they are creating content to be consumed by the masses. And the algorithm loves that. The reason why is because they want to make it easier for people to consume, not harder.

00:05:48:05 - 00:06:07:07
Chris Do
So when we're talking about an article takes time, energy and effort to like go and read words and like, what are those words? What are the visuals? Right? Like, we got to read and it's using more of our brain. So there is a mental process in tax that's happening where as if you read a post online, it's very short, you can scroll through quite quickly.

00:06:07:15 - 00:06:24:07
Chris Do
Then if you keep extending that well, if you read the words to them, then they don't even have to read and they can just listen. And it turns out a lot of people are more auditory learners. They're listening with their ears versus reading with her eyes. And so there's something else that's happening there. You can feed more people quickly.

00:06:24:15 - 00:06:41:00
Chris Do
And so naturally, if you are content creator in traditional media, you have to learn how to do it in new media, quote unquote. New. It's not that new, obviously. And I think people are finding like letting go, they're relenting. They say, you know what? It's here. We accept it. We're not going to crap on people who are doing it.

00:06:41:11 - 00:06:59:06
Chris Do
They've learned how to play the game. So here's a number. Here's one thing you could do. Instead of building up your own audience community, you could just draft on someone else's audience and community. So if someone's really good at making content, right, someone's making really good content. Somebody has got to know someone's got a podcast that broadcasts a lot to lots of people.

00:06:59:20 - 00:07:19:04
Chris Do
You don't have to make your own podcast. You just be a guest on their podcast. You get value from the exposure of their audience to your ideas. The content creator gets to expose their audience in a community and feed them with great, inspiring thought leaders. And so it's a marriage made in social media heaven. I think that could work really well.

00:07:19:04 - 00:07:39:02
Chris Do
So we're seeing that change and now we have the additional layer of air generated content which has both good and bad components to it. And for the record, for people who are like, Chris, you are a champion for A.I. and screwing over the creative aisle. Yes, I am. But I'm not for screwing over the little folk. The little folk got to get on board.

00:07:39:23 - 00:08:03:13
Chris Do
That's all it is. I can transcribe your meetings. I can take your verbal diarrhea, translate that into a to do list or an article that you can share on social. And Norman's complaining about that, right? The thing they're complaining about is this, quote, unquote, unethical models that are trained to create images, logos, illustrations and videos, things that are part of their livelihood.

00:08:03:20 - 00:08:24:07
Chris Do
If you were doing the work that a machine can do faster for cheaper, then you know you're going to be in deep trouble. So rather than fight the machine, use the machine to generate ideas for you, have it enhancing, have it do the grunt work for you, brainstorm with it, do use it for the thing it's meant to do, which is to aid you in the expression of your creativity.

00:08:24:17 - 00:08:50:14
Chris Do
The one big problem that people usually have with A.I. generated imagery and content is that it gives the lay person, the non designer, the non creative, the ability to make things that rival what they can create. That's the real problem that they're really kind of pushing up against. So if you can add a layer of sophistication, art, direction, pace, then I don't know, maybe you are going to be out of a job anyway.

00:08:51:05 - 00:09:00:10
Chris Do
That's going to be a problem. Yeah. And it's happening, whether you like it or not. So let's get on board the train and let's figure out how to use it. And I turn it back over to you.

00:09:00:22 - 00:09:20:03
Brandi Sea
I agree. So I've seen it think from the beginning as just another tool. There's no reason why we should be afraid of just another piece of technology that can be utilized as a tool. I think that you're right in if we are afraid of it being able to take over for us, like we need to think about it in a different perspective.

00:09:20:04 - 00:09:38:23
Brandi Sea
I myself have been using it to kind of brainstorm or use it as a chat. Like use it as a, like a coworker that I don't have to say, Hey, I have this idea for this thing. Can you poke holes in it for me or, you know, things like that, which I think is super valuable. And yes, it would be ideal if we can always use another human for those things.

00:09:39:10 - 00:10:00:04
Brandi Sea
How that relates to me in being a creative leader is being able to kind of see the trends and use those things and lead the way in those areas instead of like trailing behind as the like Luddite. As much as I am like very much an analog meets digital kind of person, I think that that is pretty valuable.

00:10:00:04 - 00:10:17:00
Brandi Sea
So thinking about technology, how do you think leaders should balance staying rooted in timeless, creative principles while also embracing those tools? For example, how should leaders guide teams in adopting those tools without losing that human touch?

00:10:18:01 - 00:10:45:14
Chris Do
I think it's one thing to prescribe things for your teams to do that you don't actually do. And that's a pretty common practice, right? It's do as I say, not as I do. And I think that's problematic because maybe there are unrealistic expectations about the quality of the results or how long it takes to do it. And that's often the case when you have someone who doesn't know what the real process is like and dictating to you when things and things are supposed to be done and and how they're supposed to do it.

00:10:45:14 - 00:11:09:18
Chris Do
So the best thing a leader can do is to embrace the technologies themselves, to be at the forefront. Why shouldn't you? Because you have the time. You're not on the production line, if you will. So you should be exploring different tools, comparing, contrasting, reading and researching so that you have enough information to say, Look, I'd like for us to use this specific app to do this, to solve this specific problem, and here are some additional resources.

00:11:10:00 - 00:11:27:23
Chris Do
So then you have realistic expectations of timeline resources and how difficult that is to do. And I'm finding that it's hard for me to go out there and say, Oh, I use this and that. And they're like, Well, what's the use case, bro? Hmm. And if I don't have an answer for that, then I sound like a, you know, somebody who is jumping on the bandwagon.

00:11:28:08 - 00:11:33:13
Brandi Sea
It's like using the phrases your kids is a school and not really like what that means.

00:11:34:12 - 00:11:36:00
Chris Do
Yes. You know what I mean?

00:11:37:04 - 00:11:38:18
Brandi Sea
I wish I didn't do that.

00:11:39:22 - 00:11:43:20
Chris Do
And my kids are like, Dad, you're just not allowed to use. I'm like, so I will use what I want.

00:11:43:22 - 00:12:12:23
Brandi Sea
I had an entire dinner conversation with my 11 and 16 year old kids, like literally going, please explain to me what this is. So you mentioned in the last podcast and we didn't have time to talk about it, but that you are I don't remember if you said developing your own kind of A.I. stuff for your team, would you be willing to share kind of like what sorts of tools you're developing or what kind that you use?

00:12:13:01 - 00:12:34:01
Chris Do
I think maybe even just a year ago, the kinds of things we're doing with AR around the edge now it's integrated into almost everything we do. We use a variety of platforms to help us with writing, researching, breaking down things, drawing, creating synopsis for us so that we don't have to literally reread everything that we write. And so that's helping.

00:12:34:08 - 00:12:52:09
Chris Do
So let me tell you the couple of technologies that we're using right now that make a lot of sense for us. There is a GPT version that's been trained on our content called the robot, and robot is a version of me. It's a TA. It helps people understand some of the more complicated business concepts because it's been trained specifically on my material.

