This week, we’re training with Chaj Arunasalam, a freelance strategist, qualitative researcher, writer, and full-time rabbit hole seeker who mainly operates across the half-spaces of sports, entertainment and culture.

1. What’s your fuelling strategy?

*Where do you get your creative inspiration — what do you read, watch, or consume to stay at your creative best?

My go-to’s for creative inspiration are my mates outside the industry, new experiences IRL and interesting things I see online. Life’s about balance. I also love to travel. Just going to a random place, engaging with the locals and finding out their favourite food spots. It’s not the most sustainable fueling strategy, environmentally or economically, but I always come back inspired and well fed.

2. What’s your training philosophy?

*How do you approach your creative work — do you follow a particular method, principle, or mindset that guides you?

I don’t have a method to the madness, it’s mainly instinct that’s built from life experience and curiosity. I love to get outside and speak to new people. Or I go online and do some social scanning. Either way I try to gather a variety of perspectives. Once I have the info I go on a long walk with no phone, sounds weird and woo-woo, but it helps me distill the key insights to root the work in.

3. What’s your recovery routine?

*When things get intense or exhausting, how do you step back, recharge, or reset to stay on track?

Playing football, watching football, talking football. It takes me away from the head space of work so I can spend all day watching Ronaldinho clips. Joga Bonito. Also, long walks and doomscroll breaks when my brain reaches max meme capacity. Recently I’ve been enjoying film photography too because not having to rely on modern technology to create feels nice. If all else fails, have a nap.

4.What’s your least favourite climb?

*What’s a significant challenge or obstacle you believe your field or industry needs to overcome right now?

I WANT TO DO MORE QUAL. The lack of priority given to qualitative research is my biggest challenge and maybe that’s because of the speed everyone wants answers. But there’s something really nice about interviewing people, sitting with the perspectives and slow-cooking the insights. I fear that with new technology we’re losing sight of the value that qualitative research brings to a process.

5. What’s your next all-out effort?

*What’s the next creative goal or milestone you’re aiming for—what’s a project you’re excited about right now or looking forward to working on in the future?

For my research studio, Loosu World, I’m documenting the stories of the Tamil community through the lens of football. Loosu is a colloquial Tamil word that describes something crazy yet playful – a reflection of my process. I’m excited to travel and speak to people on the ground. First stop Switzerland, where I’ll be shooting and playing in the Tamil Eelam Cup in August. Loosu antics at left back!

This week, we’re training with Umps Machaka, a freelance creative producer specialising in experiential and influencer mailer print production. Umps also has a background in fashion styling and event curation.

1. What’s your fuelling strategy?

*Where do you get your creative inspiration — what do you read, watch, or consume to stay at your creative best?

I have always found most of my inspiration draws from travelling and exploring new or old cities. I’ve recently relocated back to Johannesburg after 21 years in the UK and the culture here is so fresh and inspiring, I also love cinema (anything A24 produced), just great cinematography and lighting in general. A lover of DMC’s - Deep Meaningful Conversations with people, mainly strangers I meet at the coffee shop.

2. What’s your training philosophy?

*How do you approach your creative work — do you follow a particular method, principle, or mindset that guides you?

I wouldn’t say it’s a particular method, with most of my projects/clients I like to have a long conversation with them and find out a little more about them and their personality. From that I am usually able to pick up things - trends, style cues etc that they like and try to include that in their work. Also approaching my work from a consumer standpoint and asking myself why I would love their product, what would make me return to them or become invested in their brand in the long run. Working in the print industry, a lot of my work is tactile so I try to create using memorable materials or a finish that is unusual yet still speaks to the brand’s ethos/client’s personality.

3. What’s your recovery routine?

*When things get intense or exhausting, how do you step back, recharge, or reset to stay on track?

As someone who has suffered from burn out it’s a non-negotiable that I go for my daily walks with the dog without my phone and tune back in with the sounds around me. I love cooking too so cooking up a meal I’m craving is another way for me to just remember that work is work and life still has many other things in it that can make me happy. Love randomly having fresh oysters as a treat lol.

4.What’s your least favourite climb?

*What’s a significant challenge or obstacle you believe your field or industry needs to overcome right now?

For me I think because with the rise of technology and people screaming “print is dead” a lot of people and brands don’t take into consideration how beautiful and important paper, print and finishings are. I believe that printed collateral can be such a great extension of a project and if done right, can become a keepsake item in people's homes. A lot of people only consider the packaging at the very end with extremely tight budgets that sometimes it’s hard for me to give them the best quality work that would allow their brand/product to have that special touch. I have also found that a lot of people just don’t understand how print works and think it’s like an at home printer and you just press “print”, there’s honestly so much that goes into it and so many ways to be creative like bitmap foiling, hydrochromic (water activated ink) effects etc.

5. What’s your next all-out effort?

*What’s the next creative goal or milestone you’re aiming for—what’s a project you’re excited about right now or looking forward to working on in the future?

I’ve wrapped up a gig producing creative mailers for a renowned artist and their hair products, excited to see the final results once it goes live. I’m also excited to get back to work with one of my old clients, New Currency Magazine, producing their special next issue. I’m hoping to get more retainer clients this year and get back into the swing of things but I am also aware that being a freelancer can take a while for things to move forward without the stressful gaps in between projects. The great thing about being cross-continental is that I get to build client relationships in two cities I love.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a cheeky new addition to the Carb Load universe recently.

Truth is, I’ve had this in the works for a while but I’m only just getting round to doing it now (you know, redundancy, middle-aged backpacking etc etc).

Given I’ve been having so many interesting conversations with artists, strategists, founders and other curious folks over the last few years, I wanted somewhere to put them.

So — drumroll please — I give you: Altitude Camp.

Interviews with creative types and interesting humans, shared weekly (hopefully).

Like everything Carb Load, they’ll be short and sweet — dare I say energy-gel-esque — designed to consume on the move.

As for the name, well, there’s nothing like a little altitude training to improve performance — and I’m hoping these conversations will have a similar effect, altering your creative physiology for the better, or something like that at least.

So there you go. Welcome to Altitude Camp.

All of the gains, none of the suffering.

Coming soon ✌️