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Creative Problem-Solving Interviews

#1 Misha Mahmood - Graphic Designer

Misha is a graphic designer at a medical company. Her role at the medical company is designing smooth user interface, experiences, layout of the website for customers. She has graphic design major in BFA, and also has some experiences with marketing internship.

I started with questions about “How do you generate ideas? How, when, and where are you inspired? What inspires you.” She answered that her experience has changed before and after Covid-19 happened. Previously, before Covid-19 spreads, she used to go outside, enjoyed running while listening to music, and getting inspired by what she’s been feeling from outside.

The biggest obstacles she has faced is the environment change and limitation as she has been enjoying going outside to get inspired by others. People can’t go outside without wearing masks, and can’t stay closer and mandate to stay home to reduce Covid-19 spread chance. Some people decided to sell unused items such as cars and she doesn’t have a car neither (it might be different reason) and she is not also comfortable with riding public transportation. To overcome her environmental obstacles, she uses other substitutable items such as a bike and keeps her life patterns as similar as before the isolation.

The processes Misha uses to solve problems start in a linear methodology and divide into multiple items. When a problem is assigned, she accepts and starts analyzing to find best ways to solve issues. During the early process, she manages the whole schedule by breaking down a main task into multiple mid-sized tasks with each short-term period to get the solution on time and to reduce the failure chance.

#2 Jenny Oh - The Little Picasso : Children Art School Co-founder 

Jenny is a co-founder of a children art institute, named Little Picasso, and has a lot of teaching experience. She has a design major in BFA, and her co-founder also has a design major in BFA from the same school and they opened the art education business for children with plenty of ideas and passion after graduation .

For the questions about the inspiration process to generate the idea, Jenny gets inspired by her daily tasks and schedules such as students from the classes, suggestions from the customers or visiting different places.

The obstacles she faces to come up with new ideas are most likely the different aspects from her co-founder. Their thoughts and preferences are different and are usually very busy to follow up the schedule. When she suggests things to change for better productivity for example, her partner is being critical about the suggestion due to other concerns. Discussion seems to end without positive facts or plans for next steps, and they stop making improvements together to keep their friendship at least. To overcome the communication obstacle, she tries to re-define the major idea into small ideas to make her partner consider the subjects light. It takes more steps to get the idea, but it is also a good chance for her to build their ideas solid.

When she accepts problems, she first makes sure if her direction is the same way with her partner. Sometimes people imagine different ideas when they see the same things. It’s always good to be sure that everyone is on the same page with collaborators. Next, she analyzes problems where, why the problem happened and gathers information and resources to come up with ideas. When the ideas come up with multiple solutions, she narrows down the multiple options by sorting out for efficiency, effectivity, adaptivity or productivity whichever fits the best to the situation.

#3 Jay Oh - Sr. 3D character animator at Zenimax game studios Jay Oh is an 3D character animator at one of major video game studios, Zeni Max studio in Maryland. He has solid talented skills and experiences with multiple well known projects such as the Elder Scroll online game. He graduated from Academy of Arts University in San Francisco with a BFA in 3D animation and visual effects in 2009.

Q : How do you generate ideas? How, when, and where are you inspired? What inspires you?

A : All animating objects are great resources for animators. I generate ideas by observing objects' motions to learn mechanics, movements and characters. I inspired by animated films, people outside for talking, running, sitting, etc., animals, vehicles and almost every object.

Q : What obstacles do you face in coming up with a new idea and how do you overcome those obstacles?

A : The obstacles in coming up with a new idea that I face in general is a new working environment. As 3D animation requires a deep understanding of 3D character technology that is different from different studios and projects, it’s hard for me to adapt to the new system and environment. My solution is a classic way, I ask around to get advice and resources to overcome the obstacles.

Q :  What process do you use to solve problems?

A : I use linear processes to solve problems. When creating a character animation set for instance, I ask myself and check with the team to understand the concept to align the director’s direction. Once I fully understand the concept, I iterate with a team for brainstorming to generate colorful ideas from different resources and pick a couple of best ideas to apply for testing. After the testing results whether it’s good or not, which is confirmed by leads and director for the next steps, we follow the next direction or repeat the iteration process to improve the product quality. Feedback from others and listening other’s opinions are very important to create creative animations as well.

#My thoughts on this journey

Through the interviews with all talented artists, I was able to learn different ways to be inspired and how people use different methodology in different situations and environments. The inspiration and motivation from these artists can be found by new or existing knowledge, experience and resources, and main obstacle in common with the artists is environment change. The overall ideas for the process to solve the problem were linear. Accept - Analyze - Ideate - Implement - Evaluate. This was a interesting research to observe how artists use the similar methodologies to solve problems but their inspiration come from a variety.

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Exploring Creativity

Creativity is the key to open a new method, expression, experience or world from imagination. We are living in a different world from the world of 20 years ago. There were no smartphones, high speed internet, electric cars or Amazon online shopping site that we currently can't imagine living without. These products and environments were used to be drawn in sci-fi movies or hero cartoons and we have doubted how to bring it to life. During this time, by being used as a sci-fi movie subject even with the doubt, lots of the creativities and brand new ideas have come up and it motivated and inspired humans to challenges to build a new world. With the creative idea of smartphones as an example, our life became more informative and convenient and a ton of new job opportunities have been created to support the new life patterns and technology. People often think about what the next generation would be and what can open the mystery boxes. That is creativity. 

The creativity boundary is infinite even though countless creative ideas have arisen. It’s hard for me to think of other creativities and I thought most creative ideas had already come when I was a kid. Because the resources I have seen were limited. By learning more from various resources, however, my creativity territory could have been opened as wide as the knowledge and that made me very passionate to create better ideas or solutions. In addition to the infinite boundary of creativity, the strong impact of creativity also inspires others to be innovative like how a unique pattern changes and leads the fashion brands and styles. In art, engineering and business regardless of object types, creativity influences and constraints together.