Research Is Still a Creative Skill
There’s research, and then there’s looking at the first page of Google and scrolling through the same references everyone else is scrolling through.
Real research means digging.
Find a project that interests you. Find the studio that made it. Follow that studio to another project. Find the architects, designers, artists and collaborators behind the work.
Then keep going.
Lately, I’ve been researching the edges of environmental graphics, experiential design, architecture and placemaking.
What interests me most is where those disciplines overlap.
When does environmental graphic design become part of the architecture? When does wayfinding become storytelling? When does a brand become a place?
The further you look outside your usual circle, industry or country, the more unexpected connections you find.
And those connections become part of your creative vocabulary.
If everyone looks in the same places, eventually everyone starts referencing the same things.
The interesting stuff rarely announces itself.
You have to go looking for it.
Because what you find depends a lot on how hard you’re willing to look.
Research isn’t simply what happens before the creative work.
Sometimes it is the creative work.