00:12:52:09 - 00:13:16:13
Chris Do
It's been walled off on the rest of the Internet. So it is a proxy of me. And so it serves some of our communities who have access to it so that you can go and take a course from us and asked about like help me reinforce these ideas, what am I missing and can you explain it differently? Or I'm about to jump on a sales call with a prospect, let's do some sales role plays together and it will just do it with you.

00:13:17:00 - 00:13:36:23
Chris Do
And I think that's a pretty awesome thing. The people who have used it, who have embraced it, describe it in magical, very humanlike ways, which I think is really, really cool because I'm a teacher. But as much as I love teaching, I can't be there for everyone at all times. But Robot can dobut can serve all people at the same time.

00:13:36:23 - 00:13:37:15
Chris Do
All the time.

00:13:37:20 - 00:13:46:12
Brandi Sea
That's actually really incredible. So is that something that you developed or did you kind of take something that already existed and sort of like tweaked it to work for you?

00:13:47:03 - 00:14:07:16
Chris Do
There's a former center mine, his name ishow Ross and he runs a company that develops AI engines. He told me I can build one for you. Let's figure out how we need to train it. So previously, I mean, Gbtc has gone through many iterations since the since my first touch with it is he's able to have persistent knowledge being fed to the gbtc.

00:14:08:02 - 00:14:29:08
Chris Do
So it doesn't forget this course material that is supposed to be trained on. So it's looked at, I think, eight modules, numerous follow up calls and has synthesize all that. So somebody has gone through the painstaking process of tagging when I'm speaking and when it's someone else. And so it's learned. This is Chris's thoughts. Here's how he responds to specific questions.

00:14:30:01 - 00:14:51:21
Chris Do
And then second iteration was intended to give advice too quickly. I said, Wow, I would never do that. I would ask you more questions to help you come to some point of self-discovery. And then at the end I'd summarize it for you, but it's very important for it to behave and talk and think like me. Wow. And so it is trained on certain things and it's also very custom built thing.

00:14:52:03 - 00:14:54:05
Chris Do
It's not built on anything else other than CBT.

00:14:54:18 - 00:15:20:03
Brandi Sea
That's really incredible. It's just a digital crystal coaching app. Yeah, which is pretty, pretty neat. Let's move on. Speaking of leadership, one of the key ways leaders and creatives alike I think can make an impact is through their approach to the design process. For you, what's the balance between sticking to a structured process and allowing for spontaneity and creativity and design?

00:15:20:21 - 00:15:46:22
Chris Do
Yeah, I think a lot of people think that process and structure is the antithesis of creativity and freedom. In fact, it's quite the opposite. When we understand the structure of how a home is built, we can see an incident variation on that structure as long as we know it has a roof, it can shed water and it's designed for a very specific purpose and need to have a strong foundation and load bearing walls, those kinds of things.

00:15:46:22 - 00:16:02:21
Chris Do
And it all just works. But imagine if every single time we had to design a house from the ground up and we didn't understand these principles, we'd be fighting against the system and the structure. And I think the same is true about storytelling, like writing a story. Stories follow a very specific formula if you want it to be good.

00:16:02:21 - 00:16:20:21
Chris Do
If it doesn't follow a formula, it generally is kind of a hot mess and heartfelt in turn to exhibit a many independent films. We don't know who the character characters are. I mean, I used to love them, and I know it's kind of like a design snobby thing to say, like, ooh, it's an independent film and you're.

00:16:21:06 - 00:16:21:22
Brandi Sea
Supposed to, like.

00:16:21:23 - 00:16:29:08
Chris Do
Sophisticated, right? But we go and watch those kinds of movies. I walk away from theater, like, and it usually just ends. I'm like.

00:16:29:18 - 00:16:30:17
Brandi Sea
What the heck just happened?

00:16:30:23 - 00:16:50:06
Chris Do
It's over. I don't even know what I'm watching right now. And so it's making us work too hard to decipher meaning which I think is the intent of a lot of these independent films, the character development arcs, all that stuff is just it's a little bit weird. And then we see a masterpiece like Dune Part one and two directed by Disney.

00:16:51:06 - 00:17:16:19
Chris Do
And I think it's a masterpiece. I'm watching it. It's like an is following a very specific formula told through the lens of a very specific artist visionary. I think that's what's beautiful. So a lot of structure. Yes. And then, you know what? In that structure, there's lots of room for creativity. And you can see that in the David Lynch adaptation of Dune versus the didn't even use version base, same source material, very.

00:17:16:19 - 00:17:18:02
Brandi Sea
Different to different.

00:17:18:02 - 00:17:46:06
Chris Do
Right. I love them both. I'm not criticizing one and the other. They're both works of art and I love both, but they're very different and I get to enjoy both. Luckily, right? Yes. And so structure is not a thing for us to fight against. So I'll tell you something. If you woke up tomorrow and you had to design a presentation and that included writing it, coming up with all the visuals and you didn't know the structure of how presentations work, it'd be a hot mess.

00:17:46:13 - 00:18:06:12
Chris Do
Most of your time would be wasted on building things that didn't work and then redoing over and over again. We know presentations should start off with like a big opening question. This large impossible questions, answer rhetorical questions and then saying, Here's why I really care about this thing. And by the time this is over, I hope to change your mind about X, Y, or Z.

00:18:06:12 - 00:18:23:04
Chris Do
And then you go in to tell stories and lesson stories and lessons, and that's how it works. And you summarize. So in closing, I just want you to know this and you say that and it's usually a catch phrase and here are some additional resources. And when you have that in place, then your mind can play within the structure.

00:18:23:11 - 00:18:27:17
Chris Do
I think that's what makes it really cool. So I'm a champion for structure.

00:18:28:06 - 00:18:56:08
Brandi Sea
I appreciate that. So this is a super self-serving question because I am so free for process, design process, creative process. In fact, I have a piece of art that someone bought for me for a birthday one year that said Color Outside the lines. And I painted right over it and made it say Color inside the lines, because I fully believe that, you know, once you've got a box to play in and a foundation to build on that, like you can be 1,000,000% more creative.

00:18:56:18 - 00:19:16:12
Brandi Sea
But it's I love to have guests come on and see what you all say to that, because I have talked to a number of creatives, even people that have been doing it as long as us that still feel like I think they are more in like the I'm an artist category, not realizing the value in, you know, a structure and a process.

00:19:16:21 - 00:19:26:15
Brandi Sea
So when you design if you design these days, do you want to share what your process looks like?

00:19:27:13 - 00:19:36:08
Chris Do
Yes, I can share. I want to say this thing that the poster that said color outside the lines would not work if there were no lines.

00:19:37:22 - 00:19:39:03
Brandi Sea
But you.

00:19:39:03 - 00:19:39:18
Chris Do
Do understand.

00:19:39:18 - 00:19:41:14
Brandi Sea
That. But yes, you are so right.

00:19:41:14 - 00:19:47:21
Chris Do
If there's a box to to think outside the box, then we're always thinking outside or inside a really big box where we can see.

00:19:48:11 - 00:19:50:02
Brandi Sea
Wow. So understanding my brain.

00:19:50:09 - 00:20:13:14
Chris Do
Right? Understanding their structure, knowing when to say within structure, when to break it is really important. If we look at music, I took a music history class, so like when I was in college and it kind of opened my eyes to a couple of different things. So if you hear a rhythmic thing like a tap, tap, tap, and it hits every note at a certain point after a while, it sounds rhythmic.

