Makenzie Brown knew what she wanted to do when she was three years old. Then she spent the next twenty years getting foggier about it, the way everyone does. What snapped her back was watching her own preschooler paint at the kitchen table every single day and thinking, why am I not doing that?

So she started painting again. And because she's a designer, she built rules for it: fixed canvas sizes, a locked color palette, a Figma board that tells her she isn't allowed to add a new color until six months in. Her words: the restraint leads to more creativity.

We talk about the solo mountain bike ride she took at nine years old, and the letter she wrote to her principal when she got home, which turned into a school choice fight in Vermont that changed things for other kids in her town. We talk about the mentor at The North Face who plucked her out of an internship, brought her along to Mountain Hardwear, and is now her daughter's godfather. Why she'd rather be an art director than a creative director, and what actually happens to your creativity when you get promoted. Why she needs to make physical things in a year when everything else is a screen.

And we close on her answer to the question I ask everyone, which is the simplest one anyone has given me: movement in nature. Plus the best advice I've heard on this show for people stuck in a city. Play hooky. Go ride for three hours. Get a margarita on the way home.

Makenzie Brown is a freelance art director and brand designer based in Boulder, Colorado, and the founder of Cereal for Dinner. She studied at Middlebury College, RISD's Summer Institute, and California College of the Arts, then spent her in-house years in the outdoor industry at The North Face, Mountain Hardwear, and Specialized before going out on her own. Alongside the client work she paints, and sells originals and prints through Cereal for Dinner Shop. She lives in Boulder with her husband, her daughter, and her dog, Chicken.

Follow Makenzie:

Cereal for Dinner  https://cerealfordin.com
Shop  https://cerealfordinnershop.com
Shop Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/cerealfordinner_shop/

Outside Is Magic is a podcast about the intersection of creativity and the outdoors, hosted by Christopher San Agustin, founder of Broken and Coastal.

Website: https://www.brokenandcoastal.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokenandcoastal/

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outside is Magic is hosted by Christopher San Agustin.
Produced by Broken and Coastal.
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