Lianne (00:01.782)
Well, hello everyone. Welcome to the very first episode of the Creative Catalyst podcast. And I am Lianne Baron. I am very happy to be joined with my good friend and colleague, Luke Hurd. Luke, welcome to the podcast.
Luke (00:19.789)
Hey there everybody, thanks for having me on here.
Lianne (00:22.046)
Yeah, no problem. We are starting this up. I feel like we talked about doing this a few years ago. And I think that was at a time where there was definitely a need to explore a lot of what was going on in our industry, which at the time was very predominantly AR (augmented reality). And it's kind of evolved now to this idea that maybe we should consider things just beyond what we know in AR and talk about the kind of thing that really fuels us, I think, between you and I, we have a lot of conversations about what the experiences are that we're building for the people and for our audiences. And so many of them are deeply rooted in the creative storytelling part of it. So that's where we're coming from with this podcast. We want to share a lot of the insights that we have observed through a lot of the work that we've done in our history of the work that we've been doing, but not only that, in the circles, the social circles of of, you know, what we see in industry and amongst our friends and our peers right now.
And kind of share the tales of what we think fuels some of the really exceptional standout experiences and points of inspiration that we see around us. Any thoughts, Luke, on what else you want to talk about as we're going through this process of exploring this podcast space?
Luke (01:37.205)
Yeah, I mean, there's so much to consider. I mean, I feel like, you know, when it comes to development, we have a lot of stuff out there that's a great resource for that, and that's been kind of building for quite a few years, and especially in the AR space. But what isn't there is just like... creative information and how you get to your idea and then how you, you know, bring it to life, whether that be through your own means or through, you know, somebody paying you. Um, and I dunno, there's just so many ways to kind of skin that cat that I think that there's a plethora of information to talk about for sure.
Lianne (02:15.042)
Totally. And maybe before we go too far down that rabbit hole of discussing the things that are kind of really captivating when it comes to creativity and ideation, maybe let's let people understand if they don't already know our background, a little bit about how we landed here, if you wanted to talk a little bit about your history and what got you to this point right now.
Luke (02:36.773)
You bet. So again, my name is Luke, and I started off as an artist long, long time ago, early in my life, and decided that I wanted to learn how to do development to bring more interaction and just to digitize my artwork, essentially. I've been doing this now for about 30 years, believe it or not. And I have been really blessed in the past few years to dive headfirst into the augmented reality space. I'm an instructor for the MetaSpark side of things, curriculum over there, and certification. And I also work for a pretty large advertising agency out there in the world for some brands and bring some of their ideas into this space as well. And like you said, what's been so fun about this journey for me is that as I have learned new tools and skill sets, there's never any one answer. There's always a multitude of options and ways to approach new problems that can use things that go beyond the typical side of things. So it might be outside of AR, it might be something like AI or it might be something that falls into the blockchain space. Who knows? Who knows where it goes? So it's really pushed in a lot of ways and now I feel like I'm fully into the 3D side of things is doing that kind of thing. So now I watch movies in a different lens because I get to see how they're made. But yeah, that's kind of my history in a nutshell. How about you tell us what your amazing history in this space is?
Lianne (04:25.378)
It's funny because I think of all the people that we've come to know, at least at this chapter of our journey, you and I have a very similar background. Same generation as well, I've been doing this for a really long time, started off as an artist, but more deeply traditional. So sculpture is my first passion. I went on to university and I learned the tools of digitizing the work that I was doing - the traditional stuff I was doing in oil paints and in the acrylics I was able to emulate in Photoshop. That was like the biggest thing that could have happened to me and understanding that I could digitize and then create more reach for the work that I was doing. But the thing I think that was always fascinating and continues to be was adding the element of interactivity, right? So talking about web design and web dev, it was that ability to have your audience interact with the work that you were producing.
And then kind of exploring that and always keeping eyes on how that was evolving. And I think that continues on to where we are today. You know, fast forward through different iterations of my exploration of interactivity with the work. I ended up recently for the last two years working with Meta on the side of what we call our AR partnerships team. So you and I met in the beta, which we were creating these AR effects together before they were released to the public.
