James Pearse Connelly (@jpconnelly, Instagram: @jpconnelly) is an Emmy-Award-winning television set designer. He’s designed sets for shows like Bill Nye Saves the World, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party, The Voice, and Top Chef.

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I wanted to have James on the show to learn how he does creativity on a large scale, with literally moving parts, and an unforgiving production schedule. I figured that to do what James does, which is express the feel of a show through architecture and materials and fabrics and furniture, and to deliver on-time, James must really know his creative process. And you can tell from this conversation, he really does.

Even if you aren’t a designer, chances are you work on creative projects all of the time that have lots of unknowns in the beginning. The work James does just puts a magnifying glass on what it takes to make creative work come with less pain, no matter what medium you’re working in.

In this show, you’ll learn:

How do you create a design that supports an idea and serves the client, rather than one that just follows trends.

How does James manage his creative vision across a whole staff?

We’ll really get inside James’s head for some of his best set designs. How does he integrate a subtle design language into his concepts? This was a really fun part of the conversation because you’ll see how designers “talk” using subtle cues in their work. In this case, I think you’ll be surprised all you can glean from a spiral staircase.

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