Tools of the Trade: Dave Snyder of Siberia

Tools of the Trade is an AgencySpy feature to help highlight the many tools that help make advertising and marketing folks successful. The tools can be anything that helps people perform at their top form, from a favorite drafting table to the best software program to a lucky pen, a vintage typewriter or a pair of headphones.

Next up is Dave Snyder, partner and head of design at strategy, design, and engineering studio Siberia.

What is one tool you use all the time at work, and how does it inspire your work?

With (famed punk band) NoFX now retiring after 40 years, I only think it’s appropriate to start an article like this with:

“Possessions never meant anything to me.”

And though that holds a lot of truth in my life, I’m not crazy. Well, that’s not true, I’ve got a desk, and a dog named Arto who pisses on my floor. That’s right. I’ve got a floor. So what?

Ok, I’ll stop with the obscure punk rock references.

But seriously, after 25 years in this industry, my favorite creative tool is time and space to think. To be free of the screen. Free from my mechanical keyboard that clack-a-lacks so proudly of my flow state. Free of this beautiful Vitsoe shelving system I sit beneath, typing.

Why is it your favorite?

Can I take my anxiety with me? Yes, everywhere I go. I wish I could turn it off. But I have a place that helps me turn off the work brain, if not for a moment.

A house on locusts posts where I cook over wood. No app needed. It’s a place where my morning coffee is on a sandbar. Hasami porcelain cup in hand. It’s a place that connects me to the present. When the Osprey arrives, the seals head North in search of cooler waters and the spiders lay trap to the migrating Monarchs.

Have I mentioned I’ve become a birder now too?

How did you acquire your tool or hear about it for the first time?

Google maps, luck, and a mortgage of course.

But it was a soon-to-be-realized burnout, after 20 years and no breaks, exiting Firstborn x Dentsu and finding myself at Twitter by way of UENO, that I realized finding the time for myself was so critical. Some folks aren’t as slow to this realization as me. Congratulations to those folks.

How does it help you be successful?

After 25 years in this business “time and the space to think” reminds you of why you got into the creative business to begin with. It reminds you of the simple things: that it’s the work that matters most. Continuing the craft is as important, if not more important than, the management piece. Great leaders should continue making and not drift away from what made them stick with this grind of a profession in the first place.

Does it have sentimental value?

The realization that “time to think” (call it reflection) is on par with “time to craft” has reinvigorated me.

Do you think your tool could go TikTok viral? Why or why not?

Hot take: TikTok ruins essential places. It’s a thief.

I’d give you the name of where we escape but my partner reminded me it’s a secret. I think it’s time we bring gate keeping back.

Just me on the beachside, combing the sand. Metal meter in my hand. That’s me inside your head.

That’s me inside my head.

We want to know what tools you use to make you successful. If you’d like to contribute or know someone who would want to be featured in Tools of the Trade, contact kyle.obrien@adweek.com and fill out our survey.