What or who inspires you?
Anything creative from music to video. There’s always something new and things are always changing. I love movies and songs because things are never stagnant. And the whole creative process of people coming together to make something new—it’s really neat.
If you could only eat one cuisine/dish for the rest of your life, what would it be?
(Eric answers immediately) Pizza. I’m never not in the mood for pizza. There are plenty of other foods I like but I think it’s the ultimate food.
In your time here, what stands out from other places you’ve been/worked at (or where we are now compared to where we’ve been)?
I’ve been here as CRASH+SUES shifted through some of it’s biggest changes. We began as a posthouse where we didn’t know where to even start with brainstorming and concepting. I remember we’d have meetings where people were afraid to speak up and say the wrong thing which is the opposite of what you want from a good brainstorming session. It’s so far from where we are now. Seeing that shift happen and learning how to pitch and come up with ideas is really cool. We went from no one wanting to speak up to now, we often have so many ideas on the table it can seem overwhelming.
Where do you see C+S going in the future? What are some of your future goals?
CRASH+SUES will likely to continue to be the generalist of the Twin Cities. I wrote an earlier blog post about how people say “jack of all trades, master of none,” as if it’s a bad thing. I think being a generalist can be very useful in many situations. When we did more specialized work, we had to say no a lot more. Now, if someone wants us to write their video for them (something that would’ve terrified us before), we can say ‘sure!’
My goals for my role would be to help others flourish and improve team goals and dynamics. I want to help growing artists. I’m not great at that yet. I still have a lot to learn. It’s challenging to focus on that aspect of my job since I’m not doing that full-time. I still have creative edits and motion graphic projects of my own. Also, I would like to have CRASH+SUES stay small. I love it small.
If you were a flavor of ice cream, which would it be?
Probably vanilla ice cream. Some people don’t think it’s a flavor but try making ice cream with just milk and cream and tell me how it goes.
