One Thing Real Quick

This week on the podcast, we’re playing a presentation made by Evan MacDonald about creativity. Back in August of 2017, Evan was invited to speak at the International Design Conference hosted by the Industrial Designers' Society of America. He spoke about the role and importance of creativity in company culture, citing specific examples from his time as Design Director at Freefly Systems. The Question There wasn’t really a question, but here is some food for thought: “Who gets to own the...

The Guest Dustin Lau is a musician, songwriter, film composer and producer living in Redlands California, whose work appears on everything from feature length documentaries to short TV spots. He’s performed live on stages around the world, worked with other artists as a producer, and explored a broad pallet of styles and sounds in his compositions. The Question “How do you calculate the risks needed to live a creative life?” The Notes Like many full-time creatives, Dustin has made...

Niles Grey is a filmmaker and director with experience working independently and on the content teams at both GoPro and Moment. His work at GoPro and Moment has given him a unique experience leveraging the every-improving technology found in small cameras, most recently, mobile phones. The Question “What attracts you to these little cameras?” The Notes This week we discuss the benefits of shooting films with a “small footprint,” as Niles puts it. While mobile phone photography and...

Seth Lucas is an illustrator and designer with a BFA in graphic design. He is the co-creator of Ello There Outdoors, selling prints and accessories supporting the National Parks and outdoors. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with his wife and daughter. The Question “What do you do about unfinished projects?” The Notes Seth was the first interview I did for this podcast. Not this episode, but another attempt at an interview, was created a year ago. After this first draft of sorts was...

Leslie Chapman is a Canadian goldsmith from Yukon Territory. In the 70’s she and her husband left Calgary Alberta as part of the “back to the land” movement, building their own home in an area that they would later discover was a gold mineral deposit. This would lead to another discovery, the art of goldsmithing. The Question: “How important is your connection with the source of your materials to your creative work and process?” Leslie shares some insights about what she calls a “chain...

Brad Woodard is an Illustrator and designer who, along with his wife, Krystal, operates the studio Brave the Woods. Brad has worked with Target, Baskin Robbins, Simon and Schuster, Intel, Harley Davidson, Honda and loads of others. He teaches workshops in person and online. His classes on the Skillshare platform have been taken by over 50,000 people. His work has been featured in HOW, Communication Arts, Grain Edit and more. The Question “What has been the most effective way you’ve found...

James Best is an Emmy nominated television writer living in New York City. His first tv gig was writing twitter and webseries for 30 Rock. From there he wrote for VH1, Billy on the Street, and Nickelodeon's comedy/mystery show Welcome to the Wayne. Currently, he's developing comedy and animation pilots for studios in LA and writing sketches for the reboot of Studio C. But that's just what everyone does with a Master's in Poetry from NYU. The Question “How does failure fit into your...

Not many will argue that travel is an eye and mind opening experience. Obviously, expanding your vision is valuable to anyone working in a creative capacity. In my conversation with Google designer Lauren Celenza, I ask “What impact has travel had on your work?” This week, Lauren shares some great insights, including how to involve the people you’re designing for more directly in the design process. She shares with us stories from her travels across six contents, insights about design...

Understanding where a creative comes from can go a long way in understanding their creative work. Sinkane (the music of Ahmed Gallab) writes music rich with references to his homeland, Sundan. In this episode, Sinkane talks about how his parents moved the family from Sudan to the United States after the government was overthrown in the late 1980’s. He answers the question, “What role does your history and your origins as a Sudanese American have on the music that you write?” Sinkane is one...

Just days after returning from a 16 month surfing expedition if Africa, Joaquin Azulay of Gauchos Del Mar sat down with me to answer my question, “What’s the relationship between your passion for surfing and the craft of creating films?” In this episode, we talk about how surfing drives them to create and how their films have become less about surfing and more about the search for waves and the people they meet along the way.

Annie Spratt is a delight. She’s a prolific amatuer photographer with thousands of photos which can be found on the covers of books, album covers, posters, greeting cards and countless other places (not bad for an amatuer!). In this episode she tells us a bit about Unsplash.com and how giving away 10 photos each day has led to some pretty amazing interactions with the folks who’ve used her photos.

This week I ask David Dombrowski, an industrial designer with over 30 years of design experience, “How has the intangible, digital world influenced the physical objects that you design?” Tune in for our conversation about the tools we as designers use and how using them at the right time and place allows for better design. One Thing Real Quick is created by Evan MacDonald. Learn more at http://onethingrealquick.com

…a new podcast about creativity called One Thing Real Quick. Listen to the trailer here.