Vincent Wanga on Audacious Creative Leadership

From the Association of Registered Graphic Designers, this is the Design Thinkers podcast. Design thinkers is Canada's largest graphic design conference. Since the year 2000, the RGD has been bringing together visionaries from a range of disciplines to explore creativity and the design process. Join our host and RGD president Nicola Hamilton as she sits down for casual and candid conversations with design thinkers speakers both past and present. This week, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you, our Design thinkers audience, to Vincent Wanga. Vincent's new to the design thinkers universe. He'll be joining us on stage in Vancouver next month to talk about creative audacity. Vincent is one of those multi-hyphenants. In this episode, we joke that "I do a lot of things" is a shared tagline. He runs a couple of different businesses and has his hands in a myriad of projects. For the purposes of our conversation, Vincent is a design leader, a serial entrepreneur, and a brand consultant. As former VP and head of creative for one of the fastest growing technology startups in North America, he oversaw corporate brand strategy and creative during a period of unprecedented growth. He was with the company from before their series A to their achievement of a $1 billion unicorn valuation, but what Vincent's most passionate about right now is creative leadership. In this episode, we dive into his career trajectory. We talk about overcoming adversity. The delusional optimism he's gained from those tough experiences and how valuable that delusion can be for entrepreneurs. We also talk about what it means to become a good creative leader and how those leaders should be thinking about new technologies like AI. Enjoy this one. Thank you so much for doing this. It's so nice to meet you ahead of design thinkers and get a chance to chat a bit. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for thinking of me. Well, this will be your first time speaking at Design thinkers in Vancouver, right? That is correct. Yeah. Yeah. So why don't we start this by having you introduce yourself to our audience in your own words. Who is Vincent Wanga and what does work look like for you right now? All right. That should be an easy question, but I am I'm an entrepreneur now. So I do a lot of things which is really interesting and rewarding and part of my background. I'm sure we'll get into, but essentially I am an artist, a fine artist, a digital artist, a visual artist, a graphic designer, a creative director. However you want to label it, like that is the thing I'm most proud about is I've found a commercial way to do my artistic craft. And I think that is something that will always be a part of me and I'm very proud of. I have a very colorful background. I'm sure we'll get into, but essentially, you know, clawed my way through the creative hierarchy. And most recently, I'm a VP of creative and creative director for agencies, tech companies, and now I do full-time consulting for brands and companies and organizations helping them build their brand hierarchy, do consulting work, you know, all of that kind of fun stuff in an independent capacity. So in addition of that, I have several businesses that that I run independently and kind of switch between, you know, the creative pursuits and the entrepreneurial business pursuits on a daily basis. So my life is really nebulous right now, but I really enjoy kind of that chaos and find fulfillment and kind of building brands and building companies and building products. You kick that off with the words, I do a lot of things which feels like my own personal tagline over the last few years. So I feel you. Absolutely. It's really hard, you know, there's family functions. Like, what are you doing? You know, it's it's hard enough to describe our career path as designers and creatives. And then you add entrepreneurship on the top of that. And it's easier to sound unemployed. But, you know, there's a lot going on there. It's just hard to describe. So it until you meet other entrepreneurs or creatives and then you have your comfort zone. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So as I understand it, there was a lot, I mean, the beginning stages of your career was like kind of nebulous too, right? And it was sort of bumpy, a bumpy ride towards finding design. Do you want to sort of tell us like what that path look like? Yeah, a little bit. So I mentioned earlier, like I'm a fine artist. And the reason I mentioned that is that's what I thought my destiny was, you know, I grew up, you know, with two PhD parents, a lot of like traditional African career morals, Dr. Lawyer engineer. I just want to drop, you know, so I was already an anomaly in my family. And they're like, all right, isn't it wild? How the pendulum swings? It is. Right. And you're just like, this is the one son, you know, we're going to have to support at least 40. And, and, you know, it's just because it's hard to explain, you know, the creative pursuit to academic parents. But I got really good at it. And, you know, I was a scholastic arts, you know, honor in high school and I was taking architecture classes and learning video and all these things. I had all these dreams of like going to LA and being a filmmaker or being an architect or going to New York and being a fine artist. I think where design came in is I always have this piece of my parents, you know, the intellectual, an analytical side. And then I had my creative side. And designed to me was kind of that perfect balance between those two things, you know, I get to express myself artistically, but for commercial purposes. And I'm working in systems and building products and advertisements. And there's this perfect balance between like my passions and my intellect. And when I've discovered design in high school, I knew this was like my perfect home, where nothing else was kind of a perfect fit like Goldilocks. And that's when things really took off. And then I went from high school to a applied arts school in South Florida, which I got into the honors program, which is basically a school agency. And I'm doing real work and I'm feeling like a real designer. Unfortunately, at the time it was more expensive than Harvard. It was really, really expensive. And unfortunately, I was paying for that myself. I was working three jobs plus, you know, doing freelance work to try to cover that and long story short, I got kicked out of school. So like my whole dream of being a creative since I was a child just ended in that moment. And it was a really dark period for me because it's like this one thing that's defined you your entire life ends with that kind of inflection point. And the reason I mentioned that acutely is one, it's been like this shame in my life for so long because my parents are so highly educated and they're so successful. And that's the plan. And I failed. But the other reason is that it opened this alternate path to my career where I had to take the scenic group that took me through entrepreneurship and freelancing and just finding all these backdoors to get back into my career that had given me the skills to be a really successful entrepreneur later in life. So I retroactively always looked at it with shame and now I'm extremely proud because I wouldn't be in the position I am now without that adversity. And I've learned that as a lesson throughout life. Well, and I think it sort of speaks to the challenges of like in order to like take the linear career path, right? Like through school to job more than just talent has to be in place, right? Like that financial support system, like that gets