We recently connected with Sterling Wilson and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sterling thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’ve been a collector for as long as I can remember. Posters, comics, magazines, cassette packages – no discernible commonality but their arresting aesthetics. By high school, my compulsions turned those unconscious appreciations to active intellectual pursuits. There’s nothing I can say about either of them that hasn’t been said better a thousand times over, but it was the work of designers like Art Chantry and David Carson that cemented my future in visual communication.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m an interactive designer at Warner Bros. Discovery (formerly WarnerMedia / Turner Broadcasting), where I’ve been working with tbs, TNT, and truTV since 2016. As any longtime brand steward can tell you, it’s rarely chaotic – through product updates and refreshes, you strive to maintain the spirit and standards people have come to expect of your brand.
That perpetual exercise in future-mindedness has served me well for my independent work under the juvenile moniker Chicken & Skateboards. While those TV networks enjoy continuous attention, a freelance client’s project is more transactional. I craft an identity with consideration for not only the business they have, but the business they want to become. Artists, authors, coffee shops, realtors, regional banks, tradespeople – there’s no end to my curiosity when it comes to sitting down with people and getting to the heart of their work.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I see a lot of aha moments in the foundational conversations of my branding consultations – those feel good. It’s hard for small businesses and independent operators to make it in this world. I like seeing I’ve at least seen them off with all the pride, confidence, and creative firepower possible.
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.
You don’t tell your dentist how they’re going to extract your tooth. You probably didn’t even know the tooth needed extracting. You knew, “my tooth hurts.” Come to a creative with your broadest needs first. Shared too forcefully, your well-considered plans can have the unintended effect of eliminating the effective and elegant solutions you involved a creative professional for in the first place. This is especially true when enlisting the services of someone newer to their field and not yet confident enough to assert their role in the ideation process.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.chickenandskateboards.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chickenandskateboards