From Doodles to Sets: Our Creative Process
Blog by Jada Parrish | Article | 01/15/25
Like a lot of artists, we stumbled upon our creative process by accident.
The thing about being a creative professional is that you have to create on command and train your brain to be creative, even when the inspiration isn’t flowing. And to do that, you need some pretty strong creative muscles to work with.
Everyone is creative. Some people just practice being creative, so they get better—just like someone who practices weightlifting gets stronger.
For us, our creative process starts with journaling and introspection.
David and I have been journaling daily for three years. What started as a mindfulness practice turned into a major source of inspiration, leading to some of our best set designs and shoots—and ultimately became the starting point of our creative process.
Our journals have become a place for all our ideas, emotions, and creations to be born. Journaling is a way to go inward and turn your thoughts into something physical on paper. At the core, that’s what being creative is.
But it wasn’t easy to start journaling consistently. We kept asking ourselves, where do we start?
To get started, we played games with each other. We’d challenge each other to come up with five set designs in five minutes or draw a portrait with our eyes closed. These simple exercises allowed us to practice being creative daily in small ways, which strengthened our creativity and resulted in some of our best set designs and shoots.
We created the Creativity Reset Workbook—a 28-day daily journal challenge designed to inspire and strengthen your imagination, with a journal prompt and creative exercise each day - you can download a free sample with 5 Days of journal prompts here.
We’ve seen the impact firsthand, and we’re so excited to share this practice with you.
This ebook is perfect for anyone feeling uninspired, burnt out, stuck in a creative rut, or just wanting to be more creative. The workbook provides a structured 28-day journey, helping you establish a regular journaling practice and build a consistent creative habit, just like we did.
Now our creative process always starts with journaling and creative exercises like drawing different shapes or freeform doodling. Every set we build starts in David’s imagination and ends up on the pages of his journal. These loose, free-flowing sketches are the framework for all of our sets.
Here’s a look back through David’s journals, showing the initial set sketch to the final photo created.
Nate Smith Drums
These are sketches from a project we worked on for grammy nominated drummer, Nate Smith. David designed the set for the TV could split in half.
Kevin Smith + Harley Quinn Smith
These are sketches from a project we worked on with Kevin + Harley Quinn Smith. We created custom coffins and photographed the cover art for their podcast Beardless, D*ckless Me.
Megan O'Cain
These are sketches from a project we worked on with fashion designer Megan O'Cain from the Netflix reality competition show, Next In Fashion.
Linday Adler
These are sketches for the set we built when we were featured on Linday Adler's Learn Plus episode on set design. We designed and built a surreal subway set that could be photographed three different ways.
We Love Colors
These are sketches from a project we collaborated on with the colorful dancewear brand We Love Colors.
Olivia Jeans
These are sketches from the set we designed for Olivia Jean for her cover art photoshoot for her album Raving Ghost released by Third Man Records.
Personal Project
These are sketches from a personal project we worked on and designed to be a satirical news anchor set and shoot.
AvroKO
These are sketches from a project we worked on for the international hospitality design firm AvroKO in promotion of their new concept Host on Howard. The set was inspired by the walled gardens of Paradisa.
