You can also watch this interview on my YouTube Channel
*PS. Below you will find an auto-generated transcript of this episode.
Arek Dvornechuck: Hey, what's up, branding experts, Arek here at Ebaqdesign and welcome to On Branding Podcast. And today my guest is Joey Cofone. And Joey is the founder and CEO of Baronfig, and he's also an award-winning designer and Entrepreneur.
So Joey's work has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, Bon Appétit, Quartz, Mashable, and Print, just to name a few. And so today we are gonna talk about creativity because Joey just published his new book, which I had right here. The title is The Laws of Creativity. Unlock your Originality and Awaken Your Creative Genius. So hello Joey, thanks for joining us today
Joey Cofone: What's up, man?  I'm, it's a pleasure to chat. I am really excited. You're in Brooklyn. I know that I'm in right over the water from you and I've got the chaos outside. But we're gonna, we're
Arek Dvornechuck: gonna do it anyways. That's how we do it today. So we gotta do it in New York. York, exactly. Okay, so I got your book. It's a really interesting book. It's obviously about creativity. It's very comprehensive, 400 pages, so basically in your book you present us with 39 Laws of Creativity, right? And the premise of the book is that creativity is not really magic.
So results can often they look magical, but the act itself is not. It's not like it's the creativity is some kind of a talent that, so on a few selected we're born with, right? It's more of a skill that we can develop and so we can use this book as a resource to help us, harness the power of creativity that you argue is already within us.
So we just need to remind ourselves. So this book is a reminder, right? Can guide you us through some exercises.
Arek Dvornechuck: So I wanted to start with a simple question. What is creativity and maybe can we start off with you telling your own story, know the story about the warm I think this will make for a great introduction, and then from there we can go to your definition of what creativity really is.
Joey Cofone: Yeah, so creativity is definitely a thing that's been on my mind forever. And it's resulted in a company, Baren Fiig, that makes tools to help you think. The book, The Laws of Creativity to master Your Ideas. But it all came from this day. I was seven years old. I remember it so clearly. And I walk into first grade and my teacher's there, and for some reason she had like a 1980s haircut.
Man. It was like, just like the, like it was like aro okay with the curls. And she was a lovely lady and she handed me a worksheet and it was to color a. Okay. Super simple. , you color, cut it out, put it on the board. So I'm like, All right, cool. So I go to my desk, I put my arm around the page, I get my crayons and I'm like, this is gonna be the greatest damn coloring on anyone in the class.
So I do my thing, and I guess I took long because I was like the last person to go up to the board, and I'm walking up there and everybody's stuff is already up. All the worms. . And even though they were a little. Because sure. People colored it with different colors or used dots and lines and whatnot.
Unfortunately, at there, all together they looked the same. And this little kid, Joey, seven years old, my heart sunk and I was like, I can't put mine up. It's no different. So I go back to my desk and the teacher's Joey, is everything okay? And I'm like yeah. I'm fine. I'm fine. I just, I forgot something.
And now I'm sitting at my desk like, what am I gonna. So I'm like probably close to tears at this point cuz this is like the most important thing to this little kid. And then I'm looking down and I see all these pieces of paper on my desk that I had cut out the worm and I'm like, Oh my god.
Bright light ticks on. I can use these, I can use this. Wow. It's like thunder. I can use this so quickly. I draw a microphone, a boombox, a necklace. I cut them out. I accessorize my worm, I go put it on the board. And now it is the most unique worm up there, like bar none. And the teacher comes behind me and I remember so clearly she just says, I've never seen anything like this.
No one has ever done this. And so since that, In first grade, seven years old, I have been addicted to the feeling of changing an idea just a little bit so that people are surprised and doing something new, and that has just driven me for the next 30 years.
Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah, that's a great story. And yeah, so we were so proud. I think that we can all relate to that, we all, we. Had this desire to create something unique, original, and be recognized for that. So you definitely, you described this even in more detail in your book for example about, like how proud you were, you were smiling, you knew that, this is something different.
And yeah. So this is a great introduction to talk about creativity because you argue in your book that you actually creativity. So maybe let's start with you, your definition of what is creativity, because many people can understand this, as many different things. So how would you define creativity?
