30 Principles for Life & Work

Wisdom for Creatives

Most of the promising artists & designers I’ve mentored and taught over the years ask for advice concerning their careers in the field. After 20 years, I’ve learned growing self-awareness, understanding others, and working toward a greater good have turned out to be overarching processes for dealing with the reality of getting what I need out of a fulfilling career in the fields of art & design.

Those processes have resulted in a degree of acumen I use daily, which I’ve examined and articulated into principles I live and work by every day:

1. Adaptability is more important than perfection.
2. Growing is more important than competence.
3. Understanding is more important than memorizing.
4. Co-evolving with the world is continued education.
5. Be as curious and optimistic as a child.
6. Imagination is freedom.
7. Don’t get ready, start with the possibilities of materials.
8. Leveraging a number of ideas contributes to refining a good one.
9. Find ways to apply the concept of compounding.
10. Knowledge precedes wisdom and both compound when collaborating.
11. Diversity and inclusion are always part of the equation.
12. Vision and strategy are essential for leadership.
13. Long-term impact requires long-term relationships.
14. Who I make something for is equally as important as what I make.
15. Work with my mind, not my time.
16. Technology won’t make me a better artist & designer.
17. Don’t fight forces… use them.
18. Nothing can make me happy and fulfilled forever.
19. Happiness is a muscle that needs training.
20. Believe in how irrationally passionate I am about my curiosities.
21. Integrity requires the risk of making something bad in public.
22. Saying no to a client provides the freedom of saying yes to myself.
23. Finding peace is often more valuable than winning.
24. Solve problems beautifully.
25. Simplify the complex.
26. Intuition is real.
27. Good art & design must be given before it is received.
28. Good art & design means nothing is missing.
29. To move forward… change, accept, or leave a project.
30. Having fun is being present.

These principles aren’t intended to be valuable in a quest of gaining wealth or prestige, but in maintaining integrity during challenges that test it. As these principles themselves are stress-tested through your experiences, you are encouraged to share the wisdom you’ve gathered over time so we may sharpen these principles together and perhaps add to them as we and our world evolve and teach us lessons worth sharing.