Finding Meaning in ‘Unrelated’ Experiences
Travis Robertson—creative director of Colossus—visited Northeastern today. It hasn’t sunk in how amazing this dude is, here are the awards listed on his site:
Cannes Lions, D&AD, Andy’s, Effie’s, ADC, One Show, Clios, Emmy’s, Type Directors Club, New York Festivals, FWA, AWWWards, Cresta, Graphis, Creativity, MITX, Webbys, Communication Arts, Metropolis, National Addy’s, HPA, AICP, Hatch, Adweek, AdAge, Luerzer’s Archive, etc.
Homie really wrote “etc”.
I had a brief stint with advertising at SCAD, but I joined the talk for non-info design inspiration (prompted by Giorgia Lupi, who talks about looking at other fields for visual ideas).
In the same vein, Travis shares how his ‘unrelated’ experiences play into his design work. Experiences like bartending, fixing Vespas, and professional fighting—came in handy working with Jack Daniels, Volvo, and Reebok (featuring Connor McGregor). Hindsight is 20/20, and when a student asked how he stayed ‘open’ to such experiences, he just shrugged and said, “I wasn’t really being open, I was desperate to pay the bills.”
The idea that your experiences are too far apart is a familiar worry. I’ve weaved in and out of fields like computer science, illustration, advertising and writing. At each stage, I wondered if previous years had been for naught, especially because well-meaning advice was to focus on one thing—otherwise no one will want to hire you.
Thankfully, information design has advocated for the opposite: bring all your skills and experiences full force into the work. I think the challenge is how to effectively show different skills in concerto. Not easy!
Going a step deeper, I believe our weaknesses can become (or are?) strengths. All my life, social anxiety has been a painful shadow—one that I’m now incredibly grateful for. It took some time (ahem, go to therapy and deal with your issues), but I’m able to leverage the empathy and social awareness anxiety brings for my work as an information designer.
Feels Machiavellian, but I think it’s rather nice to embrace what you’ve always wanted to get rid of (because spoiler alert, you can’t) and find a way to make it work in your favor. As Travis pointed out, your experiences are all yours—whether you think they’re related or not.
