A Bright Light

Dino Sanchez

Dino Sanchez (A'99) grew up steeped in creativity. His parents and brother were trained architects. When he chose to study design, he too looked to study under masters of the craft.

"One of the things that drew me to Carnegie Mellon is that it's not just a premiere art program, it's a university with so many different opportunities," said Sanchez. "Coming from CMU, I feel I've gotten a broader picture."

He believes that his education has also helped him experience the broader picture in his career. Since graduation, he's happily and successfully maintained both a corporate job and his own entrepreneurial practice.

"To me, creativity has always been a balance between working with a team and working selfishly," noted Sanchez. "With a company, you're managing creativity through constraints like budget and personality."

"On the flip side, creativity in my own practice is more selfish. As designers, I think we have an innate need to create things just for the sake of doing them."

Sanchez is currently employed as an associate creative director at frog design, a global company of designers, strategists and software engineers. His work involves managing and leading creative teams and programs for leading companies across a diversity of industries.

His entrepreneurial practice also spans many creative disciplines.

"My interests jump around," he explained. "I don't think the creative process is something that needs to be constrained or categorized."

"Art vs. design — I don't know why you have to separate the two. Now, especially, there are designers making one-off things and artists in mass production."

Sanchez's personal projects have included a gallery show with fellow alum and type designer, Christian Schwartz (A'99), and stacks of pencils wistfully emblazoned with the phrase 'will you ever use me again.'

He's garnered recent attention for his latest foray into lighting design with the Bracket Lamp. With the unique design of the high quality, hand-crafted lamp, he intentionally brings the cord to the forefront.

Sanchez's next project leans back toward the art world, but he'll only divulge that it involves "a gallery show and a truck."

His advice for current students?

"The best two pieces of advice I've gotten are, first, 'just make your own story.' Obviously, we all look up to certain artists, but if you spend too much time pretending to be somebody else, you forget who you are and what you want to do."

"Second, we all hear from the creative field that you should always be original. I think you can achieve far greater things if you just try to be good."

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