Dora Drimalas, co-founder of San Francisco design studio Hybrid, joins Radim to explore what it really means to build a creative practice grounded in genuine, unfiltered curiosity. ~ 

Over 24 years, Hybrid has refused to specialise — working instead across branding, campaigns, books, and environments for clients from Nike to Lego — and Dora explains why that deliberate refusal to narrow down has been the studio's greatest creative strength. 

From their formative years at Nike, where fearlessness was the culture, to the making of their debut monograph Curiosity in All Things — a 650-page love letter to design, process, and inspiration — this is a conversation about building the conditions for great work, asking bigger questions, and creating without fear.

Takeaways

• Specialising might be better for business, but diversifying is better for creativity — and Hybrid chose creativity every time
• Fertile conditions for good work require a mix of personalities, backgrounds, disciplines, and points of view — creative biodiversity is non-negotiable
• Clients often lock down possibilities before the conversation has even started — a great creative's job is to reopen them
• The Nike years were grad school for design: fearlessness, cross-medium storytelling, and throwing people into projects they weren't yet qualified for
• Being on the outside as an agency lets you cross-pollinate ideas across industries — that is an advantage in-house work can never fully replicate
• A monograph is not just a portfolio — it's a record of thinking, process, relationships, and the inspiration that makes the work possible
• You can make beautiful work on small budgets; it costs exactly the same to print ugly as it does to print beautiful
• Stepping back as a leader — and letting others grow into their roles — is its own form of creative satisfaction

Daring Creativity. Podcast with Radim Malinic

daringcreativity.com |  [email protected]

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