Creativity doesn’t happen by accident. From analog sketching to pre-dawn journaling, these three designers share the deeply personal habits that help them break through blocks, stay grounded, and keep their ideas flowing.
Paul Rand: The Power of Solitude and Simplicity
Known for: IBM, ABC, UPS logos
Paul Rand, often credited with bringing the Swiss Style to American corporate design, believed in the clarity of thought as much as clarity in form. His creative ritual started with a non-negotiable: time alone. Rand would often retreat into his study, surrounded by books, sketches, and silence — no distractions, no digital noise.
His mornings were reserved for reading philosophy and art theory, particularly modernist works. This wasn’t just for inspiration — it was a way to calibrate his thinking before touching any design tools.
Key Ritual: Start with ideas, not software. Rand always began by sketching by hand, letting ideas flow organically on paper before refining them on a screen (if ever). His belief: “A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around.”
Paula Scher: Intuition Fueled by Obsession
Known for: Citi logo, The Public Theater, Windows 8 branding
Paula Scher’s ritual is one of energy and speed — but built atop decades of immersive knowledge. She calls her best work “done in a second,” but that second is backed by years of seeing, listening, and absorbing design like a language.
Scher’s workspace is often a chaotic flurry of Post-it notes, oversized canvases, and music. Jazz in particular — its rhythm and improvisation — fuels her flow. She begins every project not with questions, but with a gut response. Only after trusting her instincts does she interrogate the design logically.
Key Ritual: Trust the first impulse, refine with experience. “It’s like solving a puzzle without knowing the picture on the box,” she says. “You need to be okay with not knowing — that’s where the good stuff lives.”
