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David J. Adams

We help founders, leaders, and creators make work that matters more.

I connect
what is
disconnected.

I see patterns. I make connections. I go deep - creatively, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, strategically. I connect what is disconnected.

David J. Adams

David J. Adams

Founder, Great Voyageurs Creative Studio

I'm David J. Adams. Based in Toronto. Founder of Great Voyageurs Creative Studio.

I work with founders, leaders, and creators on what they're carrying, what isn't landing, and what wants to come into the world. The work draws on a methodology I've developed over more than two decades called Inside Out - a way of designing from inside the actual human experience, outward into form.

For over two decades I've been the one who can parachute into the unfamiliar, assess what's needed, see the pivots others don't, understand the vision, politics, personnel, and procedures that sway decisions - connect the right people, and do the unglamorous work that makes success real.

The methodology has worked across organizational strategy, technology, community health, and creative development. It has shaped programs and pivots, organizations and teams, brands and creative works moving toward the world. The domains keep widening. The approach doesn't change.

I also write and produce. A slate of original IP in film and television in active development - an animated feature, multiple series, original scripts. Audio plays broadcast on the CBC and on Deutschland Radio Berlin. Co-author of the bestselling children's books Good Night Vancouver, Good Night Canada, and Good Night Vancouver Island, and creative consultant on Good Night Ontario.

One methodology.
Two tracks.

On one track: organizational and individual transformation - corporate, product and experience design, health systems, government initiatives, creative development, strategy. The work that makes organizations and products matter more to the people they're trying to serve.

On the other: original IP - ideation, scripts, treatments, series bibles, produced content. A slate of projects designed from the inside out, each one a world built to matter.

In both tracks the question is the same: what's wanting to emerge from inside, and what does the design need to be to reveal that truth?

The person who wants their product to resonate and the producer who wants to make something that lasts - they share the same underlying conviction. That depth produces better outcomes. That there's a level underneath the obvious where the real work lives.

Questions worth asking.

Founders and executives who know something in their organization, product, or strategy isn't landing the way it should - and want to find out why. Creators carrying a project they believe in and need help bringing into the world. Leaders navigating a pivot or a crisis who need someone who can move fast and think clearly under pressure.

The work has crossed a lot of domains - community health, government, technology, film, television, publishing. The common thread isn't the industry. It's a genuine desire to make something that matters.

Most approaches start from outside - from frameworks, best practices, and what worked somewhere else. This work starts from inside - from what your product, organization, or creative project is actually trying to do, and what the people it's trying to reach actually need.

That shift in starting point changes the outcome. You get something that fits the actual problem, not the template. The methodology - Inside Out - synthesizes across organizational strategy, clinical design, narrative structure, and creative development in a way that no single discipline does alone.

It depends on what the work requires. Some engagements begin with a single conversation that unlocks the path forward. Some are focused sprints - a team that's stuck, a strategy that needs to shift, a creative project that needs structural work. Some are longer - months of work alongside a project from diagnosis through to completion.

The form follows the need. We figure out what the work actually is before we talk about how it gets done.

It varies with the scope and duration of the work. The conversation about investment happens once we both understand what the engagement actually involves. Start with a conversation - there's no cost to that, and it's where everything useful begins.

Step-by-Step - a program for people with severe depression and anxiety - achieved a 93% completion rate in a population where most mental health programs struggle to reach double digits. Anxiety scores dropped 50%. Depression scores dropped 38%. Sustained at three-month follow-up. Peer-reviewed and published, BMJ Open 2015.

A napkin concept became a 300-partner provincial research ecosystem. A stalled analytics platform became a national pandemic initiative with federal ministers engaged - in five weeks. Two graphic novels published. A pilot in development.

The people who've worked with David speak to what the experience is like. Their words are on this page.

Send an email. Tell me what you're working on and what's in the way. We'll take it from there.

david.adams@greatvoyageurs.com

Some things need to matter.

Let's solve what's in the way.

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