What does creative look like?

A question I have been asking lately is "How'd you know you were creative?" In essence, what does being creative look like? I ask this because when I was young, I never knew that anything I was doing would be considered creative, much less be anything I could base a career off of.

I suspect there are a ton of young people who, just like I did, do all sorts of things in a creative fashion without ever realizing the potential of that creativity. For me, it was an insane interest in visual images from magazines. I'd spend hours and hours cutting out faces and cool type and interesting shots, then an equal amount of hours arranging and re-arranging them onto a wall-size cork board.

Here's what people are saying:

I doodled everywhere, on every paper when I was in grade school.

I've hand made cards ever since I was young.

I was always drawing cartoons and making comics.

People were always coming to me to write something for them, usually something funny.

I loved drama and performing.

I was drawing and painting all the time.

We might be called creative at a young age if we had a paintbrush in hand. Or if we were drawing cartoons. People tend to use the word creative to something tangible and "art-like."

It's when we do the not-so-obvious creative things like doodling or making crafts or ripping up magazines that we may not be called out as creative.

Yet it is and we are.

Pay attention to the subtle signs of creativity from when you were young. My guess is they're steering you toward a career where these skills can flourish.

Total Gush

I am about to do some world-class gushing, be warned.

Maybe I live under a rock and all you folks out there know this man and the work he does, but oh. my. goodness. He rocked my world yesterday. Sir Ken Robinson. He gave a TED conference speech asking if schools kill creativity.



First off, he is an incredible public speaker. I am super jealous of that. His cadence, humor and openness are enviable. Second, he makes outstanding points. Please take the time to watch it. What he is saying is so important to the creative industry we work in.

His main point is all children have creative talent and the education system tends to squash it. He references Picasso who said all children are born artists, the problem is to remain artists as they grow up. Sir Robinson argues that there is a hierarchy in education where the most useful subjects (ones aimed at getting you a job) are up at the top and the less useful subjects (music, art) are at the bottom. As a result, highly talented, creative children think the thing they were in good in at school isn't valued and often quit pursuing it.

He concludes that in order to move into a future where innovation and creativity reign as problem solving forces, we need to radically rethink our definition of intelligence. And the school system that currently defines it.

After being totally in awe listening to his speech, I was even more amazed at his contribution to a huge number of organizations that foster creativity in education. This man has spent his career concerning himself with teaching, mentoring, growing, helping people all in the name of creativity.

When I grow up, I want to be Sir Ken Robinson.

The Avertising Concept Book

I highly recommend The Advertising Concept Book by Pete Barry. I've just started reading it for my next class and I'm loving the content. All juniors should get themselves a copy.

The book says, "The best strategic, creative team is one that possesses a balance of logic and imagination, verbal and visual skills." What I found most insightful about this statement is that these 4 things are skills students can cultivate on their own. I think some juniors in school get intimidated by other students who may have better design (execution) skills. Yet, what Pete Barry is saying is that a creative can expand their ability to think, to ideate, to come up with great concepts by increasing these 4 skills. And any creative student can do this, no matter how good they are in illustrator or photoshop.

More logic? I read this as more intelligence. It goes along one of my previous posts where I said that creatives must be cultural anthropologists. They must be savvy in pop culture, current events, music, books, poetry. Those who are worldly in these areas have a broader knowledge base to pull from when trying to come up with ideas.

More imagination? Start with lessening inhibitions. As we grow up I think we slowly lose the ability to be overly imaginative because we become accustomed to abiding by the rules.

More verbal? Again read, read, read. Expose yourself to fairy tales and fables, biographies and non-fiction, adventure stories and science fiction. Increasing your literary skills and vocabulary will follow and again, give you a broader base of knowledge to pull ideas from.

More visual? Get out and look around. Go to every museum you can find, travel to a foreign country, study ad annuals.

Logic, imagination, verbal and visual. See how none of these is about putting something on paper? It's the ideating you do before you execute that makes for great work.