How I Get Ideas: Creative Director Alex Jenkins

As part of the Nexus Studios Interactive team, Alex Jenkins creates immersive experiences in AR and VR. Here he explains why thinking spatially adds a new level to the ideas process

Alex Jenkins was in the shower, singing Lionel Richie’s Hello to himself, when he had his last big idea. It’s proof that even when you’re making work in a non-traditional creative medium, ideas still come from weird sources, and drop in on you when you’re least expecting them. With a background in animation, Jenkins still uses tried-and-tested methods such as drawing on paper, but also incorporates elements relating specifically to AR and VR as a spatial medium.

The early stages of the idea aren’t so different, he says. “You don’t say ‘right, let’s think AR’,” he tells CR. “The ideas can come from anywhere. They don’t come through some kind of arcane process of researching and eliminating things. You need to let the ideas be what they are, then you can apply the correct thinking, the media, and the technology that will go into it to shape it.”