And then I ended up joining the team that was supporting that internally to be sure that I was able to be a voice for the community, to bring forth a lot of opportunities to them for visibility, but also to change the structure of how monetization was happening for these AR creators. We worked on a ton of great projects together, you and I actually, Luke, we've done a lot of work together, but with a lot of the folks in the community. And I feel like maybe that's something I would love to just touch on lightly because I feel like the community that we run with, all have this kind of mindset, right? That there's, it's not so much about the fact that we're sitting here at AR, but we're actually in a space where we are contemplating this tool that we're using, and that it has this element of interactivity. And I feel like that's something that just prior to this, we were talking about - what is the point of even having this podcast? Well, let's talk about the creativity and the fact that AR happens to be the delivery system on mobile or wherever it may land, just happens to be one of the pieces of the tool set. What is your feeling currently on the whole kind of kit that we're carrying around? Is this like this group of community, of these creators? Like I think that we're all literally running around with the same tool set and some of us focusing a little bit more on one or the other, but how do you feel about right now? Are you feeling like we've got too many pieces in this toolkit. Do we have enough or what do you feel about it?
Luke (07:19.237)
I feel like we have a lot of one there's a lot of amazing tools that have come out over the past few years from segmentation models to all kinds of things that can change the way occlusion works and there's just so many cool things that have come out. But I feel like all of the platforms right now are all kind of racing to the same line which is that you know, how far can we push a mobile device? I shouldn't say that how far can we push a cell phone?
So it's not just a mobile device, it's a device that has to do quite literally everything else, from your maps to your relationships to your calendar to your health data to everything else. So it's an all-in-one device, which means it can't do one thing amazingly. It has to do a lot of things really well. So I think that what that means is that these mobile tool sets, right now are kind of all racing to that finite line of what a mobile cell phone can do from a camera perspective and how much they're willing to open up their APIs from a camera on the Apple or Google side or whatever it may be. So to see some of the other non-mobile movements, things like Meta's Quest series of headsets and even like the Spectacles on Snap are interesting to me because I feel like those are really where the frontier lies beyond the mobile. So the mobile is cool. Don't get me wrong. I feel like there's a lot of ways to still utilize mobile for the next several years when it comes to that stuff. But I think that there's a lot of tools out there that are similar and we are running around with the same kind of tools, somewhat creating the same things. But I think that the real artistry and the real creativity still pushes those bounds. So the same way that like, you know, we all might have the ability to create a, you know, this or that or a bracket challenge or whatever, but you can still push the creativity of how that works. It doesn't have to just be a couple of planes floating above your head and one of them gets a little bit bigger the more you lean. That's fine, but you can flex your creativity in a million ways and still work within the bounds of stuff like that. So, boy, it's complex, but I think that the, one of the key takeaways I feel like right now with augmented reality is that we're still so much in the infancy of what it is, and we are.
You know, you made a good point earlier before we actually started recording, which was, which was that augmented reality is a delivery mechanism. It's not the thing. It's not the it's not that's not the wow factor that was at first, but that can't carry forever. The same way that like when all the apps came out for iPhone, they were flashlights.
Lianne (10:32.962)
Yeah, I remember that.
Luke (10:33.053)
And like drinking yeah, they were like drinking games where you like tilted your phone and the liquid would look like so it would take use the gyroscope and it would use the flashlight and stuff It's fine. That's fine. But as we know that's not functional stuff. That's not stuff that has a lifespan It's it it's using the devices for its quirky nature the same way the AR is doing right now we're using the device for its quirky nature, but it goes beyond that and it's bigger than that and ubiquity means that people are bored of the interface. You use your mouse and your keyboard and your touch screen on your computer or your touch screen on your phone, but at one point those things were quirky in their own right. The mouse was very quirky when it first came out and the touch screen was super quirky with its pinch and its zoom and two finger scrolling as opposed to one finger scrolling and all that stuff. There's quirkiness to all this stuff. And in the beginning the quirks are enough to carry the creativity. As it goes, your creativity really is what keeps the boat moving. Because people get used to the mechanism, people get used to the thing. And suddenly the things that were a wow factor that first year or two, aren't as wow factor anymore. The idea that you can track something to your face is like, yeah, okay. What else you got? You know, but two years ago it was like, oh my gosh, there's a ball in front of me, you know? So that's where we're at. I think that's where we're at, but what that means is that it's really important for people who work in these creative spaces, not just augmented reality, but people who work in all immersive creative spaces to keep pushing on those buttons and pulling on those levers and doing what we do. Because I don't think we can not do that stuff. I think most of us are pretty much born to pull on those levers. But I think that's what excites me the most about it is we're to the point of ubiquity sort of in some ways which means that we really should start seeing some creative bounds start to be really what we're pushing as opposed to just the quirks of the device.