Joey Cofone: Yeah, that's a great place to start. So I think we get like all, we have all these ideas about what creativity is and, stereotypes and whatnot. But at its most simple creativity is just the practice of ideas. That's straightforward, and the average person is 6,000 ideas a day.
So the purpose is, hey, why don't we take advantage of all these ideas that we're having and use them since we have 'em anyway? And so then you have the laws of creativity, which is helping you do that. Can you hear that? ,
Arek Dvornechuck: Yes. But that's not a problem. I think that's, it's still okay. I can hear you well and I hope our listeners as well.
Cool. So this is what's creativity, right? Creativity is, is basically, you know, coming up with those ideas. But, okay, so what is not creativity? You say in your book that creativity is not a talent. And you can actually develop your creativity. It's more of a skill, right? And yeah, so why creativity? Maybe we can go Yeah, we can, Yeah, go ahead.
Joey Cofone: I can dig in on something for sure. Yeah, sure. Are we allowed to curse? Is this a cursing podcast? I gotta watch my language.
Arek Dvornechuck: That's okay.
Joey Cofone: Okay. Okay. So the idea that creativity is the talent is bullshit. Because people think that you are either born with it or you're not. And that is like, okay, then no one wants to learn anything if they think they can't get it from the beginning. And it's absolutely false. And you don't have to, you don't have to take my word for it. Okay. You read the intro already. You know, Nasa the organization that puts people on the moon, they're not wrong.
They're very precise people. They did a study and found that 98%. Of kids at age five are at the creative genius level 98. By adulthood, that number goes down to 2%. So what my book is essentially doing is saying, number one, you don't, I don't have to teach you creativity because you already know it.
I just gotta help you remember. But number two, there for such a reliable drop from 98 to two, that means systematically society is doing. That is beating it out of us. And yeah. The first part of my book, there's the book's put into three parts. The creative thinking, the creative process, and then how to be really good at the end.
And that whole first section before I can even teach the process, is changing your thinking. And this is where it's really important that you start to slowly tune your idea of what creativity actually is versus what, society has told us that it is.
Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah and you elaborate on that in, in the book as you mentioned, this NASA's study. So we are all creative and then like we lose it, you know, with the time. I have also some of my key takeaways from this part. So why creativity is important. So for our listeners who most likely designers or entrepreneurs who are, interested in branding and design.
But creativity is important in every discipline, right? It's not, of course, as a designer, you need to be creative, but also as a copywriter, for example. So in writing, in, in music, in personal development and definitely in business in general, right? So as a creative individual, we can come up with better ideas, we can validate those ideas in a better way.
We can command more attention and get better opportunities, and as a result, make more money. Right. And you mentioned that you Basically structure your book into three main parts.
Arek Dvornechuck: So I wanted to actually structure the podcast in a similar way because we probably don't, won't have enough time to talk about all the 39 laws of creativity.
So let's do this. Maybe you can give us a couple of examples from each part. So I wanted to start with the foundation, with the mindset, which, as you mentioned is super important. So the first part is about the mindset.
Arek Dvornechuck: The second part is about the process itself. How to start, how to start creating from start to finish..
And then it's about the excellence, right? So how to think creatively. A very simple question. Can you talk to us about this foundation, about the mindset. .
Joey Cofone: Yeah. And chapter one is in, in is chapter one for a reason, because it's titled Be Weird. And there's this unfortunate thing that we've done as a society, probably a global society at this point, which is we have weaponized the word weird.
And it sounds dramatic, but think about it, in high school, Oh man, that kid is weird. Or at the office, that person is weird. And that becomes a negative when actually what we're saying is that person isn't like all of us. actually weird in the sense of being creative and expressive because it's form of self-expression.
The weird person is the brave person putting themselves out there and letting their weirdness show. And so the first chapter, it says Okay, Fundamentally, you understand that? Sure, Joey, I get it. But what does that actually mean? And I'm a big fan of practical thinking. I'm not here to talk to you about my crystal ball and BS you.
So I put it simply think about it this way. Say you've got three things that you're really into Arek, You, let's say a book or a mo book, a movie, and an activity like. Something you do for fun. Can you gimme name three and they don't to be your favorite. Basketball.
Arek Dvornechuck: Basketball, Okay. Yeah, I play basketball.
What else? You said music or it could be anything. What categories?