00:20:13:14 - 00:20:21:10
Chris Do
After a longer period, you know, and drive you insane, it would literally drive you insane. Hence the whole leaky faucet that taps on a metal surface.

00:20:21:13 - 00:20:23:06
Brandi Sea
The Chinese water torture or whatever.

00:20:23:06 - 00:20:40:11
Chris Do
Yeah, it's a Chinese water torture. It's just on your forehead. Yeah. Consistently will drive you crazy to feel like a hole is being burned through your skin. And in fact, it's not. Conversely, if a cat in the alleyway jumps on the trash can, knocks over a beer bottle or something like that, it's discordant. There's no rhythm or structure.

00:20:40:11 - 00:20:42:05
Chris Do
It sounds like noise, which it is.

00:20:42:07 - 00:20:42:16
Brandi Sea
Mm hmm.

00:20:43:06 - 00:21:02:05
Chris Do
So music is the balance between rhythm and structure and unexpected moments. And I think that's the music that we appreciate. And you notice, if you listen to really good music, there are certain chord progressions, and then they, they, they change. Like when, when they set up a pattern, they change one thing and they come back to the pattern and they go back to the original and then it change it back up again.

00:21:02:05 - 00:21:09:13
Chris Do
And it's that slight predictability. Yeah. That becomes unpredictability and it works aggressively. Well, it works.

00:21:09:13 - 00:21:10:04
Brandi Sea
It does.

00:21:10:12 - 00:21:35:16
Chris Do
It's what dominates, right? It's perhaps short for popular versus experimental music. Right. Okay. So I like that a lot when it comes to me in design, the things that I design or social, social media related or presentation materials. So for, for social media content, there's a specific process. So I'll describe that because it's simpler. So know how to design presentations, that's a different thing and let me know.

00:21:36:07 - 00:21:37:21
Brandi Sea
So oftentimes let's do that.

00:21:38:00 - 00:22:01:12
Chris Do
Okay, I'm writing a post, let's say for LinkedIn. LinkedIn is basically text and an image images four by five, right? Four inches by five inches or four, four by five aspect ratio. I'm sitting there looking at the story like as if I was now a designer for an article in a magazine. I think to myself, what is the visual that's going to go with this that not only grabs your attention, but pays off somehow in the story itself?

00:22:01:12 - 00:22:20:19
Chris Do
Because otherwise it's a total non-sequitur. Image and story have no connection. And I'm a big believer in semiotics. This was that equals something more. Yes. Right. So image plus text equals something more. The sum of the parts or the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And so I sit there like, okay, what am I to do?

00:22:21:03 - 00:22:39:18
Chris Do
And usually I'm looking for a theme in a word. And the word I think of isn't always visual and it isn't always something I can find a metaphor for. So I'll go on Shutterstock and I'll type in that word and it's like, This is not what I'm looking for. What else could it be? So sometimes Shutterstock shows me the quote unquote the wrong image.

00:22:39:18 - 00:22:53:16
Chris Do
I'm like, Oh, I didn't think of it like that. Let's say it showed me a shovel and I wasn't looking for a shovel. So I click on the shovel, I'm looking at it. And then what I do is I twirl down and look at all the keywords that someone put in the net of tax to describe that thing.

00:22:54:00 - 00:23:10:21
Chris Do
I'm like, That's the word I'm looking for. It's called surfacing or digging. So when I put that word back in it, then it gives me a bunch of images that are more thematically linked with what it is that I want to do. So I'll usually grab that image, I'll pull it down. But the image is not going to be what I had in my mind.

00:23:10:22 - 00:23:24:08
Chris Do
Let's say I wanted a shovel, but I wanted to shape it in like a like an infinity symbol. The old me would go into Photoshop and slowly do envelope distort and get that thing in, but the lighting's jacked and the textures and.

00:23:24:16 - 00:23:25:11
Brandi Sea
Everything's just.

00:23:25:12 - 00:23:47:06
Chris Do
Like our doing okay. Now what I do is I go on to mid journey, I'll type in rustic shovel, antique patina and kind of heavy wood grain on a black background city of photography, something like that, you know, generate a bunch of images and oftentimes it's like, Oh, that's beautiful. That's what I want to use. I still have the dilemma.

00:23:47:06 - 00:24:19:22
Chris Do
It doesn't look like an infinity symbol. I'll take that. I'll go into Illustrator. I'll draw an infinity symbol roughly with the shovel head. I'll take that and bring it to Firefly. Feed it the reference image of the shovel, feed it the structure image of the infinity symbol. Put those two and type it in and then hit enter and it most likely will produce something that would have taken me hours to do in minutes and is like, that's really good upscaled that, take it down, go add some additional type, put the finishing touches on it, color correct it and Bob's your uncle.

00:24:20:03 - 00:24:42:05
Brandi Sea
Let's think about that. I often talk about my process and the fact that my process always starts with words and coming up with concepts via a word map. I don't even touch the computer for any reason whatsoever except, you know, maybe if you consider my phone the version of a computer, just use a thesaurus to help me find the right words.

00:24:43:04 - 00:25:04:19
Brandi Sea
I don't even get on to look for images until I have like a full plan, a full concept with visuals and colors and typefaces and all of that. And I often will talk about it with people very similar to what you just did. Like, here's what you do. Here's first, second, third. This is the way it works. But I sometimes get pushback from creatives that are like, I have my own process.

00:25:04:19 - 00:25:30:20
Brandi Sea
Like, I get stuck a lot, but it's fine no matter what level of experience you have, if if you're finding as a creative that your process, your current process isn't really yielding the results that you want, do you think that creatives would be well-served to adapt someone else's process, kind of as is or use it more as like a framework to to morph and meld into like their own thing.

00:25:31:21 - 00:25:51:02
Chris Do
Give you an analog to this. And then I think it'll answer itself if it doesn't hold my feet to the fire and see what happens. Let's say you're a home cook, chef, and you're trying to make something you've never made before, something delicious. There's a dinner party that you want to impress people and you try and figure it out.

00:25:51:02 - 00:26:05:10
Chris Do
You have some experience. It's not like you don't know what you're doing and you put it together and it just doesn't taste right. The meat's dry. The vegetables are overcooked. I've lost her color. Well, someone else has done this dish before. It may not be the exact same dish. And they wrote a cookbook, and there's something called the recipe.

00:26:06:15 - 00:26:29:16
Chris Do
And if you follow that recipe, cook this for this long, this has all the ingredients and you do your best to follow the recipe. You're going to come pretty close to way that a photo turned out and the way that you imagine it to taste. So if you're not willing to learn someone else's recipe, then you are left to explore and waste a lot of food, waste a lot of time, maybe get your hand burned on the stove.

00:26:30:11 - 00:26:49:11
Chris Do
I like to like just learn someone else's recipe. Someone that I like and the flavor profile is good. And then when you've done it enough times, then you can change the ingredients. Like you run out of something, you try something else, but you know what works and you know what each component does. So if you like with the work you're doing, develop your own recipe, teach other people, sell the recipe if you want.