Lianne (12:36.35)
Yeah, I love I love exactly what you're saying. Those are great examples with the keyboard and the mouse. And now that we've adopted it, like there's obviously some sort of learning curve that has to go into adopting these new tools that we're using, right? But let's just go back. I loved what you were saying about the creativity and that you'll always have the bounds. You're always going to have the requests, let's say for the output to be like, for example, what you're saying with this or that.
Let's kind of circle back to that for one second, because what I wanna discuss with this audience is how you can really take the confines of the ask and then bring yourself as a creative person and bring your creative voice to the parameters of the ask for you. So in this case, let's talk a little bit about that and some of the ways that we could really finesse the this or that experience. To your point, what you were saying, you can have things kind of pop out there are so many elements, especially when it comes to this being an immersive experience that you want to build creatively for the fact that your user's going to be interacting with it. So what are some of the things, again, when you're pushing the boundaries of what we're seeing on mobile? I would hazard to say that it's, for me as a creative individual who's trying to make my mark in the space and let people know, okay, this is how you're going to expect me to show up.
I would have a very unique kind of signature look. This is kind of a strategy that I think works really, really well with a lot of the creators who are then known for a very specific kind of a niche signature style, as you would have had, say, in the traditional arts that we would have observed previously that you still see in the galleries and in the exhibitions that pop up in museums, that you start to develop a kind of creative language that is almost your own personal brand.
And I feel like, obviously, you know, you're going to have limitations if you're being commissioned by a brand or a partner to do work on their behalf. But my suggestion, I think, to folks as we're talking about the creative process behind this is to start considering what is your creative language and how you express your creative self as a brand or self. You know, see, you have a small agency or something like that, because I really feel like that is what is going to help you establish yourself in a space full of noise. I think the one thing that we all can do and like and like you said in touch on briefly is that you kind of have to kind of be a jack of all trades in this space that you're going to have to know you know everything that you're capable of doing you're going to have to have a little bit of knowledge in UI design you're going to have to have a little bit of understanding maybe in audio if you're going to be adding that into some of the experiences that you're building out but given that
You don't want to necessarily blend in and be gray. You still want to have, you know, the red lipstick, whatever it is that's going to make you kind of stand out in this big noisy space, right? Any other contributions on how folks can stand out creatively.
Luke (15:27.589)
Yeah, totally.
Luke (15:33.933)
Well, I mean, that's a great point. I mean, if you think about any great brand, what they sell, and I'm gonna go on a little bit of a brand talk here. One thing I love about branding yourself is that you have to put a lot of thought into what exactly you're selling. And then try to tell that story through what you do. So if you think about some of the great brands like Nike.
Lianne (15:43.618)
Go for it.
Luke (16:01.049)
Nike never has a cross section of their shoes in their ads. They don't really talk about shoes ever They don't ever say we're better than Reebok. They don't ever have a comparison They don't ever have statistics about how you're gonna run X percent. It's about storytelling for athletes They are a sports company not a shoe company. They sell shoes Apple is a is a computer company They don't talk about their specs in the same way. They don't compare them in the same way that they do like a PC would. On the PC side of things, it's like you're buying like a battery. It doesn't really matter what brand it is. But with Apple, it does. With Apple, you're buying an ecosystem. It's a lifestyle ecosystem. It really is. Even if you don't buy into that concept, that's what they do.