hard. Yeah, and you know, I think you learn some self-sufficiency there and just always know that you can handle more adversity than you think. You know, in these moments and everybody's had a story like this about something and you think that's the end. You can't get through this and shockingly you wake up on Monday and you do. And I think the best people learn lessons from those experiences and apply them forward. And the next time they face an inflection they're like, well, remember that last thing you thought you couldn't get over and then you did same applies here. And it why I mention that is it's created like this delusional optimism where there's there's nothing I can face that not that it doesn't affect me, but that I don't think I can overcome. And somehow that confidence tricks me into actually doing. I think that entrepreneurship, that delusional optimism, like that little bit of delusion is like so, so valuable in an entrepreneurial career, right? Like you have to believe that it's going to work or you're not going to be able to get up every day and do the thing. Absolutely. And you might be the only one in the room who thinks that. And if anybody's worked for a boss who was like, I don't think we're going to make it guys. Like that's not that's not an acceptable mindset for the team. So, you know, there's strategy there, but I think the most successful people really believe in what they're doing. And it's because they've failed so many times they got through it. They're they're not scared by that. And I think I've lived it enough to really appreciate that perspective. Okay, something sort of occurred to me while you were chatting there. It reminded me of something you talk about every once in a while, but of a design sort of being this one like overlap of sort of commercial work and creative work, but also you're sort of left and right brain thinking like this idea that you sort of bring both of those to the table. So tell me how you think about your own brain. Yeah, I mean, I think it's rare only because one, if you're if you're fully kind of in this creative conceptual thinking like you're so absorbed in that, you're amazing at it. And it blocks out a lot of other things. And then if you're on the kind of analytical side, you know, you're so absorbed in that it blocks out your creativity. You know, I love the analogy of like, when I was a kid, do you color within the lines or outside the lines? You know, and I was both, you know, it was just I knew I was different in that context, but the reason I mentioned why that's so important is one, it helped me find design. But two, I think it's what got me into leadership because now it wasn't just about executing, which I think if you are just fully on the conceptual creative side, that's your passion. It's hard to give that up, but I also love the strategy part. I love the the game planning, the 3D chess. I love all of the things that go into competing for marketplace and doing research and leading people and the psychology of management. And I think the hardest transition for people when they're getting into leadership is giving up the creative part. And I thought I'd miss it and I don't because I get to help inspire the people who execute and I see the value through the work that they do. And I think that's one of the benefits of having that duality and thinking is it's made me a much more effective leader because I can think conceptually and creatively and strategically and analytically at the same time. Talk to me about creative leadership. Is it different from traditional leadership in any way? Absolutely. Not that the same principles can apply if you're managing, you know, analysts, but creatives are different. I think anyone who's listening knows exactly what I'm talking about. We, first of all, and I don't speak for all creatives, but just speaking for myself, we're inspiration driven. You know, that doesn't just come from our environment or the work that we do, but also from our leadership. If our leadership doesn't reflect the inspiration and values that we need to do our craft, it won't succeed. And I think if you look at some organizations where creative report directly to marketing, you know, you see some of that tension because they don't speak the same language. And I think what is really important as a creative leader is understanding your role as a translator. And I mean that in the true sense, you got to translate the creative language in lexicon to executives who don't speak that language. And then once you enter those boardrooms, you've got to speak their language and talk about KPIs and objectives and metrics and, you know, what the marketing funnel is going to do. And then you get that information from them. And then you got to translate it back to your team, you know, through your art directors and your apparatus, but I take so much pride in that role of like being bilingual in a business sense. And it shields your team from all of that corporate stuff, but also helps advocate for your team when you're in the boardroom and you can switch gears and talk to the business language and they respect you more and that helps your team in the long run. And I love being that conduit between those two groups. I think that's why creative leadership is so important that a person who knows a creative background, who can speak the business language, is in between those two teams to really help a smooth workflow. And I can't tell you how much I love being an adult. You just talked about sort of creative leadership as having to be a shield. And I think that's such an interesting analogy, right? Like I think about past experiences of my own, where where the creative teams like did need to be protected from some of those sort of business speaks or the feedback from the business folks who didn't know exactly how to translate what it was. They were thinking or feeling into a creative feedback, but that idea is so fascinating. Yeah. And, you know, I speak about this often, but, you know, my kind of origin story for leadership is like, I was that creative who, you know, would create something. And then it goes to this place somewhere. And the adults in the room, quote, unquote, talk about it. And it comes back and like, make the logo bigger and make it pop. And let's use Comic Sans like, where did that come from? Well, our designer brains are like, why? Yeah, that's not what I sent in there. Like, and then who's in that room? Like, why aren't we in that room? And, you know, I always say like, how can I get in that room? And that's when I realize like, one of us needs to be in that room to advocate. And yeah, your art director might be in there or your creative director might be in there. But if they're not doing their job, then, you know, it turns out different. Here's the other part for the, you know, the sake of the business stakeholders. Sometimes that stuff comes back for reason. And we don't quite understand like the business reasons of why things need to be changed or why we can't use that color. And I was always fascinated with understanding those things. So sometimes I'm coming back and yeah, I'm letting the team know I lost that battle, but here's why it's actually important. And the business objectives trumped the creative vision. And then sometimes I'm fighting them for the creative vision because that trump's the business objectives that I think are wrong. And those battles are really important. And I think somebody in that room who understands the creative process and the creative team, but also the business objectives and the business goals is something that was lacking early in my career. And that's when I switched that gear