00:26:49:22 - 00:26:52:14
Chris Do
And if you don't like what you're doing, go borrow someone else's recipe.

00:26:53:11 - 00:27:20:21
Brandi Sea
Chris Listen, have you been eavesdropping or are you at my presentation just talking about how a lot of designers approach their work like a baker who just wants to bake something cool and throws it together without a recipe and talking about the creative recipes and the importance of that. So man, just same wavelength here. I do think that you leveled it up a bit on on saying that taking someone else's recipe that already knows what they're doing is never a bad idea.

00:27:21:07 - 00:27:44:15
Brandi Sea
Now, I don't know why I is cooking metaphors because I hate cooking. They constantly skip steps in the process of creating things I have to eat, but never in the design process. So in regards to that, what do you think are the biggest mistakes that you see designers making when they try to implement a process, whether it's from other people or on their own?

00:27:44:18 - 00:27:50:13
Chris Do
Yeah, before I answer that question and I might forget by the time I finish, I want to tell you a little story. Okay?

00:27:50:13 - 00:27:51:10
Brandi Sea
I love stories.

00:27:51:18 - 00:27:53:23
Chris Do
Okay. And we'll keep it along. The recipe in cooking.

00:27:54:02 - 00:27:54:15
Brandi Sea
Let's do it.

00:27:54:20 - 00:27:57:07
Chris Do
Okay. My mom is an amazing cook. So is my dad.

00:27:57:07 - 00:28:00:03
Brandi Sea
Actually, all mom's except for this one sitting here right now.

00:28:00:18 - 00:28:18:18
Chris Do
When? When, when we fled Vietnam, came to the United States as culture shock. There's lots of things we didn't understand. Ingredients. Like I'm like, who use butter? What is butter for? You know, like, well, what are we doing with toast? I don't understand this stuff, but eventually we kind of acclimate. And then my mom wants to make some, quote unquote, American dishes.

00:28:18:18 - 00:28:39:03
Chris Do
So one day she decides I'm going to make spaghetti look good in the magazine Sunset magazine, and I'll make it for you and my mom's cooking and everything. And then I see what she's doing. Mom, why are you pouring fish sauce into the tomato sauce? Just because it needs seasoning? I'm like, I don't eat the Italians or the Sicilians.

00:28:39:03 - 00:28:59:18
Chris Do
Whoever invented has had access to fish sauce, and they wouldn't have used it. She was going to be fine. So and this is a common immigrant story, right? It's like substituting ingredients when you don't even understand the original thing for our palate. It tasted fine. But later on, when you have, like authentic Italian food from a respectable place, it doesn't taste the same, same in clothes.

00:29:00:04 - 00:29:22:16
Chris Do
And so you're like, that's the original flavor profile. We probably should start there before we go in to doing variations. And this is me. Yes, accidental fusion. This leads me to the whole. What are some of the biggest problems that designers have? Designers do not like to follow directions. They hate structure, and so it's very hard to instruct them on how to do something.

00:29:22:23 - 00:29:39:09
Chris Do
And so they're like, Oh, yeah, I know, I know you told me to do this, but I'm going to do it this way every time because those rules don't apply to me. And then they struggle and they take twice as long and it's not that good. And so we're always running into these problems. And I think it's because we have this romantic idea about what creativity is.

00:29:39:10 - 00:30:02:11
Chris Do
It's like somewhere stream from the heavens, from the universe, the energy in the room. I feel what I feel. I'll do what I do and get done when it gets done. And it's magic because it makes us feel like we're magical because we produce magic. But what if we just said everyone can do this? And if we follow certain principles of design that most of us are going to be better designers than some of us are, right?

00:30:02:11 - 00:30:08:04
Chris Do
So it can kind of conflicts with their idea that I'm a magical creature. I'm channeling the universe.

00:30:08:04 - 00:30:09:03
Brandi Sea
I'm a unicorn.

00:30:09:11 - 00:30:22:12
Chris Do
Yeah. And I don't want to pop your bubble, but I'm pretty sure I can teach a bunch of, like, construction workers and how to design, because I understand design formulas, I understand structure. And if they're willing and have an open mind, I can teach them how to be a pretty good designer.

00:30:22:23 - 00:30:26:13
Brandi Sea
Right? Yeah. Well, I mean, every human that exists is creative.

00:30:26:19 - 00:30:53:13
Chris Do
Yeah, I agree with you. Everybody's creative, but we don't all have the same ability to see a future that hasn't materialized yet. So something I picked up from my friend Brian Collins, he says designers are futurists. We imagine possible futures and multiple futures, and we pick the most optimal one, right? So we're imagining a future state. And we've made a bunch of decisions like if I pick this color and that typeface, what is the end result look like some time in the future?

00:30:53:13 - 00:31:14:13
Chris Do
And we we try these ideas out in our mind before we actually execute anything. So the gap between where we are and this imagined future is kind of the degree of creativity that you have. So I have friends there working in the creative space and one thing they really struggle with his personal style like fashion. And so we'll go shopping together and say, Try this like now, that's terrible.

00:31:15:00 - 00:31:31:06
Chris Do
No, that's not good. That's not me. It's on me. I can't see myself doing that right. And I said, I'm telling you, it's good and you for asking for my advice on what to buy, which they are. I say go buy this right now they don't do it. And then sometimes I buy what I told them to buy because I'm not picking out stuff I don't want.

00:31:31:06 - 00:31:53:17
Chris Do
I'm picking out stuff that I want, but I don't want to buy right now. But for you, it's great. And then I buy it and then they see me use it and work with it. Like you make that work. It worked. When I told you to buy, it didn't change. What changes? I closed the imagination gap for you by literally executing it and showing you how it works.

00:31:54:09 - 00:32:15:02
Chris Do
That's the imagination gap I'm talking about. They could not see it on themselves. They didn't try it. It continued on anybody else because their lack of imagination, but once they saw it on the person and they are now understanding and appreciative of it. And I want to point something out, I think in a documentary called Becoming Ralph The Story of Ralph Lauren, it was an innovative thing that he did.

00:32:15:12 - 00:32:34:04
Chris Do
Now, Ralph Lauren is not a fashion designer. He doesn't have to make clothes. He doesn't want to draw. But he kind of put together combinations from different pieces that he would bought, either in the thrift store or whatever. And people took note. So eventually he launches on fashion line. And one of his great innovations is prior to this, I didn't know it was him.

00:32:35:10 - 00:33:05:20
Chris Do
He would just have clothes in Iraq or on a mannequin. But what Ralph did was he created a scene. So if it was for like an adventurous couple traveling to a faraway place in Africa, he would have trunks like suitcase trunks, and then he would use props to tell the story. So they credit him as one of the first people to set up these vignettes that when you walk through the store like, Whoa, it's not just the clothes sense of vibe, and they're doing something.

00:33:05:20 - 00:33:06:16
Brandi Sea
Telling a story.

00:33:06:16 - 00:33:33:03
Chris Do
Without telling a story. They're holding a book. They're not selling books, but they must be educated or they're they're going to play golf later or polo or something. Something's going on here. Right? And so that closes the imagination gap. So one thing we all can do is to close the imagination gap for those that lack this skill for your clients, for your employees or your staff, for your boss, because we don't understand it.