So Nike and Apple and all these brands even Starbucks, they don't ever just they're not like we sell coffee That's not what they do. They sell something else and there's something else that they sell that is of value To the people who buy it and what I love so much about being able to brand yourself Is that you give that ability or you have that ability to do that for yourself? in a way where you can leave your mark the same way that like Like if you look at like Louboutins they have like red soles on the bottom of their shoes. You know what they are from a mile away. There are certain AR creators when they build things, you know it's them from a mile away. And if it's not them, you immediately think of them. Which is funny because people will copy work and you see it and you're like, even though this is a copy, I don't think of this person. I think of the original. So I think that's what's so fun about being able to brand yourself is one, you get to decide like, what exactly am I selling? Am I selling intelligence? Am I selling marketing? Am I selling beauty? Am I selling, uh, fashion forwardness? Am I selling, what am I selling? And, um, and then the delivery mechanism is what augmented reality or AI or whatever the technology that you want to use. So, so you're not building an AR thing. You're building a thing and you're using AR or you're using whatever. So I feel that way very strongly about the way that a lot of the individual creators will build their stuff is that when they find their brand, and it's the same way that like a musician finds their voice, you know it when you find it. And you might go through a few iterations and that's okay. It's important to just record an album and put it out there. And if it sounds like Fiona Apple, and everyone thinks it sounds like Fiona Apple, then you probably haven't found your voice yet. But what that means is that you were brave enough to put an album out there, and then you're gonna try something else next time. And then once you get big and famous, you can go buy the rights to that old album and make it disappear forever, if you're really that concerned about it. But just saying, it's the same thing. It's the same thing that musicians struggle with, and it's something to it really connect the dots there is that the reason that musicians struggle with it is because they're artists and the reason we struggle with it is because we're artists. And even though we are, a lot of us can be like a jack of all trades and some of us can do 3D and some of us can do self-promotion, whatever it may be, that's yet another good example of why it's great to collaborate with other creators is because if you have the skills that are one or two. One, two, and three, and then you work with somebody who has skills four and five, then that's, well, you got five skills that you can go flex on. And then when one person's good at promotion and they promote something you both built together, then suddenly your stuff is promoted right alongside of it. So there's a lot of moving pieces with it, but I think it's really important just to be inspired enough to make what we wanna make something. I mean, that's where it all starts, so, yeah.
Lianne (20:03.942)
Mm-hmm Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's that initial thing and so there are a lot of I want to talk about that - let's go down, let's just go right to the core of what it is how to find that voice that you're talking about whether you're a musician whether you're traditional artists, whether you're a digital artist whether whatever type of producer or creator - that's why you know, we're talking about creators because essentially you're creating something you have this kind of essence within you this need, this itch, I don't know, I'm not gonna just speak on behalf of you, but a lot of people I've talked to have this, it's like a tapping or a niggling or a thing that just sits inside of you and is just like, you need to let me out, right? And sometimes it'll come in different forms, it'll be maybe ambiguous, sometimes it's not super clear, and so you have to do like what you're saying, you're gonna have to let it out and try different delivery systems. Maybe it works well in AR, maybe it doesn't feel right, so it's like, okay, let's try a different delivery method of this thing that's niggling inside of me that needs to emerge and come out. And that's the whole practice I think, is not necessarily subscribing to one delivery system or one tool, maybe it's a combination of both, but I think it's more honoring what that tapping is internally and allowing time and space to explore it and giving grace for that. And I feel like people feel like, oh my gosh, I have to have this immediate hit when it comes out and it's gotta happen right away. But no, I think the reality is that sometimes it takes a little finessing, a little bit of care, like I said, a little bit of space for it to kind of grow and then find its way. We were talking a little bit too earlier about how you wanna have the, I think you'd give the example that you wanna leave the pain strokes, but allow that one that will emerge into something else or grow into something else whether it's the Bob Ross happy mistake. Yeah, if you wanna take that one, because I feel like that was a really great example.