Joey Cofone: Music is great. Yeah. Play. Favorite band.
Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah. So music, hip hop, for example. I like hip hop. I listen to hip hop. When I work, I listen to instrumental hip hop. So I'm not disturbed by the words. I play basketball for fun. I do kickboxing for fun and and yeah, I like, I love reading books and and learning new things and Completing courses and just,
Joey Cofone: see, this is awesome.
You're like, already, there's so much of who you are and this is it's amazing because this is how the example works. So you've given me basketball, a kickboxing. Now I'm six three. Love basketball. You gave me music, hip hop, let's say I like logic. Okay. The rapper, you know. I like Jay-Z, but we'll go with any one of those.
Jay-Z, he's the man. And then let's say the book will use the laws of creativity cause I'm biased right now. Okay. Okay. So we got for three things that, and there's way more to you than three. But let's take these three and at a thousand options each, which there's way more than a thousand books and there's way more than a thousand artists, music artists in a thousand ways.
You could play sports, let's just say with those three already, there is. Billion permutations you are and there's 8 billion people on earth. So you are already just one in eight people. That's how unique. Just with three. And if you had a fourth item, you, there's, Now
Arek Dvornechuck: I should add riding a Harley, Harley rider.
That's very unique, I guess.
Joey Cofone: yeah. My family has a couple Harleys. Yeah they used to go all the way to the West coast and go up and down. So let's take the fourth thing, then. You got your Harley ride. with four items that a thousand each use 128 billion per mutations. That is way more than the population of Earth.
So if you get those, just those four things into your work, somehow your work is mathematically unique. You are actually provably unique. So when you start to take all these things in your life and you let them into your work, quote unquote, let yourself be. You actually systematically can start to produce unique things without thinking, because you're being yourself.
You're more unique than you think is where I'm going with this. So that is the beginning of part one Foundation and how you can start to think about ways in which you can look at the world where weird is actually a positive. Yeah,
Arek Dvornechuck: I really like the law. I think being weird, I'm in some sense.
This is the first law you mentioned in the book. My favorite probably from this, there are all other key some of my favorites. So for example, challenging assumptions, right? The law of disruption, thinking in combinations, the love of connection and things like embracing fear, welcoming failure and just having fun.
What are your what do you think which ones of those are the most like important or closest to you?
Joey Cofone: Yeah, it's tough because there, it's you the way I wrote it, you stack on top of each other. If you don't really understand law one, it's hard to go number two and so on. But as the book continues, that becomes less of.
But I think what's really important and for me is number four, the law of unknown. I think that is the one that probably gets people the most because the very idea of being creative is doing something where you don't know where you'll end up. And if we go all the way back to that NASA stat that I mentioned, where you go from 98% creative to two, part of the reason that we do that is because when we go to school as kids, We are taught that you can see the end from the beginning.
So what I mean by that is we're given an assignment, Hey, it's you have to write three pages on the plot of this book, or you have to do a geometry proof why these two things are right, ankles. And so when we start, we already know where we're supposed to end up, and for 20 years we're trained that way.
And then you go into the real world and you all of a sudden understand that life is just a complete. And if you want to be creative, you must do the opposite. Never know where you're headed. And so the law, the unknown speaks to that. And how to get beyond the fear and fear is normal. And I'm sure you feel this way, like for me, I've been a designer now for over two decades, and every time I start something brand new, I still am like, Man, is this gonna be the one I can't do?
Am I gonna get. Before I get it. Yeah. And I'm an incredible performer, but there's still, like Michael Jordan didn't go into the game knowing he was gonna win. He knew that he was gonna fight to win. And I think it's similar as a creative, you don't know where you're going, but you know that if you do this process, you can get there.
And that's the law, the unknown. That's a big.
Arek Dvornechuck: No, I think all designers and creators can relate to that. When we start a new project I have this feeling too, I kind I'm confident because of my experience and in my abilities, and I know that I'm gonna create something.
Great. But it's just, I, I dunno how it's gonna look like, I don't know. How many experiments we'll have to run revisions to. Do, how great, how, how this idea will evolve over time, right? So I cannot say at the beginning, where I'm going to end up, I'm just confident in my abilities.