like, let me give up designing. I want to be an advocate full time and being that room and fight those battles. And that's kind of what really flipped my switch. So to say on from being a designer to really being a design leader. Why do you think so many creative leaders have to give up the making work? I don't think you have to give it up. For me, it was a choice. I think there's two tracks here. One, there's so many ways you can be in creative leadership and not give that up. Being an art director. For example, you can be an individual contributor or just in the inherent art director, design director role. You're kind of half management, half individual contributor. You still hands on, you know, there's lots of projects where my art or design directors have led the execution. They're still very much involved in the work. For me, I just knew one where my passions were. And I got more thrilled being in the boardroom than I did in front of a computer because I've been doing design for so long. But two, it's almost necessary. When you get to a certain point in your career, you don't want to be, you know, the old guy doing old design. The whole point is to nurture and bring up the younger generation who have all these great ideas and new innovative processes and new tools to help keep creative at the vanguard of innovation. That's our job is to constantly not follow the trends. We create them. You know, we're ahead of everybody else. And if you stay in execution too long and you're not bringing new ideas, you stagnate that important role that we play in the business lexicon. So I knew when I reached that point that I wanted to be more a mentor, than just a roadblock. And I really love working with teams who are extremely more talented than me. That's the whole point. They should look at your creative directors portfolio and be like, wow, that's really old school. Like that's the whole point is that the new generation comes in, changes the game, you know, has new innovative ways. We're there because we're the most experienced people to help guide and craft them and mentor them and teach them about the business metrics and marketing and how that applies to design. And that was us one day, you know, in the past. And that's the way it should work in the future. So I love the fact that my creative teams that I've led are way more talented than me. That means we're in a healthy organization and it was easy for me to give it up when I knew that they could design circles around me. And I get to leave them and nurture them and watch them flourish. And then they will soon be those creative leaders who will lead the next generation from there. That's the way it should be in my opinion. It occurs to me that like some of the some of the sort of need as a creative leader to like step away from the work is also to like emotionally remove yourself a little bit. So you can be that translator. I think one of the things that we are sometimes we're told we're told to like separate ourselves from the work emotionally all the time. And that's kind of impossible in my opinion. It is. It's an addiction. And I don't mean that to make light of addiction. But that's the best way I could describe it. I have these urges where I just want to jump in a file and do things. And I think that's where consulting's really helped me is I get to sometimes cherry pick like what I can be involved in. So if I'm working with a big company on a branding campaign for a new product, I'd be like, let me do the logo. You know, the reason is like I like to keep my skills sharp. Yeah, flex that muscle. Absolutely. And the worst thing you can do for your teams is like be completely out of touch where they're asking you, you know, Vince, how do you use Figma? And you're like, I don't know, I'm an XD guy. You know, so I always want to still keep up with what's going on. And that part of me that I mentioned so many times that artists will never die. I just know that in a corporate context, my greatest value at this point in my career is as a leader, but I will never give up the creative pursuit. And I think for anyone who's struggling with this who's listening, this is where kind of those side gigs and side hustles and hobbies really, really kick in. And I'm a master of that because, you know, even if you're a designer like everything's so digital now, maybe like take up what working or find a hobby where not only do you get your creative pursuit, but it's different than your day job. It will one give you some peace of mind and you can get to express your creative pursuit without getting burnt out. But you also get this analog experience that you don't get in your day job anymore. And get to kind of exercise those creative pursuits without the burden of like the job or the objectives in there. And it's just your own free creative expression that you can do on your own time at your own pace. Really has helped me kind of balance that out, especially as I've become more removed from direct design. My creative hobbies have increased. Yeah. What are your creative hobbies right now? I've really gone into interior design. I think the reason is what I mentioned earlier of just physical ability to like create stuff and work with my hands that, you know, we haven't been able to do and design for a long time. You know, I missed the days of press checks and touching paper and, you know, your print your paper vendor was your best friend and they would bring stuff and it was like Christmas morning. That's been a long time removed from me. But within tier design, you know, I've been renovating a home. And it has been an extremely humbling experience because in my day job, I'm an expert in so many things. And I just haven't asked for everything. But renovating a home, especially a store comb is humbling because every single wall you open is a problem, is an expense. And I love feeling inadequate. I love feeling like I don't know what I'm doing and figuring that out and learning at this point in my career is so fulfilling. It's almost an addiction. So going through that process of one knowing your inadequacies, learning things like, okay, now I got to learn how to sand wood and, you know, I'm not doing electrical anything crazy. I mean, that's the experts. But and then two, it's still a creative process where I'm designing spaces and I'm working with floor plans and I'm working with an architect and contractors and and carpenters. And the end result is this 3D composition that you get to live in and experience goes way beyond like building a website. So it's very hard path. It's it's a learning experience. You learn new skills and it feels kind of like that balance of I get to get my hands dirty and learn new skills and new things in an area that is adjacent to my creativity, but I'm not an expert in. And that's what I mean by hobbies. You don't have to renovate a 3000 square foot house. I'm not saying that to people listening, but find something that not only allows you to express your creativity outside of work, but also challenges you in a new way. And I think that's what learning and growth is. Well, there's something so valuable about that experience of like being bad at something because you've never done it before. Like we can like acknowledge that of course we're not going to be good at it because we've never done it where you're right in our day jobs. When we're like failing or don't have the answer, we're like, ah shit, this is this is the stuff I'm supposed to know. Even though how can you? Because text changing constantly. Right, but that's that's you know, again, I don't speak for everyone, but that should be in your day job. What also gives you fulfillment