What Rick Rubin’s ‘The Creative Act’ reminds us about design
A reminder that the way we design is the way we live.
Legendary music producer Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act went viral in 2023. It offers unique insights about the creative process, resonating with audiences across different creative fields.
For designers seeking inspiration, new ways to think & solve problems, or who want a reminder of what it means to design.. this is for you.
Some quotations are paraphrased, followed with my notes connecting their relevance for design & AI today.
01. To create is to be human
“To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. It’s a fundamental aspect of being human.”
Creativity is not a rare ability. Through the ordinary state of being, we’re already creators, crafting our experience of reality and the world. We design products, interfaces, experiences. We also design conversations, meetings, interactions with colleagues.
Work doesn’t need to be framed for it to be designed.
02. To design is to notice first
“Designers are translators for messages the universe is broadcasting”
Steve Jobs famously said the ability to connect dots in novel ways is to have more experiences, or to have thought more about our experiences than others:
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
The high bar of consumer product design is to make something so simple and obvious that you can’t imagine it another way. The complexity of enterprise product design aims to maximize utility within intricate systems & workflows.
Doing this well takes practice connecting familiar dots in new ways, and connecting new dots in familiar ways.
03. Ideas need right timing
“If you have an idea you’re excited about and don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker.
This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea,
but because the idea’s time has come.”
Some ideas are not feasible until an enabling technology like AI (when mature enough to be useful) makes them possible. But ideas must resonate with the market at the right time to leverage its growth momentum.
Innovation often emerges during pivotal shifts in the technology landscape. These shifts compel designers to reimagine how systems work.
04. Selecting materials
“Based solely on tools selected, you’ve already exponentially narrowed what’s possible… the equipment and format are part of the art form itself.”
Any medium comes with their own unique qualities, strengths, and limitations to be leveraged in service of the design.
For example, designing software is to establish workflows and rule-based pathways. Designing AI is to come up with templates flexible for user actions and content to fill itself. The materials & components selected should adapt naturally to these systems.
05. New comes from familiar
“This is why, when we are struck by a new piece… it can resonate on a deeper level. Perhaps this is the familiar, coming back to us in an unfamiliar form.”
Design patterns are useful because they are repeatable, therefore consistently familiar. But new software may challenge established patterns.
Press a button to trigger some action. But what if the action can shapeshift every time the button is pressed? This is when new capabilities call for new paradigms to help people make sense of what is now possible.
05. Shiny ideas can change on paper
“Turning something from an idea into reality can make it seem smaller. The imagination has no limits. The physical world does. Our work exists in both.”
An idea may feel promising, but reveal new limitations and opportunties during execution. Designers often strive for novelty, realizing familiarity is necessary for adoption and usage. But familiarity borrowing from what already exists can be tuned.
06. Zoom in, zoom out, look out
“We can zoom in on something so closely it loses the features that make it what it appears to be, or zoom so far out it seems like something entirely new.”
We cannot change what it is we are noticing, but we can choose how we notice. A mentor to me once said, ‘Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. Look out and orient’.
Everyone has their own method of filtering, reducing, synthesizing information. There may always be more options available than we realize, emerging through new inputs, realizations, conversations.
07. Mistakes are human
“The attraction of art is the humanity held within it. If we were machine-like, the art would not resonate.”
In nature, you can’t step into the same stream and feel the same ripple effect twice, because it’s always flowing. Everything designed to feel ‘intuitive’ is really striving toward what feels most natural.
This is part of what makes generative AI different. It inherently does not serve the same results twice and can make mistakes, which feel human. Whether or how to lean in to this quality is being explored.
10. Work together like a jazz ensemble
“Cooperation is comparable to the way a jazz ensemble improvises.
A handful of collaborators, each with their own point of view, work together to create a new whole. The ultimate goal of collaboration is reaching the point where we are all happy with the work.”
My manager uses the jazz analogy for communicating designs. When Design and Product come with a cohesive story, with the participation and blessing from stakeholders, we can move forward with the same vision.
Later, anyone from this group can effectively fill and expand upon the overarching vision, ‘we hear your jazz, now let me play the tune’.
11. Developing taste
“…consider carefully curating the quality of what we allow in. Level up your taste. The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness.”
Developing taste isn’t to copy what already works, but to quickly sense & amplify what makes something exceptional. This is why AI can make infinite copies, but struggles to become tastemakers.
This pursuit of excellence also raises the bar in design — connecting dots in new ways, noticing how and why to make those connections.
12. Designers are editors
“The editor’s role is to gather and sift. Amplifying what’s vital and whittling away the excess. Cutting the work down to the best version of itself.”
When everyone has opinions and ideas, it is the designer’s job to edit. Editing is not to remove as the term implies, or to keep only what we like and take out what we dislike.
Instead, editing is a demonstration of taste. It is revealed in how pieces are put together: The editor steps back, views the work holistically, and supports its full potential.
13. Hone your craft
“For the sake of both the work and our own enjoyment, it’s of great value to continue honing our craft. To hone your craft is to honor creation. We can always improve.”
With the objective of simply doing great work, especially in environments where great design is supported, a ripple effect occurs.
When you care for quality, you are not only showing respect for the team you are working with; you are showing respect for your own legacy, Lessons of Design.
Refining craft not only enhances the quality of our work but also deepens our appreciation for the act of creation. Sometimes the smallest details are elements that weigh the most.
14. The creator’s mind
“Living in discovery is at all times preferable to living through assumptions”
Quality is important, but so is setting the bar low to get started. This frees us to play, explore, and test without attachment to results. When we become overly attached to a premature version of the work, we do a disservice to the work’s potential.
It is also possible for something great to be made very quickly. Sometimes, the initial sketch or demo may be the best version as its purest expression.
But whether the work comes easily with play, or with difficulty through struggle, does not have an outsized impact on the end result.
15. Discovering truth
“More often than not, there are no right answers, just different perspectives. The more perspectives we can learn to see, the greater our understanding becomes.”
Similarly, listening is suspending disbelief. To listen impatiently, or while preparing a response, or to defend a belief, is to hear nothing at all.
Unique insights come from noticing what others have not, or seeing things in a different way. Doing this well takes the practice of paying attention.
The future is very much up for grabs, especially with enabling technologies like AI changing the landscape of software & hardware. However, the unique profession of design forever aligns with fundamental truths about what it means to create and our desire to create.
