The Big Idea, Twenty Years On

George Lois came into my life through a book and never left. His concept of the BIG IDEA — the work that is so right it makes everyone in the room uncomfortable — became the standard I held against every brief, every project, every client relationship I ever had.

The nervousness is the signal. Not the anxiety of inadequacy — but the electric discomfort of having made something that cannot be made smaller. Something that has committed to itself.

Twenty years of practice has not made me less nervous. If anything, the nervousness arrives earlier now — in the research phase, before a single pixel is placed. That is what twenty years buys you: earlier access to the feeling that tells you whether you are on the right track.

I believe creativity has the power to revolutionize and shape the world. This is not a metaphor. It is the most literal thing I know.