when a client is like, we want a 3D AR experience like we've never done that before. We want this. Like that's your team should be excited to do things that never done before and challenge themselves versus like we've done this a thousand times. You know, that's great too, but I think creatives should inherently want to feel uncomfortable because that's when you're learning, that's when you're growing and that's when you really get to see what you're made out of and find a unique way to get around these problems you've never encountered before. And hopefully you have a steady hand in the creative leaders who can lead you through that. But that is what we do. You know, I love reminding people like we are one of the few industries in the world that chooses not to do the same thing twice. It's incredibly inefficient, but that's who we are, you know, we live to challenge ourselves and you could ask us to do the same task, a logo for two different insurance companies with two same colors doing the exact same thing and they will look completely different. That is just our unwritten ethos and I love that about it. Let's apply it to our day jobs and as well as our personal lives and that's all I'm trying to you know, live by. Back to that like creative audacity or like a delusional optimism idea. Yeah. In an earlier conversation, you and I were having you mentioned something that has been sitting in my brain for a week now. But this idea that Gen X and Gen Alpha are not Gen X Gen Z where we are, our young people Gen Z and Gen Alpha are like totally uninterested in leadership. They are like not interested in jumping up and becoming managers. Can you tell me more about that? I can't stop thinking about it. Yeah. There's a lot of data. A lot of surveys have been done. A lot of feedback from the younger generations, particularly Gen Z, which is kind of in position to you know, be next in line from from millennials to take over, you know, the art director, creative director positions, you know, in the next five to 20 years. I should also remind people I worked for an analytical data firm start up before this. So like we we specialized in knowing the most nuanced impulses of public opinion on any subject. You're seeped in it. We were seeped in it. And that's what made us unique is we could tap into generations that you know, other people couldn't reach. And there's a lot of data out there that they're just not interested in pursuing management positions in the same way that you know, I think millennials and above aspire to it. Like you just thought it was this natural progression in your career. You do this and then you become a middle manager and then you, you know, there's this carrot that's constantly dangled to move us forward. And I will say one, I don't think that's a bad thing. That Gen Z thinks that way. They're their own generation. They're a unique generation. I think for my analysis what they're saying is less that they don't want to become managers more that they don't want that same work life mess that they've seen their brothers and sisters go through their mom and dad go through their grandparents go through they want work life balance. They want better lifestyle. They want better mental health. These are great things that they are very intuitive about and they are demanding. So what that tells me is that one, we need to find a way to accommodate the things that they're asking for. But two, it creates a crisis where if they're less interested in the demands of leadership, they will be less leaders and we need those to keep that creative progression and innovation going forward. So it's a negotiation that's going to need to happen. The part I'm trying to play is one, be painfully transparent with the current generation and the next generation about what leadership is. Everyone has this spectrum of what creative leadership is and whatever spectrum you're on you're wrong. Some people it's madman on the other, it's like, you know, the office and the truth is somewhere in the middle. So just being transparent and if you're creative leader listening to this, like share that with your team. What does your day job look like? What are some of the roles and obligations and functions so that they understand what leadership takes because part of that intimidation for even our generation is how do I want to become something? I don't know what it is. It's this weird thing. I told you earlier in my career, somebody goes into a room and is doing something and it comes back different. Nobody explaining me what happens in our room till I got in there. So I've dedicated this part of my career to just being transparent about what leadership is, what it takes. And I think the other aspect is there's a disconnect between when you're an individual contributor, you're judged by the output of your work and the hard skills that you've learned. How many software programs you know, how quickly you can design, you know, all these different aptitudes, you know, where when you get to leadership, it's more about soft skills. You're interpersonal skills, you're communication skills, you're ability to inspire and lead and also understand the business metrics. And that's a huge delta for somebody to make in one promotion. So I'm just trying to provide the real nuanced skills and mindset shift that it takes to be a leader that I think will add clarity to that and inspire the next generation. But also, we can't do things like they were in the past, you know, when you're working weekends and working until 10 p.m. that does not bode well for creative ingenuity and progress. And I think with transparency also has to come change and an evolution. And the next generations are telling us they don't want to do it the same way we do. So I think that's going to be a pain point over the next 10 to 20 years that our industry is going to have to face and negotiate. But it's alarming. But also, I'm really proud of the last generation and the next generation for like realizing we're different. We're going to do things different. And if you want us to step into those roles, we're going to do it our way. But they first need to learn the way it's done now. Well, and I think it's tricky because I don't know that most creative folks are taught anything beyond the practice of design, right? Like the craft of design management and leadership is not it's not a it's not a course of design school, you know. Taking a quick break here to tell you that our next design thinker's event is happening May 13th and 14th 2025. Join us in Vancouver or watch live online. At this year's event, we'll hear from a star studded lineup of speakers, including pentagram partner Natasha Jen, film and TV legend Aaron Sarovsky, bestselling author and artist Adam JK, and so many more. With the theme shift shapers, this year's design thinker's aims to give the industry a perception interception by always moving, morphing, adapting and evolving. Designers are not just embracing shifts within our industry, we're shaping them. With a mixture of presentations, hands-on workshops, intimate round tables, and lots of opportunities to connect with the other 700 designers, creatives and our directors, managers, educators and students. Design thinker's Vancouver is a journey into the creative process and a celebration of strategic design thinking. Tickets for design thinker's Vancouver, both in person and online are on sale at designthinker's.com. It's not a degree you can get, and I think that's the fundamental problem is that we have failed to prepare the next generation for these roles, and it's just expected you get this title and pay bump and you just figure it out. And that's why