A career story
Sometimes you just have to trust the duck.
An unexpected idea. A legendary illustrator. A lesson in creativity that has stayed with me throughout my career.
The collaborators
Ken Bald, illustrator and comic book artist, known for Dr. Kildare, Dark Shadows, and Captain America.
Linda Kaplan Thaler, whose advertising agency created the campaign.
Early in my career, I worked as a storyboard illustrator at Gem Studio in New York, collaborating with some incredibly talented people on advertising campaigns for major brands. One of those people was comic book legend Ken Bald, whose career and illustration work I admired.
Then came Aflac.
Our studio had an opportunity to work with Linda Kaplan Thaler and her creative team on a new advertising campaign for the insurance company. I helped land the project, facilitated the creative process, coordinated communication and approvals, and personally illustrated the storyboards alongside Ken.
Then I heard the concept
Two men sitting on a park bench. A duck wandering around, repeatedly shouting, “Aflac!”
My immediate reaction?
“This is a terrible idea. Who’s going to go for this?”
What I did about it
Of course, I kept that thought to myself. We had a job to do, a creative team to support, and a concept to bring to life. So I did what I was there to do: listened, collaborated, worked through the process, and helped turn the idea into something the client could see and understand.
The rest is advertising history. The Aflac Duck became one of the most recognizable advertising characters around, and an idea I had initially doubted became an extraordinary success.
The lesson
The lesson wasn’t what I expected.
Looking back, the most valuable part of that experience wasn’t the campaign itself. It was realizing how easily our own assumptions can get in the way of a great idea.
I had judged the concept before I had seen what it could become. I was looking at it through my own expectations rather than considering what made it different, memorable, and potentially effective.
My job isn’t to prove my idea is the best one in the room. It’s to help the best idea become the best possible solution.
That means staying curious when something feels unfamiliar. Listening before judging. Being willing to challenge an idea without becoming attached to being right. And recognizing that great work often comes from the collaboration between people who see a problem differently.
Today
From storyboards to product design.
Years later, those same principles guide my work as a Product Design Leader.
Whether I’m modernizing complex enterprise software, simplifying a difficult workflow, building a prototype, or exploring what AI makes possible, the challenge is remarkably similar: understand the problem, question your assumptions, bring different perspectives together, and help turn an idea into something meaningful.
The tools have changed. The medium has changed. But the creative process still depends on curiosity, collaboration, craftsmanship, and the willingness to explore an idea before deciding what it’s worth.
I still believe in strong opinions, thoughtful critique, and high standards. But I’ve learned to separate having a point of view from needing to be right.
Sometimes the idea that makes the least sense at first is the one worth exploring most.
And sometimes, you just have to trust the duck.
Great design doesn’t come from always being right. It comes from staying open to what might be possible.