Luke (21:58.565)
Totally. Yeah, I always say like, you know, it's one of the hardest parts about AR is that sometimes when you're building AR, you get handed a creative idea and they say, go build this. And the unfortunate part about that kind of a process is that you uncover things while you are creating. So if you're a creator and you're building this experience, whatever it may be, and you have preconceived instructions, before you of what it should be. What ends up happening is you miss out on those brushstrokes. You miss out on those weird happy accidents where something happens and you go, oops, I didn't mean to do that. And then you're like, oh, well, this could be a new tree or a new mountain or whatever it may be. And I think all of us in this space, because it's an emerging, technically challenging space to be in we'll see that, we will make an oops moment all of the time. And I'll be like, whoa, that looks like water caustics and I'll use it for something that looks like water because of some screw up I made, or I'll try something and it doesn't look like what I want it to. And then I'm like, well, that's still kind of interesting. So there's something to that happy accident piece and having that creator, the builder be part of the creation process. Not to say you can't build things in collaboration with other teams who do this stuff. But there is something to that piece of it, having that freedom of, especially when you're building on your own, you're creating on your own, that's why I like to create so much on my own, is that you do have that freedom to be able to just kind of do what you want and take a left turn or a right turn whenever you want to. And people are like, hey, it's time to go home now. And you're like, not for me, I get to go whenever I want to. So. That stuff is really cool. And I think that when I'm building things, and I use AR software like Doodle Pad. I mean, I really will just open stuff up and mess around and then close it sometimes without even saving it. Or I really like the idea of just kind of playing around in spatial space the same way I like to doodle on a 2D notepad while somebody's talking to me. There's some times where I'll be in a meeting and I'll just kind of open up Spark or Lin studio or whatever and start building things and just see yeah, maybe I can make something over here. So I think that is a That's like an inherent quality and all artists. I think is that the want to create regardless of monetary compensation It's just something that you just want to do. Don't get me wrong. We all want to make money For what we're doing but I would do it for free because I can't help it. I just can't help it. So hopefully people will pay me for it because I'll be doing it regardless.
Lianne (25:02.846)
Yeah, same. And I think the more just like any other muscle, this is also a muscle too, right? And that has muscle memory. So if you're to flex it constantly in those moments, like you say, in the evening or while you're sitting in meetings or whatever, wherever you can grab that small amount of time to flex that muscle a little bit and practice the art of playing, I think you just have more opportunities to run into those happy mistakes that you're talking about. So I'll leave that as a kind of takeaway, I think, for folks is just if you're going to have any one...
One thing that you take away from this conversation today is make time and feel completely okay, guilt free, because you're actually building on your skillset, your creative skillset and your creative muscle when you allow time to play. I myself guarantee at least two hours, I try and do it on a Friday, because it's like I've, you know, people are slower on Fridays anyway, so I always allow myself like two hours on a Friday just to mess around, whether it's a new tool, whether it's just playing with that idea that was kind of like nudging me that I saw something as I was walking and I was like “wow, that's a really cool where nature has created that mushroom, I wanna replicate that wanna play with it” - whatever it is where every pull it from start flexing that muscle that's kind of the main take away. The other thing I do wanna hit towards as we're maybe moving into the next podcast - because, folks, this is gonna be a series - Luke, thank you very much for agreeing to join me on a recurring basis that we're gonna explore a lot ofwhat it means to be a creative in this space right now. And I think in the future, what I'd like to do in one of these upcoming episodes is not just to talk about, you know, as us as individual creators, but that collaboration thing that you're talking about. Because it's, well, on the one hand, I thousand percent agree that collaboration leads to probably the level up of ideas that you wouldn't have on your own, but it does come with some challenges too, which I think that's a whole other podcast to manage what you can come across, you know? Yeah, so.
Luke (26:54.929)
Preach it, preach it, yes. Few challenges with that, but that's all right.
Lianne (26:59.57)
And we've sat through very, I'd say quite a number of those collaborations in varying scenarios to some professional, some very, you know, personal where you have to navigate personalities, you have to navigate creative ego, etc. We'll unpack that in a future episode. But for now, I think we are at time and I wanted to again, thank you very much for joining me. And for those of you listening - please continue to tune in. We would love for you to join us on this journey as we explore. We don't know exactly where we're going with this, but we're open as well to feedback too. So certainly feel free to hit us up on our social handles. Luke, if you want to share where they can find you out on the socials, let them know.
Luke (27:43.013)
Yeah, it's at Luke Hurd, L-U-K-E-H-U-R-D, or eight little letters, and that's pretty much everywhere on every platform known to man, so yeah.
Lianne (27:55.182)
Awesome. And for me, I'm at it's Lianne Baron, L-I-A-N-N-E, B-A-R-O-N. We will drop those in the show notes below. And as well, just link out to any resources that we think might be helpful for you as we're going through. Just keep eyes on that. So again, thanks very much. And I'm going to sign off with my signature "podcast goodbye", which is that I hope you all stay curious and keep on creating!