This is Part #1 of my interview series on How to Become a Creative Technologist or Creative Tech professional.
I hope for this to be on going and to bring value to the community. So far it’s not been straightforward with defining a learning path as a Creative Technologist (CT) in training.
I’m what you’d call a generalist. Having ADHD certainly has helped lead me to becoming one with a breadth of interests. I’ve been thinking about creative tech since 2021 so I think it’s time I learn what it takes.
I’m going to do my best to include creative tech professionals from a variety of industries so you and I can see the commonalities that make these creative professionals so special.
Creative tech folks go by many names and many titles (to name a few):
- Creative Technologist
- Experiential Production Designer
- Creative Developer
- UX Engineer
- XR Developer
- Game Developer
- Game Maker
- Senior Experience (UX) Designer
- Technophile + Thinker + Maker
- Senior Creative Technologist
- Insert your title here 😛
Many questions and many answers to be found!
Our first guest is…
Eric Howard
At time of writing, Eric Howard↗ is a co-founder and Head of Interactive at Fathom↗, a multimedia creative studio. They are a close-knit team of strategists, technologists, producers, storytellers, and designers who make beautiful experiences.
Many Creative Technologists have strong front end development backgrounds. Eric is part of that tribe.
Eric builds websites, crafts indie games, and designs installation artwork.
He’s also held titles such as: Full Stack Developer, Lead Front End Developer, Lead Web Developer, etc.
Industries include: web, entertainment, art, installations
He’s open for freelance opportunities↗ as well, hit him up.
In 2021 Eric was one of the first people I asked about creative tech. Being more naive then about the field, I did my best to ask questions. Eric gave some pretty salient advice, even for 2024.
Trever:
I was hoping you could share some insight around your skills and knowledge with XR, creative coding, 3D, VFX, processing, installations and motion graphics.
I’ve been struggling to understand which role my next job should be, but I think this role↗ from Apple is very close to what I’m looking for. However, I’m not anywhere near experienced enough to land this type of role.
I’ve been reverse career planning to figure out which jobs would lead to this as well as the job I’d need next. I’ve been looking for work since last July and I’ve only now arrived at what I think is the best fit for a long term career path. Let me know what you think when you have a moment.
Eric:
Personally, a lot more of my time is in web development these days, but I can share a bit of how I got started in the interactive / 3D space:
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Think up small projects and make them! It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, but it should be in the service of building something that has value, even if it’s just a proof of concept or a prototype. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but applying your skills is the best way to build new ones.
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Look at other people who have the jobs you want; their resumes, portfolios, etc. What are they working on? What tools are they using? What skills do they have? Which ones align with what you’re looking to do? Then proceed to step one to learn and apply those skills.
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What is your perspective? Why are you attracted to certain technologies or products? Why would you spend years to master these skills? In service of what? That perspective has always helped me stay focused when I would hit a wall or get frustrated.
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Find collaborators who either want to learn with you, have complimentary skills (maybe UX or design or writing, or modeling), and / or are willing to chat about the craft, answer questions, or help you work through problems.
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Join discord or Slack channels for experiential, volumetric, VR, AR, XR creatives. What are those people thinking about? What resources are they using? Even just eavesdropping (which I mostly do) is enlightening.
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Learn how to learn. This industry moves super fast. The faster you can pick through the documentation, build a prototype, create some tool to make your creative process faster, the better.
There’s no silver bullet, but if you immerse yourself in the industry (follow the people, the companies, the technologies, the discussion) you will start to find what you’re really attracted to and have the support you need to refine those skills.
Read the next post in this series here↗
Check out my other blog posts here↗