so many people fail in those roles. Your ability to design a logo in Figma doesn't matter when you're a creative director, so they're not even prepared with the right skills and mindset to succeed in those positions. And I think anyone who's in those positions now really needs to focus on being more transparent about what their role is with their team, really mentoring people to take those positions, and just unlocking this Pandora's box of leadership. So it's less intimidating that will encourage more people to want to pursue it, because yes, it's not easy. It's hard. There's a lot of responsibility, but I've waxed philosophic about how rewarding and fulfilling it is for me, and I think it could be for more people if they really knew what it took and had the encouragement and mentorship to get there. Okay, so what do you what do you think it takes? Like what are for the folks that are sort of at that transition phase thinking about creative leadership? What do you think they should spend some time sort of thinking about reading up on talking to other leaders about? Absolutely. One is advocating for it. If it's something that you're interested in, you know, talking to your current leadership, that that is an aspiration. I think people have this naive perspective that it's just going to be given to them, and you know, creative is not a meritocracy. You know, it's unfortunately your art director, creative director may leave, and the first thing the the higher ups are going to do is look outside. You know, they want to bring in some big splashy name to shake things up, and there's talent already in house who maybe been waiting for that position and been, you know, a senior principal designer for 10 years and thought it'd be theirs, and then some new person has to come in and you miss your opportunity. That's your fault. You have to really advocate for the things that you want. You should be having discussions with your art director, creative director, about your career progression, and they'll talk to you about their aspirations for you, and it should be negotiation, so that when those opportunities happen, you are top of mind, and at least they know you're interested. I can't tell you how many times I've been disappointed by somebody coming up to me and like, I really wanted that position. I'm like, I didn't know. You have to advocate for yourself first, and then we can help you get there. I think to understand, you know, your motivations for becoming a creative leader. If you just want a bigger paycheck and more power, you're going to fail. You really have to have a fundamental understanding of why you want that position. Is it to advocate for the creative, defend your team, to learn business skills, to be a better conduit between the two different teams. All the reasons I gave you are why I wanted it to. The reason I mentioned that is this job is extremely hard, and those dark days when you're stressed out and nothing's going right, you need to tap into that fundamental reason of why you did this and remind yourself why it's important and why it's important to you versus superficial things like money and power, which will not sustain you through some of the things you're going to have to endure. It has to be a selfless pursuit. It's not about you. I can't emphasize that enough. I think the most important part is the best leaders in my opinion, and I don't mean this from a, you know, a result standpoint. Like, oh, we made the company $100,000 this week. I mean, from a team nurturing team building success standpoint, our empathetic, and that you need to understand that the pursues that you're doing are for the benefit of the greater good, for the greater team. And if you are not in a position of leadership where you are building future leaders and mentoring people and helping them grow in their craft, then you're only in it for yourself and you're probably not going to last very long because it should be about the team and not about you. And that's really the type of people who I think make the best leaders. No, that's sort of like, like, shift in the way you think I think is like such a such a big thing. Absolutely. I want to, I want to shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about, I want to talk about your book. You published your first book last year, and it's a deeply personal look at your path towards creative leadership, some of which you shared with us already. That must have been like a wild process to like go and excavate stuff from your memory, reflect on all of those choices. What did you learn about yourself, like what connections did you make in the process of writing the art of direction? Yeah, speaking of creative side hobbies. This one was probably more, more, I bid often than I could chew on that front. It started, this is something I've always wanted to do, right? Just write a book in general because I mentioned earlier, like, we're all creatives, but I wanted to be creative in an uncomfortable way. So I started my career working for an agency in East Texas that worked with major publishers. So I started out with interior type setting books, designing book covers, and I'll get back to the point in a minute, but one of the most fulfilling aspects as a creative is getting to work with other creatives. So a writer comes with this book about a premise, and they have this vision in their head that they can't physically get out and you get to interpret it and put it into a mosaic that captures the essence of that book, like there's nothing more fulfilling than working with fellow creatives, but I've always been on the design end. So I wanted to actually be the writer and just see the other side and tell my story and I started kind of manifesting this book about five years ago, and I'm like, I'm going to write my autobiography, you know? I'm 30 something years old, certainly don't deserve to, but I'm going to at least start it and just, you know, start journaling and figure it out. And, you know, as I mentioned in the book, the more I started writing about my life and career, the more I started realizing how unique and improbable it was. And I started thinking there might be people out there who think like me, and don't necessarily believe that they can reach the level of success that they need to because of their unique circumstance. So what shifted there is that I realized the book needed to be less about me and more about how, how I got there. And that really transformed it from kind of this personal story into more of a guide to fulfill all those things that we just got done talking about about how getting into leadership and what's required is just this black box that nobody really explains to you until you're thrown into it and you figure it out. I wanted to eliminate that excuse and that's when the book really kind of took off. And I mentioned working on a house in, you know, opening a wall and realizing all these things I not qualified to know or do, well, that's the same thing in the writing process. You think it's easy to you get in and you've been writing for three months and you've covered 30 pages. And then there's the editing process and then there's the distribution process and then designing the cover of your own book might be the hardest thing in the world. So it's just all of these steps where I get to be creatively uncomfortable and it's probably one of the most fulfilling exercises in my entire life of just finally putting all this stuff in my brain that I've learned to paper. But hopefully really unlocking some of the enigma of creative leadership for people. If you're looking to be an art director, design director, creative director, or even if you