Living a Creatively Curious (and fabulous) Life

Hi everyone! Tara is still out of town so this is part 2 of her guest blog posts.


Let me introduce myself. I'm Kathleen, an art director at Third Degree. I'm kind of the fabulous one in the creative department, so this is going to be a little more flippant and self-indulgent than Tara's usual posts.

I want to talk about Living a Creatively Curious Life. When Liz (you've met her), and I went to the HOW Design Conference this summer I saw a fantastic break-out session, by Von Glitschka, that focused on Living a Creatively Curious Life. He went into what that means and the tools to get there.

But more about me. I'm a blogger. My blog started as a project, with my husband, to document the remodel of our historical home. I wanted to have a common place for all of our friends and families to visit to see our progress. Eventually it morphed into a place where I share everything - from what is inspiring me, what I'm designing, what I'm cooking and what I wear. My blog has turned into a place where I can capture and document moments of inspiration. Every. Single. Day. Sometimes I feel narcissistic and irrelevant but then when I saw Von speak at HOW I realized I was onto something. I felt validated.

The key takeaways I went home with are:

1. Recognize, capture and archive moments of inspiration
The city I call home never fails to inspire me.












2. Anyone can be creative
Here I was inspired by driftwood I found on the beach of Lake Superior.


My husband, an electrical engineer with NO art degree created a face out of it.




3. Share and show your creative work
Don't mind if I do!

Wedding invitations (I find designing for myself to be just about impossible).


Illustration of what we wore



4. Elevate the mundane
I love finding beautiful, yet "undesigned" typography in unexpected places.

Airport luggage claim check tag


Parking meter typography



5. Personal creativity doesn't need to be appropriate or ever have to be applicable

For example, this photo of the vitamins I take has nothing to do with anything. But I thought it looked cool.

6. And finally, apply these methods to professional creativity, find the overlap
I would like to wrap up this (picture heavy and self-indulgent) guest blog by saying that tapping into my personal creativity, capturing and archiving moments of inspiration, have supplemented my professional growth as an art director and designer.

How does your personal creativity affect your professional work? And more importantly, do you like my outfit?

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in the guest blog and/or commentaries are solely of the individuals and are not the views of Tara Street, Third Degree Advertising, affiliate, or subsidiary companies.