00:33:33:15 - 00:33:50:18
Chris Do
And luckily you have the skills to do this. So the way we do this with clients is this don't ask them to pick a logo that you just designed. Put the logo in context, put on a uniform, put on a building, put in lots of things. Let them see how this logo is going to apply because you see that future, but they can't see it.

00:33:51:07 - 00:33:59:20
Chris Do
Think about other applications, maybe a tote bag or a book or something else that they're like, We would never use that. But it's telling a really interesting story.

00:34:00:17 - 00:34:27:11
Brandi Sea
Yeah, I love that. I think that and the Imagination Gap thing is huge and it was a game changer for me years ago when I started actually showing, you know, the, the rebrand in action instead of just like, here's the logo and all this variations, do you like it? Question mark, yes or no? And I think that that's really important because it does tell the story of the brand in in the real world.

00:34:27:15 - 00:34:58:12
Brandi Sea
But I wanted to dove into something I'm really passionate about. If process isn't enough, it's like process and inspiration are like the epitome. For me as a designer, I want to talk about offline inspiration and breaking free from the so-called digital echo chamber. Do you agree that easy access, access inspiration on platforms like Pinterest and Behance leads to derivative or homogenized work?

00:34:58:12 - 00:35:03:18
Brandi Sea
And if so, how do you encourage designers to break free from this echo chamber?

00:35:04:04 - 00:35:23:18
Chris Do
I think, first of all, we all need to let go of this idea of originality. I think it's a lofty standard to hold yourself to and one that is very rarely achieved. And when people say that looks really original, what they're not saying is, I've never seen it before. Congratulations. You're such an innovative, innovative visionary. You're going to set the world on fire.

00:35:24:07 - 00:35:52:09
Chris Do
What they're saying when they're like that is a very original idea is that you're borrowing from sources that are unexpected to them and that's usually the extent of originality. Originality comes usually in the space of technology where you're able to express something using technology that hadn't been possible for. So when we have macro photography lenses, we can zoom in on something and show people like what the texture of a fly looks like, that they could not see what's a normal eye, right?

00:35:52:14 - 00:36:29:15
Chris Do
And so that you're using technology to show me something new that was original at one point. And it's becoming harder and harder to do that because there's less and less innovative things happening in terms of technology. So what we're trying to do is to find a source material that isn't overused so that it doesn't become derivative. The easy example, I would say is when you're on social media and someone uses a typeface in a color and it's on Instagram, what has what usually happens is people then use the same color, same typeface, and they're not very original, very derivative, and they'll call you out on social like, oh, x, y, z was doing this and

00:36:29:15 - 00:36:48:23
Chris Do
now you're doing this before. Hmm. Right. This is how trends start on social. One person does another person as in more and more. It's the same thing if you hear like a cool trending song and you're like, Oh yeah, I didn't recall that saw song, but now I see it using next reel. You post has the exact same song.

00:36:48:23 - 00:37:21:23
Chris Do
Yeah, not generally a problem, but in the visual space it's a problem because people expect designers to make things differentiate. Yeah. Make something a little bit different. Right? So that's when it becomes really derivative. But when you're on Pinterest, I think there's hundreds of millions, if not millions or billions of images. So how you arrive at an image is largely dependent on your your surfing history, your browser history, and the way that you pin boards and who you follow and connect with and how many things you've charted.

00:37:22:09 - 00:37:42:20
Chris Do
And so if you and I were to type in the same words, we probably come up with slightly different palettes. And what's more interesting is once you touch an image, it leads you down a rabbit hole of more and more images. Right. And so what you wind up referencing may have nothing to do with where you started, which is cool or have anything to do with what I think is appropriate for this thing too.

00:37:43:08 - 00:38:01:17
Chris Do
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Back in the day, I remember my friends and they ran a production company and they did this video from For Money Mark and I was like, Wow, that's so cool, so original and was so fresh. And then when you knew the sauce that they were referencing, it took some of the luster off that.

00:38:02:08 - 00:38:25:22
Chris Do
So one of the business partners that he's half Thai, I'm from Thailand. And so he had all these old they call the secret sources like magazines from Thailand. So it had a distinctive typeface, colors, photography and just the way they designed everything. So this borrowed heavily from those Thai magazines in the layout, the composition. Most of us didn't have access to it, nor will we familiar with the reference point.

00:38:26:10 - 00:38:40:23
Chris Do
So when we saw, I was like, Whoa, really cool, fresh, different and original. None of that was true. So it's our ability to hide sources is originality. And I think that's a quote from Einstein or Picasso or something. Somebody very famous.

00:38:41:16 - 00:38:43:11
Brandi Sea
Someone famous said it. Yeah. Yes.

00:38:43:16 - 00:39:02:21
Chris Do
So the thing is, you don't want to go and regurgitate from the same pool of references. Go outside your industry, go to different timelines, go to something deep in the past ten, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Pull that out and bring that into the into your visual palette. And then people are like, well, that's pretty cool. That's quite interesting.

00:39:03:10 - 00:39:39:05
Brandi Sea
Yeah. And I do I agree with this to some to some degree, I will push back a little bit because I think that the way you and I would use Pinterest is probably leaps and bounds away from how and I say this based on a lot of people I've interacted with, younger designers, especially in recent years, say the past like 5 to 10 years, how they are using Pinterest does often leave them with derivative work because they aren't digging deep enough or they don't enter that space with the right mindset or with like a clear concept in mind.

00:39:39:12 - 00:40:02:01
Brandi Sea
They are going in, going, I need to design a poster for this band. I'm just going to look up band posters and. Then it does start to all look the same. I think you're kind of making my point for me in a different way. I always urge people to get off line first and look for inspiration, like in the world around you and maybe in more analog places.

00:40:02:01 - 00:40:31:10
Brandi Sea
Because that's where people aren't looking as much by your friend, kind of looking at like old magazines and stuff. Even though we are in a world of technology, there's still loads and loads of inspiration that aren't online. I think it's sort of a fine line to walk. As soon as you open up your computer to search for inspiration, you're not letting your brain mix its own like creative soup by engaging with the things that you find inspiring to you, like whether you like comic books.

00:40:31:10 - 00:40:51:05
Brandi Sea
I'm really interested in travel. I'm a huge Tolkien fan and Alice in Wonderland and I like things layered and that shows up in my work because that's the kind of things I'm interested in. I have lots of things pinned on Pinterest, but I'm looking for a client specifically. That is not the first place I go, and very rarely do I go there at all.

00:40:51:12 - 00:41:01:08
Brandi Sea
And that might just be me, but it is something that I've seen as, you know, a challenge for other creatives. It's like, Oh, I can't think of anything cool or new. Well, where are you finding your inspiration?

00:41:02:08 - 00:41:03:20
Chris Do
Well, I'm going to push back on your pushback.

00:41:03:20 - 00:41:04:22
Brandi Sea
Let's do it.

00:41:04:22 - 00:41:20:21
Chris Do
And okay, I don't think that Time magazine is any different than finding it online. And I think if people are lazy and want to take shortcuts and do superficial work, they're lazy. They take shortcuts and they are superficial. There's nothing that you and I will say or do that will change your mind.

