Having grown up as a very playful child, I liken my design process to playing with building blocks. Receiving a design brief is similar to  getting a bucket full of bricks in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors. You take the time to familiarize yourself with the content and organize the materials that are in front of you. You come up with ideas or experiment on how the materials might possibly fit together. You start planning and even drawing diagrams to express your creative thoughts and intentions. And lastly, you execute to the best of your abilities.

As a designer, I always try to introduce play in my creative process. I think that having a playful mindset liberates the brain and allows you to think more freely. Play encourages lateral thinking because it enables you to make connections between unexpected ideas. Play pushes you to create fresh and original ideas. I like to experiment and try new things which i believe is part of the formula for some of the most creative and innovative design works out there. Play has also made me a creative problem solver. I think play becomes even more important when I am faced with limitations as it enables me to produce creative workarounds that result in fresh ideas with good outcome. Playing encourages risk taking, as it teaches us to not be afraid of taking the next step forward. Sometimes risks pays off and other itmes mistakes allow us make better informed decisions in the future. Play becomes better when you can share the experience with more people. I delight in surrounding myself with others who share the same perspective of seeing the world around them as one giant playground where the possibilities for creation is endless.

Lastly, I remind myself to keep playing. To maintain an inquisitive mindset about the world around me, to always keep learning and never think you know everything just like how you would sharpen a pencil from time to time to prevent it from becoming dull.