Gabe Kean is the founder and design director of Belle & Wissell, Co., an award-winning design studio that creates imaginative experiences for content-rich media projects. The studio embraces diverse commissions including media installations, interactive kiosks, environmental graphics, retail environments, motion graphics, documentary filmmaking, Web-based experiences, and exhibit design and curatorial direction for exhibitions.
Gabe is also the founder and artistic director of award-winning Born Presents, a non-profit organization dedicated to evolving the creative process through collaboration. Launched in 1997, Born brings artists and writers together to collaborate in the creation of experimental interactive experiences on the Web (with over 400 interactive storytelling projects curated and published since 1997).
11.03.09
Embrace The Process
If you have a degree in what field is it? I have a BA in graphic design from Pennsylvania State University.
What’s the best site you've seen lately? What's so great about it? Unfortunately, I spend less and less time on the Internet (and much more time in meetings) than my colleagues. In that respect, my personal Web needs have changed; while I used to browse for inspiration, I’m now inspired by cultural interest stories. That said the New York Times site interests me most.
If you were to change professions, what would you choose to do? I’d be an interior architect. Our studio is more focused these days on the experiences that people have in spaces and how we can manipulate them through media and interactive experiences.
Design or technology? Which is more important? Why? Regardless of advances in technology (which obviously have a huge impact on creative work), good design ideas always ring true and are permanent. Technology is more about what’s happening now and its novelty comes and goes.
From where do your best ideas originate? Truth be told, my wife Celeste usually initiates most of our favorite studio projects and we evolve them a bit with our studio team. Ideas for client projects always reveal themselves naturally as a result of the steps we take in our creative process.
How do you overcome a creative block? With something from our local coffee shop that we like to call The Super-Mini—it’s a a shot of coffee with a little chocolate and cream.
In one word describe how you feel when beginning a new project? Ready.
What well-known site is most desperately in need of a redesign? Their grassroots interfaces are no longer relevant, so I’d love to see a redesign for both craigslist.org and google.com.
Do you have creative outlets other than Web design? I’m currently exploring vintage motorcycle restoration and landscaping my home.
What music are you listening to right now? I’m rediscovering Run DMC and Grandmaster Flash. It’s the Long Islander in me.
What product/gadget can you not live without? I’m a bit addicted to my iPhone—worse than caffeine.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve bought online? An Argus ’60s-era slideshow viewer (to use as a video viewer for an inset LCD wall monitor) to display lab videos for The Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company.
What’s your favorite quote? The Gestalt theory “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” I like to think of our creative process in that way—as it relates to collaboration between our internal team and also with our clients.
Do you have any advice for people just entering the profession? Always remember to embrace the process of design work, not just the eureka moments and the end result.
What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started your career? That the design profession allows you to be an artist, an entrepreneur, an architect, a filmmaker and more—all at once.