00:41:20:22 - 00:41:22:21
Brandi Sea
I just want them to be better than that.

00:41:23:22 - 00:41:41:20
Chris Do
Well, let me ask you this question. Usually when people want something for somebody else, they're usually avoiding their own problem. Usually when I'm coaching people like, why this is my team do this. Why did it? What is it that you could focus on doing that you can change in your life, spend your time and energy there? I don't really get involved with like, why do people do what they do?

00:41:41:20 - 00:42:04:06
Chris Do
They do what they do. I just I have time for that because every unit of energy I use worrying about what they do, telling them to fix it is time and units of energy away from what I should be doing. So I've done this right. And people will have have credited me in the past for starting a very particular esthetic and design style on Instagram, which then was rippled and copied a lot.

00:42:04:06 - 00:42:11:06
Chris Do
And I don't care. I'm doing my own thing. I look at it like there's a spear. I want to be the tip of the spear. I don't want to be the butt of the spear.

00:42:11:07 - 00:42:11:15
Brandi Sea
All right.

00:42:11:15 - 00:42:30:05
Chris Do
So some people are at the bottom. I get that. And I don't really care. So what happens is they're trying to establish their own identity, their own leadership, and they're not doing that by the action that they take. Makes no sense to me. So what I do is like I'm at the tip of the spear. What else I'm going to do, I'm going to keep changing.

00:42:30:05 - 00:42:51:03
Chris Do
Instead of my keep evolving, I use garish colors that they won't know how to use. Right. And quite literally, what happens is I was using I tried to pick the two ugliest colors I can find, chartreuse. I love churches and I'll use that. I wouldn't consider that one, but I use this kind of like salmon, the pink color, so that pink are cool, but it's not red.

00:42:51:12 - 00:43:09:01
Chris Do
It's kind of this weird salmon pink color and then paired it up with the sage forest green, which is also very difficult to use because it doesn't have a lot of pop to it. Chromatically It's very close to black or like a, like a gray, right? And before I was using bright colors and like poppy things that would make sense.

00:43:09:10 - 00:43:37:01
Chris Do
And then sure enough, I can see the butt of a sphere, but at the spear, using the same color briefly and just crashing horribly. And you can see in their pose they try to couple like it's all like let's say this an example black, yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow all the time and then pink. Wait a minute. You trying to do this thing and you see two or three posts with this kind of salmon color, and then they can't make it work because it requires more skill than they possess.

00:43:37:07 - 00:44:09:12
Chris Do
And I'm just I feel like I'm trolling people because I know they're going to copy software all weird things. So people who know how to design will use ugly typefaces, colors and techniques, but they'll still make it work much more difficult for people to copy. So I don't really put any of my energies there. Right. So in in the pre-Internet age, access to information and visuals was was a real thing because if we weren't close to a library that had great books and magazines and we weren't in a metropolitan city, well, that's all you got, especially if you hadn't traveled.

00:44:09:22 - 00:44:18:20
Chris Do
But the friend who directed this music video, he's half Thai. So this is what he grew up with. And everybody in Thailand is like, We've been doing this for decades, bro. This ain't innovative at all.

00:44:18:20 - 00:44:19:05
Brandi Sea
Yeah.

00:44:19:12 - 00:44:34:18
Chris Do
So you see what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't matter if your sources analog, it's like, what is your intention? And that's not for me to sit around and watch because I don't really care if I like something, I like it. And some people are like, Well, that's derivative. Well, says who? Everything you do is derivative. Everything I do is derivative.

00:44:34:18 - 00:44:40:18
Chris Do
So what are we talking about? Like you like layered things I can show you later. Things that happened before you.

00:44:40:18 - 00:44:42:03
Brandi Sea
Yes. Right. Yes.

00:44:42:03 - 00:45:02:12
Chris Do
So usually what I tell people is when you're not you, when a person points their finger and so that's very derivative and they're like, my work is and that's a sign of arrogance and ignorance. And I wrote about this in my book, right? When you think you're so good, your work's original. I think that's arrogance and you think everyone else is ripping things off like, wow, you're so special, huh?

00:45:02:21 - 00:45:30:01
Chris Do
I bet your poop don't think either. And number two, I see you're ignorant because you have no sense of history. So I'll show you where your self comes from because my sense of history is deeper than yours. And then all of a sudden I don't want to pop your bubble, but you ain't that original either. So we. We want to cast stones because we're avoiding a conversation with ourselves, and we put our head in the sand, because if we look deeper, will realize nothing we do is original and fact.

00:45:30:01 - 00:45:49:20
Chris Do
It's worse than the original, which is a travesty in itself. So let's embrace all the sources than the resources. Let's go outside of the typical places and let's try to find unique, interesting takes on it, which becomes original. Tracy Chapman wrote this beautiful song called Fast Car. Do you remember when it was on the really?

00:45:49:20 - 00:45:53:14
Brandi Sea
No. What if I heard it? That doesn't ring a bell. Okay. Alone?

00:45:53:23 - 00:45:56:13
Chris Do
Yeah. It's a kind of a folksy, beautiful song.

00:45:56:16 - 00:45:59:01
Brandi Sea
I know Tracy Chapman, so I'm sure that good story.

00:45:59:01 - 00:46:01:19
Chris Do
It's like her number one hit, so. Okay. No, it's okay.

00:46:02:01 - 00:46:03:05
Brandi Sea
I just don't know the title.

00:46:03:15 - 00:46:21:20
Chris Do
And then recently I think there's a country musician. I think his name is Travis. He sings Fast Car, and then a country audience loved it, not realizing it was a black woman who wrote and sang the original song. And so then the country singer with Tracy Chapman appears on stage and does a duet and people are losing their mind.

00:46:21:23 - 00:46:49:01
Chris Do
Old schoolers like me and new schoolers are into country. See them working on this thing is pretty cool. Travel. I don't know his name. The country music singer did not write the song. He even performed it differently. Just put a country twang on it, but that's enough for it to be original. But by honoring and citing the source, Tracy Chapman's song got played a lot more, became a trending song, and she's been invisible for decades and all sudden she comes back out again.

00:46:49:09 - 00:46:50:18
Chris Do
I think that's pretty cool.

00:46:51:02 - 00:46:52:10
Brandi Sea
Yeah. So it's really amazing.

00:46:52:15 - 00:47:03:12
Chris Do
That habit you don't look outside. Bad habit, bad manners is Eric things off without citing sources which is problematic. So don't do those two things and you're good.

00:47:03:12 - 00:47:32:21
Brandi Sea
Yeah, well, and I think maybe I think we're probably more aligned on this than, than might appear at first glance because it's less about originality and more about me encouraging designers to use their inspiration differently than other people and find inspiration in places where most people aren't looking because it is easier to make something that just is a direct copy of someone else's work, if that's all you're consuming all the time.

00:47:33:03 - 00:47:49:04
Brandi Sea
I agree that not anything is original and the best things my some of my favorite things are the things that are a mixture of X and Y to make this corner thing mash up. So yes, absolutely. MASH ups, especially music. I love mash.

