Beyond "just be creative": How a design leader tackles the dreaded blank canvas

Some people imagine creativity as a faucet that designers, writers and artists can turn on at will—like a kitchen tap pouring out brilliance whenever deadlines loom.

But the rest of us know that it usually feels something like this:

A distraction. A blank page. A grey box, an arrow, some text—oh wait. That doesn't work. Let me try again. Backspace. Stare at ceiling. Stare at phone. Make coffee. Drink coffee. Ponder. Ruminate. Is coconut La Croix really that bad? Why does everyone keep talking about White Lotus? When did I last water that succulent? I swear if it dies this time, I'm giving up succulents forever. Oh, right—I'm supposed to be working.

The "just be creative" fallacy

I'm Zach Leach, the Head of Design and founding designer at Gamma, where we build tools made to reshape how creativity works, tools for imagination and sharing ideas. As a designer, I've spent years navigating an industry where creativity is often misunderstood. Clients, managers, and stakeholders sometimes assume creativity is effortless—a disappearing act or sleight of hand rather than the result of deliberate choices, of methodical iteration, and of countless subtle decisions. And yet, the world expects us to deliver. On command. On schedule. "Just be creative."

But creativity isn't like ordering a bag of chips. Creativity is wildly, wonderfully unpredictable—more like shaking the vending machine because your bag got stuck halfway down and now you're banging on glass, hoping nobody walks by and sees you for who you really are: desperate for one crumb of inspiration.

Creativity isn't like ordering a bag of chips.

Creativity, problem solving, design—whatever you call what you do—is a skill. You make a hundred bad things, so that the hundred-and-first can be kind of okay. You might spend a week questioning if this is even the job for you, while thinking "Will my manager find out I’m just three raccoons in a trench coat that happens to know Figma shortcuts?" No. They won't. I promise—not the good ones anyway, because they too were once a stack of raccoons (except they used Sketch).

I'm not sure why we expect humans to sit down and produce on demand. We've commodified the very thing that resists commodification: the messy, unpredictable, inherently human act of making something from nothing. And yet, our entire modern media landscape, our cultural zeitgeist, hinges on creations by people who ask questions like, "What if a high school chemistry teacher with cancer decides to sell meth?" or "What if a mob boss went to therapy?"

The dreaded blank page

Here at Gamma, we believe in addressing exactly that messy, human element of creativity—the dreaded blank page. I know this pain personally. I've spent my career staring at various empty canvases, wondering how to even start. That experience—years spent wrestling with the particulars of the creative process —informs a lot of what we’ve built, from AI features that help you move from "nothing" to "something," all the way to tools that encourage iteration, refinement, and exploration.

TV, movies, music, novels, apps—all of these come from someone staring into a blank page or a blinking cursor, and then deciding to make something anyway. Consider for a moment the absolute miracle of that. Despite all our awkwardness, procrastination, and existential dread, we humans somehow produce symphonies and sitcoms and paintings and poetry and TikToks and films that are so heartfelt, so beautiful they can make three hundred strangers sitting together in the dark cry at the exact same moment.

We've commodified the very thing that resists commodification: the messy, unpredictable, inherently human act of making something from nothing.

And that's why we do it. Not because it's easy—but because, occasionally, in the midst of all the banging on glass and shaking vending machines, something actually falls into place. An idea clicks. A sentence works. A design solves something that felt unsolvable just minutes before. You watch a user test that finally makes you believe again in the thing you're building, when someone smiles and says, "Oh, that's neat," and then, suddenly, you're back. You're cooking with fire again, staying up past midnight, riding the wave.

Creativity is vulnerability

Creativity doesn't flow—it sputters, fits and starts, stumbles forward like a toddler learning to walk. It's an act of vulnerability. An act of love, an act of faith. Creativity demands us to trust in the hope that this awkward stumbling, this frustrating clumsiness will eventually turn into something meaningful, something worth sharing—something that moves, teaches, or perhaps changes someone, even if only a little.

And then, we do it again tomorrow. And we learn, and grow, and stumble a little less with time, even though the stumbling never really goes away, and that's kind of beautiful, isn't it? The stumbling part, I mean. Because it shows who we really are—messy, hopeful blobs piecing together some sense out of chaos and handing it to each other, saying, "Here, maybe this will mean something to you too."

So maybe the next time you stare at your own blinking cursor or blank canvas and feel that encroaching sense of dread—the nagging suspicion that maybe, this time, inspiration truly isn't coming—you'll remind yourself of that glorious, ridiculous truth: you're in good company.

To learn more about how Zach's team generates creative ideas while maintaining design quality, listen to his episode of the "How I AI" podcast.