The world at large probably first heard the name Ferran Adria in 2003 because of Anthony Bourdain's TV show No Reservation on an episode called "Decoding Ferran Adria" which was the first primetime look into Ferran restaurant and studio. I have been fan of chef Adria and the food he creates at his restaurant in Spain called el Bulli for a long time. His avante guard food is wildly creative and challenges the very conventions around what makes a meal and the role of science in cooking. For all of his work the restaurant has been named the best restaurant in the world a record four times.

I have long found a strong link between the creativity in cooking and creativity in design and advertising. I get a tremendous amount of creative inspiration from the the work of chef's like Ferran Adria, Jose Andreas, Grant Achatz and Wylie Dufresne. I even use their work to teach how to have to break through creative ideas in my studio. I tell my designers here in New York to go to Wylie Dufresne's restaurant WD50 and have the eggs benedict to see what I mean. It is a dish we have all had before but to completely re-imagined it into some you have never seen before in a form you have never eaten before the tastes bring back strong memories. It is that play between wild creativity that is contained in something familiar that I love. I think it is what all break through interactive work does. It gives you something completely new but there is something familiar in the usability and the experience when though it is all new.

A few weeks ago some of my friends in the culinary world got me a very special invitation to spend the day with Ferran Adria at the Culinary Institute of America where he was going to give a 2 hour lecture and 3 hour cooking demonstration with Jose Andrea and the chef du cuisine from el Bulli. Between the two events I had the opportunity to talk with chef Adria for about 10 minutes about creativity and his work. The three things I walked away with I have heard in other forms but hearing it from him made me refocus on the concepts in my own work.

Moving Forward by Looking Back
At the end of every season Ferran makes the entire creative team go through all the work they did over the past six months to see what was successful, what failedl and what they need to work on. His point to me what that most creative people do not like to look back like this and would rather move on to their next idea. He feels the process of reviewing your work like this is critical so you can learn from it and that it will help you grow as a creative thinker faster than just looking forward. I have to agree that i have never worked in a studio where this was done with any regularity and only seemed to happen after an assignment had gone very badly and management wanted to be sure I didn't happen on the next assignment. I know I am guilty of it because so often when I look back I at my work I only see the short coming and the mistakes and I never take a more holistic view of it.

Creativity Isn't Copying
This was a saying that Ferran got from his mentor and is the simple saying he uses as the standard he holds for all the work they do at el Bulli. We all have the tendency to want to fall back into past achievements and use things that we know work because it is safe and you don't really have to risk anything. Going away from what you know is scarier because you have to risk a lot more. I think a large part of being able to make this a successful part of your process is have the support of a studio where risk, failure and sometimes even fighting are actually encouraged. Having this type of environment where everyone is taking risks all the time makes it easier for the individual to put themselves out there and break through into something new. I think if you look behind the food at el Bulli and look at the team and the environment that Ferran has created you will see just that,

Fail Constantly
This is something I have known and preached for a long time but ti was good to hear it from Ferran that it is a key part of his process as well. I know that sounds like a funny statement to teach people to fail. Most people don't want to fail, they view it as a huge negative, they don't want to admit they had an idea that didn't work but it is essential to the creative process. The key is that when you fail you have to be able to look at your process to see when you did and then be able to try and improve upon it the next time. In this way failing creates a cycle where you can constantly try and to improve your process and it makes you a lot more fearless to really try new and far reaching ideas.

Labels: Visionary designer