Beyond Inspiration: Using Are.na as a Tool for Creative Discipline — Gavin Guidry

I’ve been in an on-again, off-again relationship with Are.na since I was introduced to it a few years ago. I’ve created channels, written an article about how powerful it can be as a tool for curation, and still, I wasn’t able to commit. That is, until I saw this post from my long time friend Alex Maeland.

““Building creative teams doesn’t have to be complicated, it just requires a vision and curiosity.” ”

— Alex Maeland

As a creative leader tasked with building process, creating culture, and driving productivity for my teams, this statement immediately struck me. Alex is one of the most talented and thoughtful creatives I know, leading creative from Hypebeast to Lululemon, to his own agencies and platforms like Maekan and Adam Studios. So I sat down with him the following week to learn how I could use Are.na more intentionally as a source of inspiration for my team—but what I got instead was something much deeper: a practical, repeatable approach to developing creativity itself. Our conversation had such an impact on me that I turned it into a podcast episode, but for the purposes of this article, here are creative lessons for Are.na that also apply to a creative life.

Recognize patterns

“What I realized was in some ways I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for so what I started to do was literally just try to identify patterns.“

What catches our eye as creatives is purely instinctual– informed by our life experience and consumption from an early age. Having a “good eye” is an innate quality of creativity, but it is looked at as something a creative is born with rather than something that can be trained and honed. But what if you could put form to the invisible? Tactility to the intangible? With Are.na, you can start to see over time what catches your eye and eventually train your mind to identify that previously intangible quality wherever you may come across it. So what started as a creative gut reaction can be added to and refined over time– filling out a language for something that used to be unspoken.

This isn’t just about organizing visuals; it's a foundational creative skill. Recognizing patterns is how original thinking emerges—spotting what connects, what repeats, and what stands out allows us to refine our taste, identify our voice, and find unexpected connections in our work, no matter the medium.

Be a student

“I'm in this sort of space where I'm really really interested in being more of a student. The only way that I know how to do that and kind of keep myself on track with something is to be super disciplined.”

Building out Are.na channels feels like a daunting task. How do we set up perfectly curated channels, find blocks to connect, and most importantly, how do we apply them to our creative styles and processes. The answer is, get back to the basics, and like a student with a routine, do a little each day. Though we dread the days of school and homework, there’s something freeing about not having the answers and being on a consistent journey of seeking the answers from others. So embrace the discipline of a student.

Staying in student mode keeps your creativity alive. It encourages you to experiment without pressure, to learn from others, and to stay curious instead of always feeling like you have to perform. Creativity doesn’t thrive in certainty—it thrives in the act of searching.

Reduce Variables

“The reason why I've been focused on Are.na right now is because I'm trying to reduce the amount of variables I have to think about. What I've started to do is just be like for now I'm just going to engage in primarily one platform for certain things.”

Originally, I thought building channels in Are.na required constantly keeping your eyes peeled for visual stimulus that you could add to your channel. But Alex clarified that his Are.na ritual normally starts and ends in his explore feed within the platform. The amount of visual references we’re consuming each day can be quite overwhelming. So being able to engage in one platform to source, curate, and edit reduces the amount of distractions that seek to grab our attention.

That simplicity actually becomes a creative advantage. By limiting where you look and what you respond to, you reduce decision fatigue and give your ideas space to grow. Creativity often flourishes under constraints—whether it’s fewer tools, tighter deadlines, or a limited palette, less can truly lead to more clarity and focus.

Open your channels

“But then I realized none of this is mine anyways, right?”

My friend Marcus Hollinger once said to “build in the open”. It’s advice normally given to founders, but I’ve always loved how it can apply to people building creative things as well. Are.na allows you to set your channels to “Open” allowing anyone to connect blocks of imagery, video, .pdf, whatever to your channel. Sometimes an open handed approach to creativity can invite others in and make something better than you could’ve previously imagined.

Creative work doesn’t have to be precious or private to be meaningful—in fact, sharing the process often leads to unexpected breakthroughs. When you invite others into your thinking, you create space for feedback, conversation, and collaboration. You don’t need to have it all figured out before showing your work; often, showing your work helps you figure it out.

“Edit” your creativity

If curation is the new creation (which I’m on record stating it indeed is), then adding and removing blocks to channels is the new editing. Alex consistently used the word “edit” when describing how he will remove images from channels that no longer fit in his direction for the channel. So defining taste, refining, removing, and adding to it is akin to tweaking an S-curve in Lightroom or cutting up a timeline in Premiere. In Are.na you can learn as much from what you’re adding to your channels as what you’re choosing to avoid, which is also such a huge part of being able to define and communicate taste.

Editing is how creative intuition becomes creative direction. It’s the process of turning exploration into intention—making deliberate choices about what stays, what goes, and what evolves. Taste isn’t static; it’s shaped by constant refinement, and the ability to edit is what helps shape a voice that’s both distinctive and evolving.

Ultimately, I love this view into Are.na because of how much Alex uses it as research and development. Normally R&D is reserved for engineering teams, but this platform allows us to bring the same kind of rigor, structure, and intentionality to creative work. It becomes a lab for your ideas—a place to define, edit, curate, iterate, and repeat. And that process doesn’t just make you better at using Are.na; it makes you better at being creative. What I took from this conversation with Alex wasn’t just how to build better channels, but how to build better habits. To pay attention to what moves me. To treat curiosity like a craft. To embrace structure not as a limitation, but as a creative tool. To stay open—to feedback, to collaboration, to change. And to remember that editing isn’t about perfection; it’s about shaping who I’m becoming through the work. Creativity isn’t magic. It’s a practice.

If you’re navigating creative work—whether as a designer, writer, strategist, or something in between—this mindset can shift everything. You don’t need a perfect system or a flood of inspiration. Start simple: save what catches your eye, revisit it often, notice patterns, and refine over time. What you collect becomes what you create. And with just a little consistency, you can turn a daily scroll into a lifelong process of sharpening your creative voice.

If you're curious to dive deeper, explore Alex’s Are.na—or mine.