are, what I really want to emphasize is that mindset shift of here are the soft skills that you need to succeed in this role. Here are the business metrics you need to know to work with stakeholders. Here are the results that can be produced by being an empathetic leader and really unlocking all of that knowledge for the next generation. So there's no excuse to say I didn't know what it took and I hope it can help and serve a lot of people in the way that I wish existed when I started my career. But most importantly, from a person who took a very difficult route there, you know, it wasn't linear. You know, I'm a minority. I'm an immigrant. I have no degree. My point here is there's no excuse. You know, so these are the tools that you can use in your career to really move forward. And whatever your unique circumstance are, it is not a barrier to success. And I hope that's the message people take out of it. I mean, it occurs to me again that it's such an entrepreneurial endeavor, right? Like that sort of jumping into this stuff and putting yourself into an uncomfortable process to learn something new, to learn about a new corner of the industry. Have you always been entrepreneurial? Yes, absolutely. But as I mentioned, not by choice. You know, getting kicked out of school, not being able to, you know, get my foot in the door at corporations because my resume goes in a trash right away because some algorithm, you know, filtered me out, you know, not being able to get into some agencies because I didn't have the experience because I couldn't start my career. Always forced me to like, have to take the back door to success. And I became really good at it. And then I realized at some point, like, I could become that agency. So I started one. I think what people need to know about me is, and this is in no way in hubris, but I vision something. And it's at the time I'll landish. People sometimes question my faculties when I say things, because I'm in a very stable successful position and then I go on some. Delusional optimism. Thank you. Thank you. I will wear that with pride. And then two, three years later, I actually do it. And I seem a little less crazy because I think what I what I have is that vision and that delusion, but also the skills and experience that execute on it. And I'm dead serious when I say those things. So when I told people I'm writing a book, it was a cute little thing. And then next thing you know, it's real. So while I have, you know, this delusions of grandeur, I'm dead serious about execution. And I think that's that balance between the left and the right brain. And I actually accomplish those things. And I think it's really important for people to not just dream, but execute. And I think that's something I'm also trying to emphasize here that entrepreneurship is a great alternative to this traditional career model. And I want more creative to think entrepreneurial, because oftentimes we're just a cog in the wheel of a product or a business. When we, if we learn the business skills, we can really be successful in turning our creative passions into a legitimate business that unlocks some of that work-life balance and freedom that we so seek. Yeah, I think I know a lot of really entrepreneurial creatives, a lot of really entrepreneurial designers. And I'm always so fascinated by it. Like do you think there's something about us that that sort of positions us as as entrepreneurial or like does design teach us some skills that actually give us a leg up in an entrepreneurial world? Absolutely. We are, we are so different. Just so I'm going to answer your question in a minute, but I'm in DC, which is, you know, a very federal place and in a lot of a type analytical people here. And I've never realized how different creatives are until I move to DC. And that's great what they are, but I think what makes us unique is our ability to prop solve what is creativity but solving problems. So we never look at an issue and obstacle as a barrier. It's just like, okay, we get to use our creativity to get around this thing. That's what business is. And I think that's a natural segue of why if more of us pursued those things, we'd be such great entrepreneurs because we look for challenges. We want to have obstacles. We want to feel uncomfortable. We want to renovate a house that we're unqualified to do. We will solve that problem in such a unique and creative way. It'll be different than anything that's ever been done. Not saying it's going to be done right, but it's going to be different. And we thrive on being different and solving those hard problems. It's what we do in our job every single day. The last part I'll mention is that we're proactive about it. We're one of the few industries where like imagine you're a product designer. We're not sitting here waiting for a user to tell us there's an issue with this workflow. Can you fix it? We're hunting for it. And we're going to see it and we're going to fix it. And oftentimes we're battling non-creative stakeholders to do that. And they're the ones telling us, well, wait, that's not in the roadmap yet. Or put a ticket in the sprint, but we are proactive about our problem solving abilities. And I think that's what makes us great entrepreneurs. And if you look at what a true CEO is, they have a creative mindset. And I think people don't understand that. A CEO's job, number one, in my opinion, is to create vision. Inspire people with that vision. And then somebody like a CEO actually helps execute on that. So anybody who thinks like creatives can't be great business people. That is what the CEO job is. Is to be the chief creative and vision officer and to download that onto the team and to lead them forward. And I think we are uniquely positioned to do that. I think more of us need to take advantage of it. But it comes with risks. And it's not an easy path. And there will be another book about entrepreneurship. I'm sure. But it's incredibly rewarding to apply those creative skills. Starting that manifestation now. There you go. You know, laughing me at my own expense. But I think I'm deeply passionate at this point in my career about making more creatives entrepreneurial because those skills are one to one. And it's made me very successful because of that creative mindset. And I think, you know, from talking to you over this last little bit, I think that the idea of leadership and entrepreneurship go like hand in hand for you. Is that fair to say? Yeah. And I find, you know, creativity in my leadership and finding unique ways to lead people. So I think what is leadership but solving problems? I'm presented problems all the time. That's why I'm in the position I'm in. So it definitely extends to leadership as well. I mean, you've got strong feelings, right? About designers like responsibility to lead, not to sort of follow. And when I asked you if there was anything you didn't want to talk about on this podcast, you said trends. Trends was the thing you did not want to talk about. But then you went on to like tell me some really insightful things about trends and the way you think about trends. So I'm going to go against your wishes. And I'm going to ask you to like tell us how you think about trends and like the designer's responsibility around to this idea of trends. Yeah. I can't remember everything I said. It was probably much more eloquent of what I'm going to say. But I will speak from the heart here. I think trends are stupid. My opinions are strong because I think my opinion on trends have really been shaped by social media. What I hate about it is creatives are often at the heart of a trend. We create something unique, an aesthetic, a phrase, a