mishmash creatives: Fred Gomes

Fred Gomes, We Blog You, O Fred e a Inês Podcast, and so many more. Fred Gomes is the human version of a cat with multiple lives. Let us, deep-dive, into your multi-life.

I always find it difficult when people ask me what I do for a living. Depending on the situation, I can simplify or complicate it. For a long time, I have tried to associate myself with a creative role, rather than an artistic one, because I have always loved the more commercial part of things. I don’t like to call myself “a creative” because it sounds snobbish, but I always find myself in love with all these different means of expression. At school, I was the kid that was in all the clubs at the same time. Book club, English club, Math club, and so on. I was so excited about the potential of everything that I really wanted to try it all. I think as I grew up I brought that way of thinking into my life as well, which has been working great for me. Sometimes it’s hard to juggle everything at once but I love everything I get into and I really think it reflects my personality. 

When did you realise you were a creative person?  Can you link it with any moment in particular?

Actually, I am currently designing a fanzine called “Stubborn Creative” that is all about the creative moments we had during our childhood. The first moment I can recall being creative was at a primary school contest for milk packages drawing, which were renovated every year. One day, the teacher walked into the room and told us only three of us were going to be selected. The way she then said “You can all participate, but Daniel is the most talented drawer in the room” made me so mad that I needed to be selected. I don’t know what happened to me, but I remember spending hours and hours trying to get the perfect drawing. I won the contest. The contest Daniel was supposed to win. This was not a single moment, there were hundreds of moments like this in my childhood that made me feel that I had something to prove. Today, I realize that those instances pushed me to be here. I became a creative perhaps not on my own will, but to prove that I could do it despite what everyone else said. I tend to say my career was built on my stubbornness and the willingness to show that I can do whatever I set myself up to.

As artists, our processes can change from project to project. What are the steps you can’t miss when starting a new creative endeavour?

More than anything, the inspiration process! If I’m not constantly feeding on inspiration, I just can’t start anything. For both me and Raquel at We Blog You, none of us can produce and create anything without falling in love with the project, and that usually comes with the inspirational part of the whole process. Another thing we appreciate when starting a project is a good environment to work in. For us, a good environment reflects a certain calming and organised space, where we truly feel at home. Even when we go out to work at a café, I particularly choose the type of café according to the interior mood I’m looking forward to working in.

Often we feel pressured to be constantly having new ideas. Do you think that being creative is synonymous with having ideas all the time?

I think people get confused between creativity and productivity all the time. We are all creative, it doesn’t matter your profession, there are people that exercise that muscle more than others and people that don’t exercise it at all. I don’t feel like I’m being creative when I’m drawing or designing. In those moments, I’m just being productive. At that stage of the process, creativity has already happened. I don’t think we should be having ideas all the time. I exercise creativity every day in all types of things like watching a good Netflix series or the music I decide to listen to, it’s a sum of things that play out in my creativity every day. I really think ideas come up when your creativity is being worked on and you need to be productive. That’s the first step to having an idea.

Tell us a little about your creative process. Where and how do you usually have more ideas?

Depending on the project I’m working on, the process tends to differ. Client work starts with reading the briefing, but I don’t start working on the project right away. I do this thing where I let it sit in my mind for at least a week before jumping on to the project. And then, suddenly, ideas come to my mind without even intentionally starting the design process. Those are the best ideas! I have also already understood that the longer the period between reading the briefing and starting the project, the better because ideas do need to sit in the back of our minds before we can start to make sense of it.

What is the importance of paper in your day-to-day? Do you use paper as much as your digital tools?

There is the before iPad and the after iPad. Before the iPad, it would take me at least ten times more time to produce anything. A lot of processes became much simpler with this technological tool. It changed my life so much that at first, I thought I was leaving paper forever! I love paper and everything related to paper such as notebooks, but I started noticing our profession wastes a lot of paper, which is normal. I used to scribble on paper all the time, and that started affecting me. Now for illustration, the iPad is my main tool, but my first drafts are still on paper. I continued to sketch on paper and pencil. In meetings, I still grab my notebook, and daily to-do lists… imagine being on the phone and taking notes on the iPad. That’s just not going to happen.

There is a shared thought that art continues to gather importance in the development of a society. How impactful do you think it can be?

There’s a future utopian theory which states that if we get to the point when machines produce everything for us, humans will be able to completely dedicate themselves to creating. I truly believe that everything bad happening in the world right now will only be solved when we fully embrace creativity. If you look at history that’s what happened. We have only managed to solve problems when we thought creatively.