Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nick Laub. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Nick, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?

Starting my business came out of necessity. Now there are many facets of my life that make that true. One and the easiest one to understand is moving from Los Angles to Singapore with my wife, Jane. My long time employer doesn’t have offices in Singapore and working remote was not an option. So, I needed to find a job. I did interview at a couple places and was offered amazing positions at these companies. However, the second necessity comes into play here, I didn’t want to work in a corporate company any more. As a creative, I give so much of myself to my designs. But only about 10% of my actual job is designing cool stuff. The rest is all meetings, emails, and office politics. Even before the move was going to happen, I was often feeling frustrated with the amount of my job was frustrating to me. My wife had been pushing me for years to “open my own food truck,” in reference to the movie “Chef” with Jon Favreau in which he leaves his long time full time job as a Chef and opens a food truck, and in his journey to do so, finds happiness in his life. For years when I would come home from work and be tired, annoyed, and stressed… she would just say two words… “Food Truck.” So the opportunity to step up and open my own design studio with my wife was an opportunity that I could not pass up.

At Seajam, I like to emphasize story above all else. No matter what we are working on, the story should always drive the design. With toys, kids are always creating stories in their head as they play. Its my job to give them the best tools to tell that story. Very often designers will follow the path of trying to come up with the coolest feature they can think of and trying to shove a story on top of it. And while that can work sometimes, the best play comes when the story is strong. Kids are much smarter than people give them credit for, and if something doesn’t make sense, they will know it. The challenge is that the story we are trying to tell is not with words, but with plastic. So with the strong story at the core of the play, the features will come. Those features are fueled by story and the imagination of a child.

Nick, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My road to my career was a very long and bumpy one. Across my whole journey to becoming a Product designer and Toy inventor I never thought this is where I would end up, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Everything that I have learned throughout my whole life has come into play with this career. I started as a music major in college, and when I realized that it was going to be a very difficult life for me as I was booking decent gigs but still struggling to get by, I went back to the drawing board. I then studied engineering as I naturally was mechanically inclined having grown up in an auto repair shop. However I struggle with dyslexia pretty badly and doing all the math involved was nearly impossible for me. So I pivoted and tried the medical route and was trying to go for my BSN in nursing. I LOVED this route, the science was so interesting and kept me very stimulated. I then decided I should see what it is like working in a hospital. With that in mind I volunteered to work at my local hospital. I only got a few months into this before I had to quit. I am a very emotional and empathetic person, and with all the hardship and stress that goes in in hospitals, I would sit in my car and cry at the end of so many of my shifts. It was so hard. I knew this wasn’t the right fit. In between all of these school majors I was working day jobs. I worked in sales, selling cell phones and electronics. I learned how to sell at these jobs. Building my skills with charisma and communication. I also worked on cars and had a repair shop for a few years. But my hands hurt from all the turning wrenches all day. So in combination with feeling lost with my schooling and knowing I couldn’t be a mechanic forever.. I decided to take a chill semester at school and took some “fun” classes. Which were a bunch of art and design classes. I LOVED THEM SO MUCH! The teachers seemed to think I had a knack for it too. So I applied and got into ArtCenter College of Design after a year or so of hard work to get into the program. I went into entertainment illustration, but was quickly recruited into the Product design program because I kept building things and caught the attention of the department chair and now president of the school Karen Hoffman. This is where I felt at home, I knew I was finally doing the right thing after so many years of searching. After graduating ArtCenter I got a job at Hasbro. And I got that job with my design super power, making things. I have worked for the last almost 6-7 years in design and I have learned that there are so many amazing and talented designers in the world, and I wanted to lean into my design super power. And now with my own design studio I get to help create amazing things using bits and pieces of all my past experience along the way. Music, science, engineering, illustration, sales… and my passion for making things, all came together to help me now have my own design studio where I get to make and design the coolest stuff. My wife, Jane, is an illustrator and designer as well, so it was the perfect combination of our talents and skills that enable us to team up and found SeaJam Studios. We can imagine anything, and make it into a reality. Creating fun and innovative solutions for problems that have never been solved is our specialty.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think the most important lesson that I had to learn that has helped me progress the most is something called “killing the filter.” Killing the filter refers to shooting down ideas because you thing that they aren’t good, or aren’t executable. This is the number one killer of good ideas and innovation. It is very difficult to do, and something I even to this day have to be very mindful of when working. But when you free yourself from limitations, you’d be surprised at what you can come up with. And no matter what the probelm is that you are trying to solve, there is ALWAYS a solution to that problem.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

This is something that I think most creatives struggle with in dealing with people who don’t do creative work. The biggest example is drawing skill. The most common phrase you will hear from people is, “Oh you are so talented, I can’t even draw a stick figure. You are so lucky you can draw.” This can be applied to any creative skill. The main assumption is that all of these skills are fueled by natural talent. And where there is definitely some that have more natural born skill, most of us have worked very hard to learn and build these skills. We have to work non stop to build and maintain these skills. Same with design, experience is the key to good design. We are constantly adding to our reservoir of knowledge and experience to always be getting better.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nicklaub.design
• Instagram: @rocklaubster
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicklaub/
• Other: Business IG: @Seajamstudios

Image Credits
Hasbro Spin Master