Sarah Chen

How do you start a project?

I don't start with references. I start with discomfort. There's usually something I can't articulate yet, a friction between what the brief says and what feels true. I sit with that. Sometimes for days.

Most people want to resolve that friction immediately. But I've learned that the discomfort is the point. If I can name it too quickly, I'm probably just finding something I've seen before.

What makes an image stay with you?

Time, mostly. I've stopped trusting my first reaction. Something that grabs me immediately often fades within a week. But the images that keep surfacing, the ones I find myself returning to without knowing why—those are the ones that matter.

What do you avoid?

Anything that's trying too hard to be noticed. Anything that feels optimized. There's a whole category of images that exist only to perform well—high engagement, lots of saves, perfect for the algorithm. They're technically competent and completely dead.