look, a culture. Then it becomes popular. Then it becomes diluted. Then it becomes ubiquitous. Then it becomes stale and passe. And throughout that entire process, we rarely get credit. So by the time modern farmhouse is a trend, the original creator, somebody like Joanne Gaines just is so removed from it that where she is almost embarrassed that she created this thing that is now at Walmart and now is in everyone's home and is now a caricature when it once was really at the cusp of innovation in interior design. And I think any designer who's like following trends should remember that like our job is to be at that origination point. is to be ahead of the masses is to not create trends but drive innovation to be at the forefront. I also think on that front there's a danger of constantly trying to pursue the latest and the greatest. I love the phrase nothing gets duller faster than the cutting edge because the most important thing for us, as I mentioned earlier, is to solve problems. So just make sure when you're creating something new, potentially trendy, really innovative and edgy, it's actually solving a problem. And that is our fundamental North Star and not just creating cool shit. And that's why I don't get into this trendy stuff, especially in fashion, like trends in fashion change so fast. You want something that has legacy, that's timeless, that's simple. Anything that can stand the test of time is a true testament to your creativity and ingenuity. One, because it solved the problem, but two, it's lasted for generations. And I appreciate that more than something that is a pop and popularity and then fades. And I look for my inspiration as a designer and leader to brands that are timeless. And that's really an aspiration. I think we should be more focused on being the next great trendy thing. And that's something I fight my teams on all the time. Yeah. And I think that thinking applies to technology too, right? Like that idea of cutting edge and sort of like designer's responsibility around tech. Absolutely. And I think to you at the point you're making, I mentioned empathy earlier. I think ethics is something that we should also really be focused on as creatives. You know, when Snapchat makes a new filter and it's not inclusive and doesn't work for certain skin tones, like somebody knew that, somebody could have raised their hand and said, hey, this shouldn't be this way. We're so obsessed with creating something new and innovative. Did we worry to like have our ethics catch up and realize that it doesn't work for a huge part of our constituency? And I'm not saying it's designer's responsibility to always be that person in the room, but we play a part. And I'd rather be the person who raises my hand and raises those questions, than be complicit in creating something that isn't fully ethical or doesn't factor in the users who's money that we take for granted. And I think that applies to tech. It applies to design, it applies to leadership. And we should have an ethical practice personally, but also help inflect that with our teams and leaders and call them out if they're not thinking about it. And I try to do that and my team will call me out on it. And we need to work together to sometimes balance the business stakeholders who only care about the bottom line and really make sure that the products that we're involved in creating also meet our ethical standards for inclusivity, for diversity, for making sure that, you know, there's a story a friend of mine once told where she was creating a UI for a product, and male was always the default. Well, who decided that? Why in a selection box does male always have to be first? Why can't you switch it to female? You know, these are small little things that might seem inconsequential, but I want you to imagine that you're somebody who's marginalized or or or not in that position and you see something, a small change like that that is inclusive of you and what a big difference that makes in your opinion of that product. And those are just the small ethical steps. I want people to think about as they're designing products and services and design and just think about a perspective other than your own because we all think about ourselves and don't realize that that's not necessarily the users that we're advocating for. Well, and I think about building in ethical and accessible practices into our designs actually makes them more timeless, which in the long run will make us more money because they will stick around longer. And everyone thinks it's a sacrifice, it's not. You can be ethical, you can be empathetic and make money at the same time. Trust me, I've made a career of it. So I have to imagine that you're having some of these sort of like ethical conversations when it comes to emerging technologies as well. How do you sort of what in some of your sort of consulting practice and some of your creative leadership, like how do you talk to teams about emerging tech in our industry? Yeah, this is a perfect segue. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. AI, this is one of those things where it's so cutting edge and it's moving at such an expeditious pace that ethics will be the last to catch up. Let alone regulation from the federal government for any country or global bodies. So this is where ethics really has to matter because not just from a personal standpoint, but while we're in this rush to embrace AI and do all these things in our workflow, we could be compromising our clients' data sets. We could be getting inaccurate information from AI that's hallucinating and giving us a false perspective of, you know, analysis that leads us to create a product that, you know, isn't accurate or that affects people. I think we have to be very careful while we're embracing these emerging technologies to make sure that we are judicious in our practice, to do our own research, not fully trusted and not use it as a crutch. It should never replace the creative process in my opinion. And I don't think creatives are necessarily doing this, but it's not going to turn a bad designer into a great designer, but it can make a great designer more efficient and realizing where you can embed AI into your workflow to help multiply the type of workflow that you do and not using it to replace yourself and do that work. A copywriter should not use AI to write copy for itself, but it might be a great editor to get a second opinion or to change the tone from conversational to professional. Find ways that you can use it within your workflow that don't compromise your own personal ethics. Don't replace your job because if you're doing it that way, so will your employer, but also don't fully trust AI in a context where it has variable security parameters. You don't know where that information is going. Don't upload your tax return and ask it to do it. You don't know where that information is going and people should use common sense, be judicial, be ethical, and learn ways that it can multiply your skills and not replace them, because that is the threat right now and we need to show that it can coexist with human ingenuity and not try to replace it. And we should be leading that conversation because we are at threat and at risk if we don't. Well, and I also think about the way like our industry ethics like already kind of cover the way we should integrate AI into it. So I'm working on a project here at RGD right now where we're going back through our national code of ethics, which is a joint document with a couple of other design organizations here in Canada and in reading our existing sort of ethical rules. A lot of them cover AI, right? Like we already have a responsibility