CREATIVE LICENSE

CREATIVE LICENSE explores how self-imposed rules shape the way people create. I collected rules directly from SUNY New Paltz students—short statements like “Have a Plan!” and “Map everything out first, and focus on the fine-tuned layout last.”—and used them to test how constraints shift the creative-process through interpretation.

These rules are organized into three categories: Rules of the Work, the Craft, and the Self, each visualized differently. Rules of the Work were visualized through a workshop in collaboration with Design Society, where participants randomly selected rules and were asked to visualize them using limited materials. Rules of the Craft were translated into process-based experiments, where I followed rules literally (using specific tools, repeating actions, or committing to layouts regardless of outcome) to produce compositions. Rules of the Self were expressed through digital and physical interactive pieces and takeaways—requiring the user to perform the rules, rather than just simply read it.

CREATIVE LICENSE results in workshop artifacts that expose contradictions fueled by interpretation, visual experiments, interactive takeaways, and a digital archive that acts as a personal and collective manifesto—revealing how rules shift through interpretation, bias, and context while shaping creative decisions.