Will Diamond
Will is a multidisciplinary artist focused on timeless design and storytelling. With a focus on graphic (digital and print) design, Will aims to innovate the American Classic.
Print & digital designer, painter and image maker
Latest inspirations?
Squirl plates, matchbook design, hood of a car?
Most surreal project?
Rollout of F65 album - first Coachella performance, gallery event, seeing the racecar design in Beverly Hills
Creative habits?
Being stubborn. Feeling like I know what’s best
What is your creative process?
Organic & accessible. Exciting to everyone. When I’m making something, I think about the crazy spectrum of my audiences, someone from every point of view
Sketch
Photographing, creating the final print, reformatting to a deck
Creating artifacts out of the process, making a gallery
Difficult to define the full process as it’s dependent on new factors, execution isn’t standardized
Runs an Instagram account of the creative team, idk’s feed of things that he likes
- Visual inspiration (mostly picture no notes)
- easy to follow, always will pop up, easy to store
- just references while designing, won’t pull
Believes in curation, world building
style doesn’t adhere to a genre
enigmatic taste
inspired by utilitarian / raw style / ages well
Where/how do you do your best work?
When there’s a purpose to it, when it’s for someone or something
What are the challenges in your creative process?
Knows his taste best out of everyone but there can be a disconnect between design and approval (50/50 on vs off)
Challenging to work with collaborators/clients that lack design language & vocab (kerning, for example)
Creative education has a disconnect and it’s tricky to communicate across digital and physical mediums
Challenges with finding fonts
Map out your creative journey
(1) Pre-creation - referencing inspiration, figuring out vision (3 hours)
(2) Creation - (3 days to 1 week)
(3) Post-creation - producing it and bringing it to market, business end (3 hours feedback gathering, resizing etc small adjustments like dates)
If you could change one thing about your creative process, what would it be?
Asset management, file organization
“Clients always reject taste”
Finding balance of committing to a vision before presenting it to a client as the concept might get rejected. Determining how far to refine an idea: “if I don’t refine enough, it might get rejected [for being unfinished]... if I refine too much [and it’s rejected], it’s a waste of time”.
Finding the balance of iteration - curious to see a tool that helped with iterating (warm/cold across dimensions) as it gets too iterative if sending too many similar versions to clients
Favorite design tools and why?
iPad - that’s all you really need!
Figma for decks, clunky / disorganized
Photoshop/Illustrator - everyday designing
Pinterest - mood boards for clients
Unsplash - royalty free photos
Google images - distort images
Overall thoughts on being a creative?
Creatives jump on trends when trying to get into the market
“I’ll pay close attention to the trends but I don’t subscribe”, knowing what people think is cool but never selling out
“I don’t practice, I perform... my work is my practice.”