to make sure that we are not infringing on the copyright of someone else that we are licensing things properly. We already have our responsibility to make sure that data, information, and designs were presenting are accurate and correct to the best of our knowledge. You know, those things, the way design thinks about ethics, if we were to apply that lens to AI, I think we'd like already sort of, we already sort of understand how to integrate it. Maybe more than other industries do. I think there's a point there. I also think, you know, RGD's ahead of the curve on that, then maybe some other countries organizations are. But I think my point is that AI does not subscribe to those same ethical standards. So even when we do our best, it might be taking our intellectual property and mixing it into a composition where it thinks it's its own unique creation and it's not. It's based off somebody else's. And without federal regulation or a global body that's monitoring it, it doesn't have to subscribe to the same rules. So I think we really have to call that out and really be advocates for our own work because there is no regulation that makes it have to follow the same ethical practices that a human being might do intuitively. And that's the danger there is we're fighting a one-sided war where the other side doesn't have to follow the same rules. And we need to call that out and really advocate for ourselves and talk to your local representatives and hold them accountable because just like, you know, I'll take Hollywood, for example, who went on strike to prevent their likeness from being used by the studios in perpetuity without compensation. That was a powerful move and they did that proactively to prevent themselves from being future unemployed. Not that it solved every problem, but that is the type of advocacy that we have to take upon ourselves. What you guys are doing is a great first step, but all of us need to call out when we see AI do something unethical because these AI companies are driven by profit and not don't have a care regard for our creative intellectual property or our ethical standards. Jumping in here to say that at the time of recording we were working on this update to the code of ethics, but as of publishing this episode, those changes are live. These updates offer guidance for designers who are looking to or are being asked to incorporate generative AI into their processes. They also reflect AI's growing impact on our industry and our collective concerns about transparency, ethics, and fair compensation for creators. Head to rgd.ca to read more. Yeah, I mean, it's scary. The future, we can imagine a pretty scary future. Again, I am delusionaly optimistic. We will find a solid ethical way forward. I think you have to be and I think to flip that conversation, it's also an incredible opportunity for our field to amplify the work that we do. Like the fact that I can use an AI tool to prototype a trailer for a film that I might be seeking funding for at a much smaller economy is a huge opportunity. The fact that I could maybe sketch out ideas and test layouts and prototypes and fail fast before I present it to a client is a huge opportunity. I think I'm also optimistic about it, but we also have to be cautiously optimistic and just make sure that we are not enabling these tools to eliminate us from the creative workflow and that instead it's something that can enhance our craft and that we can use to multiply the things that we pursue. Okay, we're running out of time and I want to end this conversation on the topic of goals. So you've described yourself as wildly ambitious. We've heard some of some of that. We've talked a lot about this idea, the value of having, of being a little delusional of being ambitious and audacious in this industry and it's an idea I love and fully believe in, but I want to know what your big goals are right now. Like how do you even think about goals? How do you even set goals for yourself? I don't start with goals. That's the first part. I believe in being audacious and if anyone doesn't know what audacious means, it's like ambition times 12. Really think with a little delusion. With a little delusion, but my point is I'm a professional creative director. I'm a VP of creative, I'm a creative leader. I told you vision comes from the top and you have to think about that big grand scheme and then from there you build out your goals and processes objectives of how you're going to achieve it. So I never start with like if I do this and I lead to this and I start with the crazy ambition and then I work my way backwards and people might disagree with me but it's been successful for me. I did that with my book. I did that when I started my agency. I did that when I started my consultancy and my next thing is to kind of combine all these skills that I've done with this delusional ambition of starting a boutique resort hospitality collection because I get to combine interior design, creative direction. You know, literally taking UX in a human experience context and create things that people get to live in and experience and create memories for is probably the ultimate ambition that I have and I start with that grand scheme and then I work backwards from there on how I can achieve it and then I set incremental goals so that I know that if I'm on track or not and then I just execute on that but it also starts with a lot of research of knowing what you're going to get into, knowing what your limitations are. Finding the right partners is extremely important and moving forward but people often don't dream big because I think it's unrealistic and that's what keeps them from doing unrealistic things and I have eliminated that inhibition from my life and it is unlocked a new level of success and creativity and I think that's important for people because it's okay to fail. It's okay if you have this grand ambition and you don't execute on it fully and you don't make it all the way because those lessons will be applied to the next thing that you get to and you'll be that much closer to success. Don't be fearful and start with ambition and then add the practical steps to execute on that and that is what's work for me the best and I hope next time we talk those words will be more realistic reality. Yeah or that some of our listeners will have made progress on their wild audacious plans for the future. Absolutely and if any of those goals or aspirations are about getting into creative leadership you know I mentioned I wrote a book on it it is available for pre-release on my website it's longer.com but also will be available on amazon and global distribution at bookstore near you March 25th but my point here is that I want people to know that you don't have to start from scratch and make mistakes somebody's already done that for you hopefully that book can help people on that journey and I'll be really know the people's books on how to start a resort so that I can hopefully take a shortcut to success. Amazing well Vince we will see you on the design thinker stage in Vancouver hopefully we'll have some books there for people then as well. Absolutely I've enjoyed this conversation thank you for your time and consideration. We'll see you soon. Design thinkers is Canada's largest annual graphic design conference find out more by visiting designthinkers.com. Design thinkers is produced by the association of registered graphic designers also known as the RGD. The RGD is Canada's largest professional association for graphic designers our vision is for a graphic design profession that is broadly valued for its contribution to life commerce and society to find out more visit rgd.ca