Deroy Peraza, an Illustration alum and faculty member, discussed his business Hyperakt and artistic process with Spraygraphic’s Sprayblog back in January. Here’s an excerpt:

SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.

DP: There’s two answers to that. The creative process and the pragmatic process. The trick is getting the two to get along.
On the creative side, there are always some vague ideas floating around in my head that are waiting to get matched with the right project. They are usually inspired by something I saw, read or heard somewhere, and tend to be unfinished fragments that don’t really mean anything until they are activated by a concept. But all of that is bullshit without answering some very basic, practical questions first:
1. What does it need to do?
2. Who needs to get it?
3. Why?
Whether the work is personal or commercial, print or interactive, 2d or 3d, the same questions apply. I need to be able to define what I’m trying to do concisely in one statement before creating anything. Otherwise, I feel lost. Like most things in my life, the process of creating any work is one of structured chaos.

SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?

DP: Ask for help. One of the great things of working in a collaborative environment, with people I like and respect, is that I can ask them for help. Everybody gets stuck sometimes. Whether your brain forgot to power up that day or whether you’ve been working on something for so long that you’ve been blinded to reality, there’s nothing like a little perspective from your peers for a reality check. At Hyperakt, we don’t really have the luxury of letting a project sit around waiting for brilliant ideas, so we tag team on them when we get stuck. We’ll just trade projects and hit reset. Its a practice that is not easy to learn. It requires putting the ego aside, and trusting your baby to someone else. Both are hard. Other than that, there’s the usual. I dig for inspiration in our library or on the web. I go for a walk. I try to travel as much as possible. I’m also very competitive, so nothing fires me up more than seeing good work from the competition.

Read the rest of Deroy’s interview here!