But yeah. This is very important to embrace this unknown, right? Okay, so let's talk about the process a bit. So the second part is about the process, how to create from start to finish which is, is the loss of action, right? And all of this thing, I can like this is what we do as designers, right?
As you mentioned book is a kind of a reminder, for example, asking questions, defining the problem, gathering inspiration, right? This is a process of that I use. So can you just walk us through this this part?
Joey Cofone: Yeah, for sure. So the second part is the laws of action.
And there's two ways you could, just, two ways you could read the whole book start to finish. But this section in particular is actually chronic chronological steps to creating. So if you want it, yeah, it could guide you through creating from no idea all the way to publishing your idea, or you could jump in.
So the way I think about it as a collection, I think this is really important, is think about traveling, right? I haven't been to every city in the world. You haven't been to every city in the world. But if I say Eric, hey man, how do I get to let's, I haven't been to Berlin. Have you been to Berlin?
No, not yet. Cool. Perfect. But we both know how to get to Berlin, right? You go on the internet, you book a ticket you hop in the taxi, you go to the airport, you fly, you land. You either get a rental car or you get in a thing and you follow signs and you get to Berlin. Creating is the same way in that I don't need to know what's at the end to know how to get there.
The process of traveling, I don't know what's at Berlin, but I know how to get there and , this section is all about that. And I think one law we could really talk about in relation to the law of the unknown is the law, cuz you mentioned it, doing many versions is the law of iteration where it's essential.
Yeah. I do love that thing. , right? Like iteration Yeah. Is, I actually think designers, you know yourself, myself, we have to, in order to be a good designer, I think you have actually have to overcome a bit of your human nature to be a bit afraid of what you don't know, to keep going, to keep iterating. And so the law says, don't concern yourself with quality.
Rather prioritize quantity through iter. Because at the, what happens is actually, that phrase quality over quantity. Quality over quantity web. My watch is talking to me. What that doesn't tell you is Yeah, I know serious. Like I got the answer, man, but what it doesn't tell you, it just tells you the destination.
It's Hey, I want to end up with something nice, but that's, Yeah. That's useless. But the real. Full thought is, in my mind, is quality over quantity, but quantity begets quality. So the more you do, the better it gets. So , even in, even what you said earlier about you're doing a bunch of versions and you don't know if you're gonna do five or 10 or 20 and you're not so concerned about this being the perfect version, it's just another version.
And that's a, that could be a hard pill to swallow for. But it's also reassuring that, your goal is no longer to get it right instead of doing something right. You just gotta do something and keep going.
Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah. You just need to start. Yeah. And I Exactly. And you talk a lot about this in your book about the tenacity and determination and not giving up.
And just putting yourself in the right mindset to, to be able to go through, hard work and those manner revisions, and never give up. . Yeah. And as a designer especially I think we can all, relate to that. When we design something, it's like even in writing, right?
When I speak to my, I started hiring writers and I tell them, it's almost impossible to get things right at first. You have to write something, you have to start somewhere. You have to do some research. Just start writing, and then you're gonna rewrite that, and that's how you're gonna get better and come up with something that is really good.
It's not sit down, open, your Word document or whatever, and you start writing and, so it's about, it's about making revisions and, getting better, right? Yeah, absolutely. And maybe another one we can talk about I think. . So maybe sketching it out, like the importance of, what do you think?
Is there any other that you wanted to talk about here?
Joey Cofone: There is one that I, if is I think a really easy one to get across in a short amount of time, which is the love of simplicity and it's about, That's a good one. Engaging in limits, right? As a designer, this. When someone says you can create anything, Oh my goodness, it's what do I do?
It's almost paralyzing. Whereas if you have tight limits, you are able to quickly progress. Actually, I like to describe it as, say I drop you into a 300 acre field in the middle and I go find the exit. It's a gate somewhere, and we're like, Where the hell do I go? There's so many options.
But if I put you at the beginning of a. And I said, Find the end of the road. You're so limited, you can only go in one direction. And so we can actually leverage that in our own work is what we can create limits around what we're trying to do. And you can do that by sharpening the problem or the question that you're asking yourself.
So for example you know when we made our pen at Beon fig. Our goal. Yeah, we could have made a ton of different pens. We could have made pens for, I don't know, lightweight pens. Ones that are good on planes or, by doctors or lawyers or whatever. There's an infinite amount of options. We were curious, could we make the simplest object and as a pen, what does that look like?
