They wanted me to read to them. The book, carefully chosen, was about Oliver the Elephant who wanted to grow up and be a dancing circus elephant. So I asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. I had just read the page about the girl who wanted to be cowgirl so Logan, three years old, going along said “I want to be a cowgirl!”. I thought to myself “oh how cute”.
Then I asked Lucienne, who was slightly younger, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
He stood up and yelled “I want to be a spider!”
“Hahaha, you mean Spiderman.”
“Nooooo, a Spider!”

There I was, only hours before trying to figure out how I can progress my career in design, full of hair-pulling frantic stress, and he wanted to be a spider! Three years old, his career options was limitless. More importantly, his creativity to approach a question was limitless.

I saw Gijs Bakker of Droog Design speak at the Wats:On festival in Pittsburgh. The slide show of Droog’s past works was absolutely fascinating, but in the middle of the lecture, he challenged the crowd: “Dare to go to zero”. I burned those five words into my soul. A derivative of Buckminster Fuller’s “Dare to be naïve”, that notion, that challenge to be zero is yet to be achieved. I presume it’ll take another decade to reach zero. When you’re three years old, you’re already there, at the Creative Zero, where creativity is limitless.

I’ve come across similar phrases along the years and the example of the Creative Zero has emerged in numerous places. Tom Wujec challenged different groups to build the tallest tower out of spaghetti and marshmallows. CEOs did a little bit better than average, but Kindergartners did even better. Their process was better. They kept going back to the Creative Zero, but learning as they progressed. The Creative Zero isn’t about going back to ignorance, it’s the world where everything is seen from fresh eyes with a respect of what you just tried.

I’m looking for Creative Zero where I can be a spider, a cloud, a fire hydrant. When I can get there, my designs will be limitless.