Interview with Ji Lee, Creative Director at Facebook and Instagram

Lee explains the importance of personal projects and the power of actions over ideas

Ji Lee gave us this interview to speak about how personal projects have influenced his career. Ji Lee strongly believes in the transformative power of personal projects and taking action on ideas that can feed your creativity and give life to your day to day. Lee also believes we are in the best era for creatives thanks to the democratization of technology and access to the internet.

After eight years as Facebook and Instagram’s creative director, and Google’s creative director before that, Lee’s work is currently focused on helping brands and agencies create different kinds of campaigns for smartphones.

How do you organize your time to develop personal projects?

Thanks to my personal projects, I have secured work in incredible places like Google and now with Facebook. All businesses have their good parts and not so good parts, they are environments in which you have to work with other people and other points of view, as well as with commercial and business objectives. When I find myself in these situations, doing personal projects makes me feel better, more creative, and with a desire to experiment. I feel more productive and it helps me maintain my mental health during my working day.

That’s why, when you are really passionate and you like something a lot, you can always find time to make something. In my case, because personal projects are something fun, and are so important and necessary to me, I always find time for them.

When did you realize the importance of these projects?

Upon entering the work market, I started to realize I was doing work that I didn’t necessarily enjoy which consisted of doing things my clients or bosses requested. I tried to be as creative as possible, but sometimes my ideas weren't right, or they weren’t what they were looking for. I hadn’t thought about doing personal projects, I wanted to focus on my work and earning a salary.

It came to a point when, absorbed and even a little frustrated in my work, I realized that I wanted to make something interesting that I’d enjoy developing. That was when I made my first project, Bubble Project, with barely any budget, but thanks to the Internet, it went viral.

That was my starting point: realizing that, thanks to technology and the Internet, I could make any project and make a direct impact on the world.

That was my big opportunity and I think anybody can achieve it if they are passionate, have an idea, and an internet connection or mobile phone, independent of if they are poor or rich, or if they live in an isolated village or a big city. This idea needs to empower us as people to make something that can change our lives.

Your most well-known personal projects are often connected to interaction between people, how do you understand creativity?

I understand creativity as problem solving. Let's say that most of my projects have their origin in problems I have encountered in my professional and personal life. This is the origin of some of my best-known projects, as I mentioned before. With Bubble Project, I wanted to alter the advertising messages in public spaces by incorporating empty comic book bubbles into New York City street ads so people could add messages. In this case, the project arose out of my frustration with working with clients and the fact that most of my creative ideas were undermined and almost never approved.

Another great example of how creativity arises from the need to resolve a conflict is my project Drawings for my grandchildren. My father felt isolated when he was away from his grandchildren and the community because he spent all day watching TV. So I wanted to solve the problem and suggested that he should draw and learn to share it on Instagram. Now the project is over three years old and has over 340,000 followers.

In this case, my use of creativity was clear. I thought: "I have this problem in my life, how can I solve it creatively?"

In your Instagram, you share almost daily images and compositions that make us think, always with a touch of humor. Where do you get your ideas from?

Some of these fun projects are usually things I've found on the Internet, walking down the street, from some projects I've done and have fun memories, from an idea that suddenly pops into my head and I try to capture and visualize it to share on Instagram.

What do you want to convey in Copa Domestika?

The message I want to convey revolves around the transformative power of personal projects. Working on them from practically the beginning of my professional career helped me to feel safe, to enjoy my work and to disconnect when I have lived through difficult moments. Likewise, personal projects have helped me dream of new job opportunities that I never would have imagined and, most importantly, I think everyone can do it if they are curious and interested in things.

We currently live in the best moment to be creative thanks to technology and the Internet, since they allow us to create with very simple tools, something that before was impossible because of how expensive it was. At the same time, they allow us to reach thousands of people immediately.
In short, my message is: anyone who is motivated, if they make an effort, they can work on their personal projects and transmit them to the world. In the end, ideas are nothing and action is everything.

All these works can be found on Ji Lee’s Instagram.

You may also be interested in:

- Transforming your creative ideas into personal projects, a course by Ji Lee.
- Creative and Efficient Project Communication, a course by Marcelo Tas.
- Creativity for Big Brands, a course by Juan Carlos Fernández Espinosa (Ideograma).