And so that was it. At any time we were designing it was constantly, how do we pull more away from this pen? Is it really necessary to being. And one cool thing we landed on is I know pens aren't exciting, but this was, this really was super cool to pull off, which usually a pen has two, two different functions separate parts.
The one is to extract the tip, so you either click or you twist the top. And then the other part is if it's got ink inside, usually about halfway on the barrel, you twist it open. You could take out the ink and put it in another ink. And so we thought, What if we could take those two things and make them one, one spot?
So I've got our pen that we ended up making, which has one part. I'm holding it up everybody. It's got no clip. It's super straightforward. If you go to bern fig.com and look up Squire, you can see it. And this part at the top not only extracts the tip of course, but if you twist it further past a stop, then all of a.
You could take out the ink and so , basically the simplest object possible was the limitation. And so we were able to say, Oh, as much as we want this really cool clip, that's not as simple as it could be. And so it, these limits make things easier, and I'm sure you've seen that in your own work. .
Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. As designers, we, Yeah, definitely. So one thing is to do iterations and experiment with different variations of the same idea. But the other thing is to just, you have to. Direct yourself. You have to limit yourself in some way, and focus on simplicity as well, because it's not always about adding stuff to, to, to the idea.
It's sometimes about removing, and creating that focus. I think that there was some metaphor I forgot about what was that about in, in the book, but you explain, you elaborate on that. More you know about the simplicity I just have in mind is there was like a illustration or something just to stay focused, sometimes it's,
Joey Cofone: Yeah, the attention pie, Is that the attention pie? Yes, exactly. Yep. Oh yeah. So you want me to explain it? Yeah, sure. Cool. So there's, Not only when you make something is there the challenge of making it, but there's a challenge of communicating it. And I came up with a tool called the Attention Pie that could work for both.
People have a limited attention span and the more information you put in front of them, the harder it is for them to parse it. And it is super straightforward. Imagine a pie with a hundred slices and if I give you a. All your slices, a hundred of them are focused on this flower and okay, that's a yellow flower.
It's beautiful. But if I tie our bow around it and I give it to you now it's 50 slices and 50 slices. So just by adding an element to the message, I devalued the entire thing each, the original element by half. And so the attention pie is a way to. deliberately communicate or deliberately add limits so that there's value to the things that you do leave in.
That's the pie.
Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely something that as designers we need to think of. Okay. So in the third book in the, Sorry, in the third part, you talk about the excellence, right? So we are going from the mindset, from the found. To actually the process, how to do things, how to create things.
And and as you said, it's more of a chron chronological order here in, and in the third part you talk about the excellence.
Arek Dvornechuck: So how to really stand out and rise above the rest. And so can you talk to us a bit about, these laws of greatness? Yeah,
Joey Cofone: sure. So over the last 10 years at Baron Fiig I've art directed and designed over a hundred products from Idea to customer.
And, I've learned a whole lot. And on top of that, I've been able to work with incredible creators like James Clear, Roxanne Gay, Netflix just tons of people. And this third section, Greatness is.
One second. Can you hear me? My mic cut out? Yeah,
Arek Dvornechuck: no, I can. We can hear you. Cool. Yeah.
Joey Cofone: And the third section is essentially, I got lucky to observe these things over and over again over. And I put them into the laws that I observed that these people were doing to really rise above everyone.
And so the laws of greatness is, a set of laws where, okay, you think creatively, you've got the creative process under your belt, and how do you take your game and do the things that make you really phenomenal? And I'm not pulling any punches in this section. By the time you get. Now, in the beginning I'm like more encouraging and I'm like, You got this, you can do this.
And in the middle I'm like, Cool, keep it going. And at the end I'm you're getting towards the black belt now. And now I'm like, Come on, you're not doing, you're not doing as good as you can. Let's go pull from deep within to really kick some ass. And I started with the law of showing up, which is if you don't do the work, do not expect the.
Period. And then I go into the importance of discipline because a lot of creatives, can have trouble with discipline. I go into the law of chaos because a lot of people who aren't creative have trouble letting go. And then I talk about how you can refine your thinking more, how you can refine your workspace, how you can go the extra mile to pull ideas all around.
