Starting dabeq
Why I started dabeq, and the four principles guiding a more open-ended creative practice.
I'm a designer in my sixth year of practice, specializing in brand and graphic design.
Much of the work I've made under my own name has followed a more traditional process: taking my time and finishing each piece by hand. But the longer a project took, the harder it was to hold on to the excitement I felt at the beginning. Sometimes I'd get bored before it was finished, or find myself wanting to start something else.
Then AI arrived. Some established creators have taken a “no AI” stance, but I think I've actually been waiting for this moment. When I used ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude before, there were plenty of moments when it didn't feel quite ready. After working on a few things with Astra, though, I'm seeing a speed and efficiency that simply doesn't compare with doing every step myself.
It made me think: maybe I really could try all the things I've wanted to make. I created dabeq as a creative alter ego, a way to work more freely, with fewer limits and without being tied to what I've made before.
Before I begin making things as dabeq, I want to set out four principles.
01. Explore rather than converge
In branding, a lot depends on how well everything converges into one coherent direction. If I were thinking about myself as a brand, it would probably make sense to keep doing the things I do well. But that way of working seems to leave me bored and worn out.
As dabeq, I want to work across all the media that interest me, without setting limits, and freely explore the different tones and styles I love.
There are already so many media and genres I'm interested in, planning to explore, or working on: websites and apps, games, video, music, fine art, which was my original major, and, of course, plenty of ideas within the graphic design work I've been doing all along.
The results will probably be all over the place. The brand designer in me is a little worried about that, but I've decided to follow what I actually want to make!
02. Keep making, for a long time, and make a lot
Because of those tendencies, I've never been very consistent with my personal work. But if I get used to making and putting out lots of different things quickly, as I'm doing now, I think I might finally find a way to keep going.
I've seen it so many times: when someone does something consistently, for a long time, and in quantity, something good follows, whether that's a reputation, recognition, money, or personal satisfaction. I want to try that for myself now!
03. Share the process and the result
This takes real time, so it might be difficult to sustain alongside my day job. Still, I want to do a better job of sharing both my process and the finished work with the world.
Now that these tools are widely accessible, anyone can make almost anything. I think that also means more people will want to know how someone who makes something well actually did it. Over the past few years, I've seen how much influence can come from being willing to share that process openly.
The same goes for the finished work. Rather than posting something, waiting quietly, and feeling disappointed when there's no response, I want to try different ways of getting it in front of people. I think I need to see that effort to communicate and promote the work as part of finishing it.
04. Use the same tools to make something different
Astra is so smart and capable that it genuinely amazes me. It would be lovely if I were the only person with an Astra this smart, but the reality is that the same highly capable tools are now available to anyone who can pay for the tokens. That makes it all the more important to make something different.
When you work with AI, it can give you a reasonably good result right from the start. I think that's a double-edged sword.
For now, my old way of working, imagining something first and then bringing that idea to life, still often leads to better-quality results. Once something is right in front of you, it's surprisingly hard to imagine the other possibilities.
At the point where I could say, “Oh, it can already do this much!” and stop, I need to keep thinking about how to push the quality further and find that extra detail that makes it different. If I settle for AI's “pretty decent” first attempt, I feel like I'd be giving up my identity as a designer.
I want to keep having fun with a wide range of projects, guided by these principles!
I'd love to connect with other creators who feel the same way.
Originally published in Korean on September 28, 2026. English translation prepared October 1, 2026. Read the original on Naver.