Manifesto · May 2026 · Los Angeles
Why I believe the best creative directors stay close to the craft, and why I'm pursuing a Principal track over pure management.
Twenty years in, I've stopped believing in creative leaders who don't touch the work.
The best directors I've ever worked under were makers first. They could sit down at my screen, fix what wasn't working, and walk away leaving the file better than they found it. The worst were managers who'd forgotten how, or never knew. They could schedule the review, talk about strategy, write a deck. But when the work needed care, they reached for someone else's hands.
I don't want to be the second kind. I never have.
The industry rewards a certain kind of climbing: IC to senior to manager to director to VP. The implication is that the higher you go, the further you should be from the actual making. That trade is real, and I've watched many talented designers make it. Some thrive. Many lose something they can't articulate, and a few years later they find themselves in rooms full of decks instead of work, the decks are about other people's making, and they're not sure when they last touched a tool.
I'm at twenty years. I run a creative team. I sit in the strategy meetings. I write the briefs and review the comps and approve the campaign. I do all the things a director does. And I still cut my own laser files. I still build the prototype. I still draft the type. The work is better because I do, and I am better because the work is.
This is why I'm pursuing principal-track roles rather than pure management. I can manage; the team I led at Crown Properties Collection will tell you so. What I want next is more time at the workbench.
A senior creative who makes is rare and valuable. The maker thesis isn't a step backward; it's a refusal to give up the part of the job that makes the rest of it work.
If you're hiring for a Principal, Lead, or senior IC role (leading by making), the work I've done across the last two decades is what I'd want you to see. The case studies show the outcomes. This site is the evidence I'm still building, every week.