And I tell all these stories, at every chapter actually, there's a story for all of them, and you really start to learn from, greats like Bruce Lee Miles Davis Yeah. Anthony Bourdain Zaha Hadid, who she's like one of the greatest architects of all time. And you pull these thoughts together into something that if you follow, hopefully you get someone pretty.
Arek Dvornechuck: Okay. So some of my key takeaways so obviously as you mentioned, the first one is, to show up, you have to show up, you have to have self-discipline. You need to take care of the environment of your body, because you have to have this mental endurance, right?
So you advise people to do different things. Sometimes change it up travel, discover new things, do new things, and, dream and have a vision. Have something inspiring to look towards, right? It's all about the self-discipline and doing the work and actually showing up and and like designing your environment so it supports you, so that you can achieve those dreams.
Joey Cofone: Ab Absolutely. There's there's one of my, yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. I've got a f I've got a favorite law. Of this section because it's unexpected, I think. It's called the Law of Symbiosis. It says that your body's more than a container for your brain. It directly affects the quality of your thinking.
And I tell a story about Venus Williams sorry, Serena Williams. And she is the best female tennis player to ever play. She has more grand slams than any male or female tennis player. And even. Admits that tennis is 70% mental. They process that for a moment where in such a phy, like the champion of all champions who's in incredible shape still says that only 30% is her physicality, and 70% is the mental game.
And the chapter goes on to explain how there's there was a woman who was a. Scientist named Wendy Suzuki, and she was pretty unhealthy. And she goes on a trip and she's just Work is not working out for us. She goes on this trip, like to Peru and , She's rafting and camping and she stops her moment as they're unloading the canoes and she's realizes, Oh my God, I am the weakest link.
She looks around and there's all these physically fit adventurers and travelers. It makes her never wanna be the weakest link again. So she goes home, she redirects her type a approach from her academic work to getting in shape. And what happens is after she gets in shape, she has an epiphany where she's sitting in her office one night and all of a sudden she's realize, Wow, my writing is going.
And she's My writing never goes well. And she also noticed that her memory and her attention and her mood are all far better in shape. And so she turns all of her scientific studies towards the relationship between the brain and the body. And essentially she comes to the conclusion and she proves it through science, that when you take care of your body, your mind works better.
The easiest way that I can put it is if you are un. Everybody can agree that your heart is going to work less. Your heart is in danger, or your liver, right? It's , they don't exercise. The brain is an organ too. Same thing. Just because it's intangible. We st we don't think about it that way.
But when you can take care of your body and be healthier, your mind operates better, you remember more, you focus, more thinking is. And you're just happy in general. And so this is a law that I really like and it does belong in this section because I have noticed that a lot of incredible creators who make a living off their ideas take care of their body because they've, whether consciously or unconsciously there's a connection there that helps them do what they do better.
And so this chapter's all about that, and I really appreciate that because sometimes I. You've got creatives who neglect that because they don't use their body.
Arek Dvornechuck: No, I totally agree. I noticed myself, like even in my industry now, some of the top performer, like top personalities people in my industry, they, they all exercise.
They have some kind of a discipline. Either it is, just going to the gym or some sports, I think it's super important. So we cannot definitely, we shouldn't neglect that as creatives because there is definitely a connection, after. Moving after exercising. If you keep your body in the right in shape your mind is going to be in, in good shape, right?
You have this release of endorphins and stuff like that, so it makes you feel good. So as a result, you can come up with more creative ideas, right? Or be more efficient at that? Absolutely. Oh. Okay. Of course I'm going to link to your book in in a description below, but How people can reach out to you through your website on social media.
Joey Cofone: Yeah, sure. For people who wanna check out the book the easiest way, go to joeycofone.com. Or if you wanna check out Baronfig, which I've been building for 10 years, baronfig.com and of course Instagram and Twitter, both at Joey Cofone.
Tell me what you're working on. Tell me your creative challenges. I'm down to.
Arek Dvornechuck: Okay. Awesome. So again, joeycofone.com, baronfig.com, and we're gonna link to the book. Thanks again. Thanks for sending over the book and thanks for coming on show. All right. Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. Pleasure, dude.
Joey Cofone: Nice. Thank you. Chill out.