Day 1: Realizing My Expertise Has a Shelf Life

A personal reflection from the CDM Digital Creativity Program: unlearning the grind, relearning to think.

It’s been a while since I last attended a program like this and honestly.. it felt both new and familiar at the same time. I didn’t realize how long it has been since I was in a space where the goal wasn’t to finish a task, but to actually think.

As a designer at Thrive Digital, most of my days are spent making things look good and make sense. But when you’re doing it every day, it’s easy to fall into that “just get it done” mode. This session reminded me how important it is to keep feeding your creativity..

One of the briefs we worked on was for the Haribon Foundation, and it really made me think. Forest loss is such a big issue, but most people don’t really feel connected to it. The challenge was how to make them care. It reminded me that as a designer, it’s not just about making things look good but about helping people feel something and maybe even take action. That’s the kind of work I want to learn more about.

We also did exercises like reimagining campaigns without any words. Just visuals and emotion. It was new and refreshing at first but as someone who works in fast-paced digital marketing, I realized that if your design doesn’t say something even before they read it, it probably won’t work.

My takeaway? Keep learning and questioning. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you stop growing. Creativity needs to be fed and challenged or else, it fades without you even noticing

Can’t wait for Day 2! 🙂