Every brand walks into a brief lying to itself. I'm drawn to the tension between what they inherit and what they can actually become.

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​My first day in advertising, a creative director put me on a project I had no idea how to do. He didn’t give me the answer. He gave me enough guidance to work my way toward one.

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I’ve never forgotten that.

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Miles Davis was famously deliberate about who he put in his bands. He chose musicians who brought what nobody else could, and didn't tell them exactly how to play. The point wasn’t freedom for freedom’s sake. The choice of people was part of the direction.

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Creative departments work much the same way.

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Find people with something distinctly theirs. Put them in situations that ask a little more of them than they think they have. Pay attention to what comes back. Then help them take it somewhere they couldn’t have gotten alone.

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Someone did that for me.

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I try to do it for someone else.​​