Steven Ryan

Creatively I feel super powerful at the moment — meaning, that I feel like if there is something I want to create, I can find my way to making it much more quickly than in the past. And, I feel like I'm learning a lot along the way. I'm also feeling drawn toward many more things than I was a couple years ago. Not that this is new. One could argue that, though I have been deeply focused on design for a long time, I've always had multiple simultaneous interest. The difference is that in the past I never felt like I had the time to get smart enough on any one area to make it worth the exploration. But, today, I feel like get a lot more in, and I'm learning a lot more, in shorter periods of time. Though, much of it is very high-level. Example, I coding a lot more complicated visual and audio projects in Processing — including connecting in USB peripherals as controls, etc. — more complex than I would have tried in the past. And, I'm doing it in an afternoon. Sometimes in a few minutes. And, at quick glance I understand 65% of the code and can get into it and further manipulate it. But, I'm also starting to think more in terms of building tool sets into those systems so that I can dial the parameters in more quickly and not have to just keep editing the code. That's all being empowered by tools like Claude Code and less and less ChatGPT… And, I've been fortunate enough to have a couple clients who have let me use their global market data to generate music — which was a lot of Processing, ChatGPT, my brother who is a developer, learning MIDI on the fly, and then tapping into my musical past. My hope is to keep on this path of creative exploration for as long as possible and see where it takes me — always with an eye for how it might also improve a manufacturing / workflow problem that I'm also working on at that moment.

My company, Substance Collective, and I are currently working primarily in the brand marketing space. For almost 30 years my business partner and I have worked together in similar firms doing work for a spectrum startups to Fortune 500 companies. Since Covid our business is much smaller, working with creative people who we work with from our past as well as new, young talent on a broad range of projects—branding, strategy, web design, broadcast and inline TV, event marketing, and experiential work. And, on the side, I still co-own and run a company that manufactures dye-sublimated costume fabrics and dance wear costumes for the performing arts, as well as flags for marching bands. And, I have been starting to explore the notion of producing pieces that are more fine art minded — a blend of AI and creative coding, possibly expanding into weaving and/or sculpture / assemblage at some point. And, my husband (also a designer, and a music composer) and I have been having conversations about collaborating on something more performative.

I grew up in Flint, Michigan in the 70's and 80's. I spent much of my early creative energy in the worlds of music (piano and percussion) and dance (modern and ballet). I was also attracted to the visual arts and, by way of the Flint Institute of Arts, I was lucky to be able to get a great deal of exposure early on to painting and drawing, ceramics, stained glass making, origami, and multi-media sculpture. I got my undergraduate BFA from SAIC from 1991-1995 — arguably one of the more exciting times for the Chicago design community. I worked at the branding firm, VSA Partners, for 21 years before leaving to pursue as series of entrepreneurial opportunities that include a custom fabric and dancewear company, PrideFlags.com — both of which were turned into a mask-manufacturing company during the Covid-19 pandemic; helping build the world's first and largest in-store digital media and product marketing platform, and today I'm one of the two founding partners of Substance Collective. I'm passionate about life-long learning. And, I excited and optimistic about the future of the technologies, methodologies, and user interfaces that we witnessing the emergence of today.

I'm excited about the long-term potential of the new interfaces that we are witnessing today. Voice / text to [pick a modal] is one. The other is the seemingly small feature of technology like ComfyUI where workflow that was used to create an image is actually embedded in the metadata of the image itself, making the sharing of the process as simple sharing the output itself. I'm hoping to see more of that thinking applied to other existing and future software development.