At MDR Advertising, we believe the best ideas don’t always happen on cue. Sometimes they start as a scribble in a notebook, a half-thought on a whiteboard, or a phrase in your head that doesn’t land, until it does.
For more than two decades, our Principal and Chief Creative Officer Stephen Rybak has shown up with a mindset rooted in curiosity and strategic patience. He goes beyond developing creative, he collects it.
Stephen shapes the agency’s ethos through the kind of unfiltered thinking that rarely makes the first draft…but often defines the final result. He believes the best ideas don’t start polished. They start with instincts. They can be a little messy. And for him, more often than not, they start on paper.
We got him to agree to sit down and talk about branding, brainstorming, dot connecting, and his belief that good ideas will always find their place. What follows is part interview, part reflection—from a creative leader who leads by creative example.
Q: We heard you originally thought you wanted to study architecture. Why the shift to marketing?
“I’m a problem solver at heart. I did think I wanted to be an architect…I took classes in high school and loved it—but I also realized I don’t like rules. Architecture has a lot of rules. Marketing lets you color outside of the lines and solve problems with fewer restraints, more freedom. And for me, it felt more…fun, which is important.”
That preference for flexibility (and fun), and a long-standing resistance to bedtimes, set the stage for a career in advertising, built on creative latitude and unexpected connections.
“I always wanted to be my own boss. I distinctly remember not liking being told when to go to bed. I thought I was more mature than that. I knew when I was tired, and it wasn’t when the sun was still out.”
This perfectly illustrates his approach to work and creativity: question the rules, trust your instincts, and claim the space to decide for yourself. What started as a rejection of rigid systems has become a blueprint for creative autonomy at MDR.
Q: How do you approach brainstorming?
“I’d sit down with an 11×17 sheet and just fill it with doodles and randomness. Some stuff is so stupid—but sometimes, those first thoughts become the inspiring ones you go back to. It was your gut instinct. It was your first spark for a reason.”
Stephen’s process might sound chaotic…but it’s structured, intuitive, and honest. He doesn’t edit early. He gives ideas room to breathe and head space to evolve. It’s always a part of his equation, whether it gets shown or not.
“I’ve often found that all those random ideas over time connect into one big idea or lead to unexpected new ones.”
Q: Do you really keep every idea?
“Always. I actually jokingly call it my bargain bin. Something that didn’t get used but still had merit. And later, that idea—or part of it—connects in some strange yet wonderful way.”
“Some of the stuff I wrote down as an intern at my first agency gig, I’ve used it. It was just waiting for the right context. If the idea is good, the moment will come. You just have to keep it alive until it’s ready.”
Yes, Stephen holds on. Not because he’s sentimental—he’s strategic. His long-game approach involves keeping early ideas that haven’t found their place yet. Stephen’s digital folders and sketchpads are filled with questions, half-lines and visuals that felt meaningful even if they weren’t ready for the spotlight, or when no one asked for them. He doesn’t keep everything. But he does keep all things that might still have something to say.
They’re thought starters. Building blocks. Pieces that resurface when the right brief, client challenge, or audience insight calls them forward. For him, it’s about respecting the slow burn of a big idea.
Q: Why do you always start with old school pen and paper?
“Just you and a piece of paper and a pen or pencil is the most natural form of expressing your true thoughts. Once you jump into a digital program, it’s already pushing you to make things look final.”
Stephen’s preferred analog process is about pace, not polish. He sketches to think, not to finish. It’s a way of staying in ideation longer, letting intuition lead before software steps in. The real value? It’s allowed him to create a culture that embraces raw insights and crazy ideas, and that’s what gives creative strategy its secret sauce.
“That’s been happening since the beginning of time—cave drawings. They didn’t have computers—let alone AI—and those instinctual marks are still influencing design and creativity today.”
Q: Why are marketers so focused on going viral?
Stephen’s take on this is clear-eyed. He doesn’t romanticize it. He sees it as survival.
“Let’s face it, everyone’s craving attention—all the time. Personally, and professionally. Going viral isn’t vanity. It’s budget efficiency. You get millions of impressions you couldn’t afford to buy.”
In an industry where attention equals traction, he sees today’s viral mindset as a byproduct of scarcity. But attention alone isn’t the goal.
Q: So, what is?
Here’s where it gets deeper: many brands confuse attention with connection.
“They mistakenly think the logo is the brand. But if you fill the rest of an ad space (for example) with something meaningful—great writing, visuals, emotion—people will want to find the logo. You don’t need to shout it.”
He isn’t against logos—he’s against lazy branding. A loud logo can’t save weak messaging.
Q: Why does storytelling matter so much, then?
“We choose brands like we choose friends. You connect with people who share your values, who make you laugh, who have great stories.”
“You don’t stay friends with someone who talks about themselves all the time or changes personalities every week. Same goes for brands. Consistency builds trust. Personality builds preference.”
At MDR, that perspective shapes how we build platforms. Stephen reframes storytelling not as content, but as a signal of identity. A good brand reflects your values. A great one makes you feel like you’re part of the story.
“If your stories don’t connect—or worse, they annoy people—you’re going to lose them. Same as in real life.”
Q: What would you tell your younger self, or a new creative professional?
“That it’s really not about getting the right answer right away. It’s about staying in the process long enough to recognize the patterns.”
He claims the best solution usually hides in the quiet parts of the process, calling it “creative cross-pollination”; which he says is the way one seemingly unrelated idea can lead to another, even years later. Over time, Stephen says, collected dots start to connect. The brief from last month and the insight from five years ago. The tourism pitch and the workforce client. The sketch and the final comp.
“One week we’re talking about aquariums and credit unions, then ports, then healthcare—and all of it starts overlapping in really interesting ways. Creativity doesn’t work in silos. You start seeing things you didn’t expect and that’s where the good stuff lives.”
We’re happy he found his merry way to #adagencylife. We can confirm that he leads with instinct. He plays the long game. He doesn’t chase trends. He does indeed collect clues in the form of half-baked ideas and strange doodles on pages that might look like nothing until suddenly, they’re everything. He believes you don’t always know where an idea belongs. But if you protect it, stay curious, and break a few rules, the right idea always finds its place. As he says,
“The first version isn’t the answer. It’s a breadcrumb.”
(Pro-tip: Just don’t eat it. You might need it later.)