The Experimentation Phase: Turning Dreams Into Reality

Today we're talking about number two in how to turn dreams into reality: the experimentation phase. I've had multiple different experimentation phases throughout my career, following a cycle. We talked about step one, which is dreaming, and step two is experimentation.

When you start experimenting, you add parameters to your own creativity, which helps fine-tune it. I think it's important that we add these parameters because that's what helps us fine-tune our creativity. When I had the idea of creating my own brand, I spent years in the dreaming state, just taking in information, remixing it in my head, and having all these different ideas for what I wanted to do. Then came step two, the experimentation phase - that was me starting to paint on sneakers and customize my own clothing. I was experimenting without any real pressure, but the parameters I introduced were New York style or New York-inspired clothing, a New York-inspired brand. So now with the experimentation that I'm doing, there's room to grow and create variations of the ideas in my head with those parameters.

This visualization phase is crucial because the more you can create visual representations of what's in your head, the more paths you'll have for your creativity. When I started going head-first into customizing shoes and wanting to be a shoe customizer, a shoe designer (even though I didn't really know it at the time), my end goal was to create and produce my own shoe. I felt that the sneaker collaborations coming out were a dime a dozen - I didn't really connect with a lot of them and didn't see the point. I always thought I could do it better, which is partially why I started customizing sneakers. It was really me trying to remix these collaborations in a way that made most sense to my design language.

My dreaming phase involved watching videos throughout middle and high school about how to customize sneakers - some of the top YouTubers who were at the peak of their game during the sneaker customization phase like David Got Kicks, Vic Almighty, and looking at Jacques Slade's YouTube channels and his unboxings, and just all these different media. Once I added the parameter of "if I took this brand in this collaboration, how would I flip it in my way?" that began the experimentation phase where I could come up with different iterations. I would draw with my finger on my phone. When I got my iPad, I would color on my iPad - all these different mockups and ideas. Then when it came time to actually physically paint the shoe, I could choose from the ideas I had come up with through all those different experiments. What would it look like if it was this brand and this brand? What would it look like if it was this color? Let's take that picture. Now let's tweak the color just a tad bit more.

Now that my sneaker journey is over and I'm looking into the next steps, a lot of what I'm building is masterpiece, yes, but also my portfolio as a visual artist. Part of the dream phase for me was the years of going to galleries - the Met, the Moment Studio One, Beyond the Streets exhibit, all these exhibits and pop-ups. I got to see the Louis Vuitton/Abloh pop-up in person. I didn't get to go inside because there were way too many people, but I got to see it in person and observe from the outside looking in.

I have ideas of what I want to do in the visual art space and creating an experience. Now with this experimentation step, I'm taking all those ideas and putting a parameter on it: if I made my own exhibition, what would it look like with the lens of visual arts? Something that's going to sit and resonate with people and leave a lasting impression.

It's 2025 now and I'm able to experiment in different ways. I can still experiment with my more traditional way of creating designs from scratch, drawing it out first and then translating that onto the computer, taking certain designs I made and tweaking the colors a little bit, just seeing where the branch goes. Now we have artificial intelligence tools too, and there's a similar joy that I have now to when I first started learning about customizing sneakers and streetwear brands. There's a feeling that I have now similar to when I first started customizing sneakers or my clothing in my college dorm room.

It's super awesome - the joy I have of taking an idea, throwing it into a large language model. I use Claude to transcribe a voice memo I had describing an art idea. It then took that transcript, gave it a grammatically edited version and also some prompts to use in this image generation platform called Midjourney, and gave me four different options to take the idea that I had and turn it into prompts that I could then test out. It gives me four different variations at a time, and from there, I can choose the ones I like and do variations of it.

Now I get to experiment a lot quicker and faster. I get to experiment more, literally taking the ideas that I have in my head. I'm now able to produce more output than the work that I input, and that's why the experiment phase is so fun in today's society. A lot of people say, "Oh, artificial intelligence is going to replace artists," but I don't think they've fully stopped to understand the technology, understand the tool and what it does and what true creativity is. I don't think you can ever replace artists - and I say artists in the sense of not just necessarily visual art, but people who create things for you to experience.

At the purest sense, I don't believe that artificial intelligence can replace that. It can try to imitate it, but you can't replace timing, understanding, context. Also, at least for right now, you only get an output based off of the things that you input into the system. The thing with humans is our inputs are the entire world - the things that we see, experience, hear, smell, taste, and feel, both internally and externally.

Up until the age of computers and artificial intelligence, our output could only be so much at a time based on how many ideas we had. I think before we would dream a lot more than we could be able to experiment. Now with these tools, it makes experimenting a lot more accessible and allows you to double or triple your output with the same amount of input - it just looks different on the surface.