Creativity Squared: Why Mitch Kuhn Believes Creativity is a Process and a Mindset
Mitch is a thoughtful creative with 15 years under his belt in marketing and brand development. He specializes in user experience and interface design, leading our largest and most complex digital projects. Mitch is also one of the more analytical creatives on our team, which comes in handy for improving agency processes and increasing efficiencies.
He thrives in the space between research and creative. Mitch has experience across many industries, especially the non-glamorous ones like healthcare, education, transportation, and B2B.
He has won multiple awards that only agencies care about. He’s a board member of the Boise Advertising Federation and design thinking coach. Mitch can solve a Rubik’s cube in under two minutes — faster than most adults — but slower than many 12-year-olds. He despises mint-scented dental products (but don’t worry, he still brushes his teeth).
Person
I believe in working hard to make people’s lives easier. Let’s figure out what we’re actually trying to say. Then make sure it’s worth saying, and say it in the simplest way possible. I want to make people think, not work.
I take that philosophy whether I’m building my grocery list or concepting for a creative platform. It’s got to be easy. My grocery list includes the meals we plan to make and the food we will actually eat on real days. It’s in order of the sections of the store. It has check boxes. I plan ahead for the lizard brain I’ll have perusing the aisles. For example:
avocados - six
bananas - lots
la croix - my flavor + sonya's flavour
ice cream?
A little up front work means I don’t have to think when thinking is hard.
Product
How do you measure creativity? Honest answer… I don’t think you can. Or that I want to. I think really creative work tends to fit into a few buckets:
It makes me proud.
It probably makes someone uncomfortable… in a good way.
It makes me want to see more of the world it came from.
It makes me think, “Damn. I wish I thought of that.” Our team calls it, “the tingle.”
I don’t think a thing can be creative or not creative. I see creativity as a process and a mindset. It’s a combination of patience, grit, and practice. I think I can tell how much practice went into a piece of work. When the idea seems straightforward, but also somehow new, that’s the magic. You can tell when a team understood the assignment. They were honest about who they were talking to and what they care about. They didn’t stop at the first or second or twentieth idea. They did the work to make it clear. And you can tell because the finished thing is easy to get or use. It respects your time and rewards you for looking at it.
Process
My creative process is all about planned spontaneity.
I start by collecting stuff. I read about the client, audience, and problem. I dig into Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok. I keep a running doc of ideas, truths, and insight.
Then I take some quiet time with a notebook. I write and sketch – keeping it loose with stick figures and imperfect words. I go for quantity. Then I put it away and do something else for a while. When I come back, I pick anything interesting … dive deeper into those, then find a buddy to see what sticks.
Take a shower. Go for a walk. Make dinner. Jot down more ideas.
Then rinse and repeat until we have a few good-ish ideas to dig into.
Flesh them out. Take breaks. Pop them in a deck. See what’s missing. Make it better. Present. Move on.
Press
I don’t think you can separate life from creativity.
My dad is an electrical engineer and my mom is a psychic medium. I grew up fixing toys, making crafts, drawing stick-figure comics, and writing little stories — a highlight was about two veggie kids on the playground — an onion and a head of garlic. They were bullied because they stunk. Then they found one another and the rest was history.
After high school I was fresh off Obama’s 2008 campaign, inspired, ready to find myself, and heading for a career in politics and activism… or maybe advertising. I went to journalism school since it would work for all of the above, and then found myself enjoying campaign communication more than actually being in the public eye, and drifted more towards advertising and design. It was way more fun.
Right after college, my older brother died suddenly, and my dream to work at a big city agency shifted to a priority to spend time with my family. So I returned to Boise, ran my obligatory marathon, and tried to keep the big-client, big-creative-opportunity mindset regardless of where I worked.
I worked in a smattering of industries. I freelanced out of a construction trailer and built janky websites for real estate agents. I designed at a purpose-driven agency. I coached high school students at a tuition-free private school. I did an in-house stint at a patient education company. I did side work for my mom — the best psychic medium in Boise.
Along the way I’ve picked up a ton of empathy for people (including clients), a bias toward action and prototyping, handy design thinking skills, and the mentality that we are all just people trying to do the work we think is best.
Now I have the privilege of being a creative director at a woman-owned agency with big plans, and using all of those skills with a great team doing work that makes a difference.
