Insights from Collage Class

This summer, I started what I’m calling a creative sabbatical. A reset to recharge and rebuild my creative muscle while leaving space for high-impact work.

Recently, I had the chance to revisit an old hobby by taking a collage workshop (outside). This is Part II of my insights from collage class. (See Part I: “Creative Practice: Be Prepared, Not Predictable”)

Creative Practice Notes

This series explores how routine creative practice and hands-on work can sharpen thinking, shift mental models, and unlock new possibilities. Each note reflects one or more of the following goals:

• Reconnect with creative practice
• Demonstrate creativity as strategy
• Share new paths to innovate

Collage Assignment: Randomness as a Constraint

Our first collage assignment was to create a composition using random shapes of black and white paper, with a pop of color.

In all of my preparation, I and many of the students missed the part in the instructors email about bringing black-and-white papers. I had followed the supply list to the letter and didn’t read the full message. Thankfully, the instructor came prepared with extra supplies for students who don’t read emails. She’s clearly taught a lot of courses.

One of my biggest challenges with this assignment was that I don’t know how to be random. Most people don’t. Some might argue there’s no such thing as true randomness, but that’s another post for another day.

Predictability is often preferred because it feels safe. It gives you something to measure, and someone or something to blame for success or failure. The assumption is that if you can measure it, you can control it or at least explain it. In my day-to-day work, everything has a roadmap, a framework, and measurable success metrics. It’s how we know we’re on track to hitting a target. I’m not saying that’s not important.

However, once your work is experienced by an actual customer or outside party, they will introduce randomness that you will need to respond to or at least understand. Machines are easier than people.

Emergent and Constrained

For this assignment, I tried many tactics to introduce randomness. Folding papers, cutting in different directions, layering in a way that looked organic. But I was still using a pattern to determine how to appear random. I even tried to create a mental matrix. How many shapes, how many edge types, how many combinations would ensure no two were the same? But that still wasn’t randomness.

Randomness, in its purest form, means a lack of any identifiable pattern, order, or predictability.

I also paused to consider the point. Why introduce randomness at all? In art, randomness might enhance creativity or add visual interest. In business, it can strengthen systems against unpredictable inputs or help surface and mitigate undesirable outcomes. My guess is that the instructor wanted to create an environment that allowed students to focus on learning the tools by introducing randomness in the materials and inputs.

Eventually, I decided the best way I could introduce randomness was to source scraps from the table. Some came from my classmates. Since their process was different from mine, their scraps introduced something unexpected.

Then I realized, as we were running out of time, that I had spent so much effort trying to manufacture randomness that I had forgotten to add the pop of color.

With two minutes to spare, I threw down a scrap of leopard print, found a neon pink sticker on the table, and tucked a tiny piece into the collage. It wasn’t strategic. I was just running out of time.

Oddly, the instructor highlighted my piece first when we hung our work. She discussed it as if I had made a deliberate design choice. It reminded me that instinct (or luck) can be enough.

Takeaway
You cannot create randomness by going through a set of programmed experiences. Acknowledging randomness may be where the spark or big idea lives. You can prepare, plan systematize, and automate. But at some point, you have to put something into the world and see what it becomes.

Final Thoughts

In product and business environments, we often strive to engineer repeatable workflows and scalable systems. But true innovation often exists outside the clean, optimized framework. Engineered experiences tend to smooth out the edges. They remove the friction, the error, and the unpredictability.

But the real world does not follow a perfect model. It offers feedback, resistance, and unexpected outcomes. You have to show your work and engage with what shows up.

This post is part of my Creative Practice series, a collection of field notes from my creative sabbatical. If it resonates, subscribe to the newsletter or follow the conversation on social.