00:47:49:04 - 00:47:57:23
Chris Do
Ups. Well, we're kind of shocked to discover this very popular song that we love was sampled from this other song that we didn't know this time.

00:47:57:23 - 00:48:27:20
Brandi Sea
Every time I do it to my kids now, my parents did it to me, and it's it's it's a whole thing. Yeah. So are there places that you specifically look that are unusual in the sense of like I'm looking for some inspiration for X product or project or presentation social media. Are you primarily looking online or do you like have other things that you really have often found like, oh, that was really cool.

00:48:27:20 - 00:48:29:00
Brandi Sea
But I just encountered.

00:48:29:20 - 00:48:32:19
Chris Do
There's a couple of pieces I don't know if you can tell by. I have a couple of books.

00:48:33:04 - 00:48:34:06
Brandi Sea
Yeah, me too.

00:48:34:14 - 00:48:51:15
Chris Do
So I like to buy books, right? And I am and I don't think there's a term for I don't know the term, but some people have a visual photographic memory. I don't have a photographic memory, but it's pretty freaking good. It doesn't forget visuals. So I look at things, I might scan a book at a bookstore, buy the book, never look at the book again.

00:48:52:02 - 00:49:19:10
Chris Do
But I'm like, okay, catalog, remember and see if this ever comes up. And we're being bombarded with images on social anyways with really beautiful, diverse work from all over the world, different people of different ages and cultural backgrounds. And I think that's really cool. So now we're absorbing even more information. So I don't find a need to find inspiration so much as I did when I was like 19 years old and finding inspiration is code word for like, I gotta find something to rip off.

00:49:19:14 - 00:49:43:22
Chris Do
Let's just be real about it. Okay? So what I do, I draw inspiration or spark from non design design things I'm looking for. People aren't looking quite literally on the bottom of boxes and the like. A sticker that's been taped to something because it was falling apart. There's a hole in the ground. People will spray paint graphics on it.

00:49:44:14 - 00:49:47:18
Chris Do
What I love looking at it is really weird. Sewer covers.

00:49:48:04 - 00:49:49:05
Brandi Sea
Oh my gosh. I'm telling.

00:49:49:05 - 00:49:49:17
Chris Do
You, comes.

00:49:49:23 - 00:49:53:05
Brandi Sea
From five different cities. They have some really incredible ones in Asia. You would have to search.

00:49:53:05 - 00:50:13:22
Chris Do
Everywhere in the world you go, okay, so they serve a couple of purposes. Number one is they're metal. So when it rains, it's slippery. So they usually have a texture on it. This is kind of important. And then if it's a certain city or it's there's a communication that I don't fully understand because there's numbers and letters and certain patterns that's reflective of the culture.

00:50:14:04 - 00:50:30:15
Chris Do
So if you see a pattern in Taiwan, it's different than the one in Sweden. So every time I walk past, I'm like, Oh, Dawn's kind of interesting. I'll take a picture of it. I'm just mesmerized by the thick, bold, chunky lines and graphics that are included because they translate. It'll look good as a logo, look good as a texture.

00:50:30:15 - 00:50:32:03
Brandi Sea
And basically a badass logo.

00:50:32:16 - 00:50:45:10
Chris Do
Pretty much in a unique shape. Right? They're not always the same shape. Or I'll look at what is it called, the numbers on buildings where it's like a multi-unit dwelling.

00:50:45:10 - 00:50:45:20
Brandi Sea
Oh yeah.

00:50:46:09 - 00:51:02:23
Chris Do
So in Germany is going to be different and, in London is going to be different and America is going to be different. So I kind of just am fascinated by patterns, color blocking, typefaces that, you know, there's a3ab in a circle here because it says something. I don't understand what it says, but the spacing is really, really cool.

00:51:03:02 - 00:51:20:03
Chris Do
I just like that. So I photograph those kinds of things and my wife, she'll say this every single time we're walking around and I say some, hold it. Okay. Wingo Yeah. She's like, What would you do? And she was stuck overlooked on there like a while. And she says to my my boys, your dad always has the sharpest eye for cool things.

00:51:20:11 - 00:51:38:16
Chris Do
Thousand people walk by here, they never notice. But your dad's going to find the one cool thing here, and I don't know what I'm going to do with that kind of stuff, but I'm fascinated by non designed design, the things that you find in a fire escape, the thing that you might find on a fire extinguisher canister with a punch card from the fire department.

00:51:38:16 - 00:51:39:19
Chris Do
Those things fascinate me.

00:51:40:12 - 00:52:02:21
Brandi Sea
Yes. So this is what I would like to call uncommon inspiration. I am very much the same way. I don't know my kids and my husband are. So they're they're basically super used to me doing embarrassing things to to catch like something I just saw. Is that your primary way of like capturing and cataloging that like personal inspiration is like on your phone?

00:52:02:21 - 00:52:10:09
Brandi Sea
Or are you also one of those people that likes to live sketch something that you just saw to kind of keep that for later?

00:52:11:06 - 00:52:17:18
Chris Do
I mostly just capture my phone. I don't always carry a notebook, but I don't I don't feel the need to live sketch.

00:52:17:21 - 00:52:19:04
Brandi Sea
Yeah, but I'll tell you something.

00:52:19:04 - 00:52:50:05
Chris Do
There is sometimes what you see is more interesting than what you really see. Mm. So I walked into an elevator and the way that the mirrors were set up, there were smoked and there was like it was beveled in a certain way, so diffracted the image. So I walked in there seeing my shirt that, that and normally don't look like look at that way with a layered shirt on top and the way it was refracted in the mirror, I'm like, it gave me an idea that I hadn't seen before because the shirt was cropped, it was distorted in the mirror.

00:52:50:13 - 00:53:00:12
Chris Do
So then I pulled out a three by five index card and I just sketched down like, That's pretty cool. And you save it for later. My biggest problem is too many ideas and enough time. Not enough execution, right?

00:53:01:04 - 00:53:04:03
Brandi Sea
Yeah. Just save it for later. You know, later will come right.

00:53:04:06 - 00:53:07:04
Chris Do
Laters like I'm 98. I'm like, Oh, yeah, where's that idea?

00:53:07:18 - 00:53:08:13
Brandi Sea
Where's that thing?

00:53:08:15 - 00:53:10:04
Chris Do
Oh, here it is in Japan.

00:53:10:04 - 00:53:10:23
Brandi Sea
That one day.

00:53:11:03 - 00:53:11:12
Chris Do
Yeah.

00:53:12:10 - 00:53:20:08
Brandi Sea
The idea of seeking inspiration, especially in the real world, kind of leads to another big topic that I hope we still have time for.

00:53:20:12 - 00:53:25:13
Chris Do
Okay, let's do this. Okay, let's end on a big, deep one. And then I'm about to fall over.

00:53:25:13 - 00:53:55:15
Brandi Sea
Okay, let's do this one. This is the last one. This is. Yeah, this is all about balancing art and science and design designers. We're always sort of toggling necessarily between the analytical and the emotional sort of creative side. I know obviously I rely on both in my work. I also believe that we can't actually really tap into good design solutions until we realize that we're always going back and forth between, you know, the science and the art artistic side.

