Meet Collin Thomas

We recently connected with Collin Thomas and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Collin, so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?

It’s going to sound really cliche, but the biggest thing I do to overcome a creativity block is step away. I think as creatives we get so honed in on our work that we hyper fixate, and that energy we put into our work tends to let us get way too attached to it… we see everything as we intended it in our head and yet we can’t quite seem the flaws. We know something’s missing but we don’t know what. A step away from it, and a fresh set of eyes allow me to be able to reset my creativity and find things i missed, or allow me to fine tune my work to be the best it can be.

Whenever I’m in a creative rut, I’ll also try to make everything around me a marketable item. Very “sell me this pen”, but for coffee cups, knick-knacks, loose pencils, etc. I’ve found that approaching everyday items in unexpected ways can jumpstart my creativity back into the project im working on, or even allow me to approach it in a new light.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a professional graphic designer with 10 years of experience helping build brands. I’ve worked freelance and helped businesses grow from small to large, as well as worked in large agencies on loved household products.

I got into design through a non direct route. My mother is, and grandmother was, gifted artists so my childhood was filled with craft projects, sculptures and paintings, and a general appreciation of the arts as a whole. My dad has an engineering background and instilled in me a love for attention to detail and a strong work ethic. I originally wanted to pursue a career in anesthesiology but after a medical internship, I decided it wasn’t quite what i wanted to do. I thought i could take my love of sciences and art, marry them, and become a medical illustrator. I began taking classes to align with that, enrolled in a basic graphic design course and loved the design process so much i stuck with it.

I love working as designer because it allows me to bring loose ideas to life. It’s such a rewarding feeling to concept a solution to problem and be able to mold and shape it into a visually easy to digest format so that you can easily share that idea with someone else. I love the adaptability and rapid thinking and prototyping and creativity involved with solving some of the problems my projects pose. To me it’s like being a salesperson, and using persuasion through color and texture.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Work retail. Sounds strange, but you learn a. Lot of soft skills working in retail that translate well into marketing and design. You learn not only what a consumer wants, but also how to talk to them. You learn how to give a pitch to a stranger and you learn how to handle rejection. You learn how to think on the fly, and creative problem solving to reach a sale. You also learn how to adhere to guidelines not set by you, and most important to me, you get an insight into how you can make a process run even better.

2. Keep asking “why”. The heart of many great campaigns are simple in nature, and most were gotten to by asking “why”. Why do consumers do this action? Why don’t consumer do this action? Why is this built the way it is? The creativity and marketing come from the “ how” but the problem and purpose of everything come from the “why”.

3. Own your style. While I’ve had the pleasure of working on many awesome brands and concepts, a mentor once told me to always own my style. Art trends come and go and marketing ideas that work in one area might not work in another but one thing you can always control is your own style. It provides consistency in your work, allows you you to express yourself in everything you do, and becomes marketable for prospective clients looking for someone like you!

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

I’d say the two biggest things that I’ve overcome most recently is my work-life balance and imposter syndrome. Being a Black man in a white-dominated field led me to feel as though the work i was doing wasn’t always palatable, or that the projects i was working on only were presented to me because i was a Black voice in the room. This caused me to overwork myself and over extend myself to points of exhaustion to “prove myself” as a talented designer and creator. Stepping back and realizing that my worth as a designer in not defined by my long work hours and overexertion has had a huge impact on my mental clarity, and allowed me to work on some amazing brands at a much higher standard. I’ve been able to focus on quality of work and still be able to be fulfilled in my non-design endeavors as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.collinthomasdesign.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collin-thomas-342a22286/