00:53:55:15 - 00:54:06:14
Brandi Sea
So you've mentioned the importance of data driven design in the past. How do you personally reconcile the analytical side of design with the intuitive, emotional or creative side?

00:54:06:23 - 00:54:25:02
Chris Do
Well, if we're talking about design, design is supposed to solve a problem. So oftentimes we start designing without a clear definition of the problem we're trying to solve. And I think we want to do this because accountability sucks and nobody wants to be accountable for anything, right? So we say, Oh yeah, this will help your brand. Like, Well, what do we mean when?

00:54:25:02 - 00:54:45:20
Chris Do
We say that are you going to put a you can drive more traffic to the store. It's just going to drive more traffic to the website. It's going to help with conversion. Is it going to be shared more in social? We don't know and we prefer not to know. But then we have to admit to ourselves at some point that design was just an expression of an idea, an art form, and not actually solving any real problems.

00:54:46:12 - 00:55:05:03
Chris Do
I prefer to say like, let's solve a problem. And I got off a phone call yesterday of a Zoom call where they gave us analytics and they said, okay, here's how many click through, here's how many people want to sit in this many downloads we got. Here's where we are with the benchmarks we set, where we're performing really well here.

00:55:05:03 - 00:55:27:10
Chris Do
We're massively underperforming here. And so then it got my mind thinking, instead of just throwing out another creative idea, I have to find an idea that might have a better shot of solving this problem. And the same is true about YouTube. Like I'll make a thumbnail that's a piece of art right there. That's amazing. And you use it and then you realize no one is clicking through.

00:55:27:20 - 00:55:47:21
Chris Do
And we've done this many, many times so that I no change the thumbnail changed the whole performance of the video. So design there has a direct implication to the analytics that you're going to see the number of people watch it, the number of people who will be influenced and the mindset change. And if you can't package it correctly, no minds will change.

00:55:47:21 - 00:56:07:17
Chris Do
No one will see it. So packaging matters a lot there and you have real data. So over time we start to realize certain patterns like a certain face. Looking this way, doing this with this kind of puzzle within the image itself relative to the headline, is the usually the highest performing thing. The danger of that is all the thumbnails start looking the same in terms of volume.

00:56:07:17 - 00:56:24:12
Chris Do
This is a formula. So what I caution people to do is you find one way it works. It's not the only way that it works. So it's important for you. Try lots of different things and keep doing this because you'll find another way and another way and you'll discover more than one way can work. And it gives you on a Friday to do that.

00:56:24:20 - 00:56:34:16
Chris Do
So don't be so quick to zero in on something because it's worked a couple of times to say, I'm not going to explore anymore. First of all, life is not fun that way. You're really closing too many doors that you have now opened.

00:56:35:03 - 00:56:49:09
Brandi Sea
So do you think then that is the risk in relying too heavily on data from a design standpoint is like, you know, leaning too far to the analytical side and going, well, this worked, so why don't we just keep doing that?

00:56:50:08 - 00:57:14:23
Chris Do
Yeah. And you know, they say that data and in science and truth isn't all data science and truth. If you and I conducted a poll and we got all this data and statistics, depending on our biases and our agenda, we can read the data and we could tell a very different story. So you can focus on the 67% of people who do something, and I can focus on the 33% who don't do that thing.

00:57:15:15 - 00:57:25:13
Chris Do
And it tells a very, very different story. Right. So we have to be careful to say, like data is just a jumping off point. We have to factor in biases and whatever agenda we might have.

00:57:26:04 - 00:57:29:23
Brandi Sea
It's almost like I see glass half full, you see glass half empty.

00:57:29:23 - 00:57:31:17
Chris Do
Sorry. Yes, but in a more polarizing way.

00:57:32:16 - 00:57:34:18
Brandi Sea
Yeah. Okay. Wow.

00:57:34:21 - 00:57:40:12
Chris Do
You can see the glass half empty and say we're going through massive climate change. I predict drought. There's a lot more they can do.

00:57:40:12 - 00:57:41:05
Brandi Sea
Yes. Yes.

00:57:41:05 - 00:57:49:00
Chris Do
And I can see the glass half full and say, well, this is full of impurities and toxics toxins and things like that. That would store a five.

00:57:49:20 - 00:58:02:19
Brandi Sea
Look at us going all full circle back to our conversation about water the last time that we are. So I'm going to go easy on you and let you go. I did have I had a couple of like easy lightning round questions. Let's do.

00:58:02:19 - 00:58:03:22
Chris Do
It right.

00:58:03:22 - 00:58:08:21
Brandi Sea
Now. Okay, let's do it. What music are you listening to right now?

00:58:08:21 - 00:58:16:07
Chris Do
I'm probably enjoying 21 pilots, Frank Ocean and. Well, let's just out there.

00:58:16:13 - 00:58:21:04
Brandi Sea
Okay those are great text. What book are you reading or books are you reading right now?

00:58:21:12 - 00:58:27:01
Chris Do
I'm going to try to finish the four conversations of a new book by Blair Ends. I believe it's his third book.

00:58:27:16 - 00:58:35:20
Brandi Sea
Okay Yeah. What's the one city you always return to for inspiration? And what about it sparks your creativity?

00:58:37:09 - 00:58:57:18
Chris Do
I think Japan. Japan has such a unique, diverse culture. They have their own sense of original ideas, but also they reference a lot of things from America. But they put a very Japanese twist on it. I don't think Japanese people cannot not do that. They're so influenced by their culture that everything they do has a certain Japanese quality to it.

00:58:57:18 - 00:59:04:17
Chris Do
So everything from their sense of fashion, food, city planning, wayfinding and their thoughtfulness, it inspires me.

00:59:05:03 - 00:59:09:02
Brandi Sea
I love that. I love that. I think I need to look into that culture a bit more after this conversation.

00:59:09:02 - 00:59:09:12
Chris Do
You'll love it.

00:59:10:14 - 00:59:19:12
Brandi Sea
If you could have dinner with any designer, this is the last one. Dead or alive. Who would it be? Assuming it's someone you haven't already had dinner with?

00:59:20:09 - 00:59:34:22
Chris Do
I'll probably see John the Ivy. He's alive. He's no longer with Apple officially. But I'm curious to hear his stories about what was it like to shape this company that was struggling to make it to becoming one of the world's most valuable companies?

00:59:35:09 - 00:59:37:12
Brandi Sea
From a designer standpoint, inside that company?

00:59:37:17 - 00:59:39:17
Chris Do
Yeah, we hear all the dirty stories spilled.

00:59:39:17 - 00:59:59:03
Brandi Sea
That's awesome. Well, Chris Van, this was a lot and I appreciate your time as always. I hope it was as intellectually stimulating for you as it was for me. And I think you probably need to go have some water and take a nap and recover from all of your troubles.

00:59:59:11 - 01:00:01:15
Chris Do
Yes. Thank you very much for having me again.

01:00:01:22 - 01:00:03:16
Brandi Sea
Thank you so much. We'll talk again soon.

01:00:03:20 - 01:00:04:04
Chris Do
Okay.

01:00:04:10 - 01:00:04:21
Brandi Sea
Bye bye.

01:00:05:03 - 01:51:00:03
Chris Do
Bye.